LITTLE NOTES
2004 Little Notes
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Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LITTLE NOTES
December 2004
"SHOULD MEMBERS OF THE BISHOPS CONFERENCE be allowed to receive Communion?" asked International Catholic University founder Ralph McInerny in a column titled "A Flock of Shepherds" written for Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly out of Notre Dame, Indiana. "Giving aid and comfort to their fellow Democrats is so ingrained a habit that it has fuzzed episcopal minds as to whether a soi-disant Catholic politician who champions abortion is rejecting church doctrine and thereby qualifies as a public sinner, but that would be as facetious as my opening sentence, even if one can invoke the authority of Mark Twain for the identification."Thomas Aquinas, in a quodlibetal question, asked if being a bishop outranks being a theologian. The question may seem quaint in a time when bishops have established a long track record of silence on dissenting theologians. It has become hard to tell the one from the other. Perhaps the episcopal conference fears being charged with inconsistency. After all, to act manfully in the case of dissenting politicians would be in stark contrast to their hands-off policy on theologians who deny the creed.
"Father [Richard] McBrien [Notre Dame theology professor] has advised Catholics to attend to the silence of the bishops on the matter of giving communion to Catholic politicians who are in the vanguard of the Culture of Death. But we have been hearing the silence of the bishops on important matters for decades now, so much so that when a few of them actually act like successors of the Apostles they cause one to check his hearing aid. One had come to think that they were all Trappists of the old observance.
"The shambles of the post-conciliar Church is all around us. Most Catholics are unaware of what the Church — by which I mean the Holy Father, Vatican II, the Catechism — teaches or, if aware, have been led to think that their acceptance of it is optional. Now they have Episcopal sanction for this heterodoxy. Who was the saint who wondered if bishops can go to heaven?"
WHY WAS THE CHRISTIAN COALITION'S Family Values information voter guide not available in parishes for the November 2004 election? The answer lies with the diocesan office for civil affairs. Its director, Alexandra Kelly, sent a memo dated October 15 to all pastors which stated the following: "In past years a local group has developed, with input from diocesan staff, a voter guide for distribution in Catholic parishes. Because of the stringent limits on church involvement in political activity, this separate guide was developed specifically for our use. Unfortunately this year, due to a variety of factors beyond our control, it will not be possible to make such a distribution. These factors include the fact that very few Democrat or third party candidates returned the questionnaires that were distributed. This created the effect of an unbalanced voter guide that would not be appropriate for distribution."
As it did for the 2002 elections, for the 2004 elections the San Diego County Christian Coalition worked with the diocesan Office for Social Ministry to produce a voter guide for local Catholics that accommodated that office's concerns. According to Don Smith, the Christian Coalition's coordinator for San Diego County, the Catholic version of the Family Values voter guide places more emphasis on social issues such as education and protection of human life than issues such as taxes and Second Amendment rights. The 2002 guides and the 2004 primary election guide were printed and distributed in some Catholic parishes. The November 2004 guide was completed, Smith explained, "but because of legal concerns, the legal staff at the diocese did not feel that they wanted to go ahead [with printing and distribution of the guide]."
Smith said that the diocesan Social Ministry office "did give a lot of time and even had a special meeting ... to talk about concerns ... and worked very diligently" to attempt to resolve concerns about possible legal problems. "Both the Christian Coalition and the [diocese] hope that in the future these issues can be worked through," Smith stated.
Kent Peters, diocesan social ministry director, sent out a memo dated October 14 to parish culture of life coordinators and pastors without a coordinator, explaining that the Family Values voter guide "was not given approval for distribution in our diocese." As resources "in lieu of a voter guide that has information on individual candidates," he suggested Catholics Answers' Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics, Our Sunday Visitor's "Guidelines for Catholic Voters," and he enclosed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop's The Challenge of Faithful Citizenship.
REMEMBER WHEN CATHOLICS looked fondly across the sea to Ireland, where there was neither divorce nor abortion, and television stations broadcast the Angelus every day at noon? Those days are over. Though the country remains 88% Catholic, divorce has been legalized, abortion may soon be as well, and the gay marriage rumblings have begun. Though he conceded, "It's a long way off," Catholic Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, speaking on Irish state television about a recent lawsuit filed by a lesbian couple seeking the same tax status as married couples, said, "They say, 'We want more equality and we want to be treated fairer.' I agree with that. I totally agree with that.'"
Ahern went to say, "These people who are in relationships which are not illegal, they're not immoral, they're not improper -- we should try to deal with some of the issues they have to surmount in their daily lives. And I think that's the fairest, caring and Christian way to deal with this."
THE RU-486 ABORTION PILL KILLED HOLLY PATTERSON, an 18-year-old northern California girl, September 17, 2003, after she was given the abortion pill at a Planned Parenthood clinic near San Francisco. She is believed to be the third victim of the RU-486 since the Food and Drug Administration, under enormous pressure from Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion forces, approved the drug in 2000.
After Patterson was given the abortion pill, she began to experience bleeding and abdominal pain. She suffered for seven days before succumbing to massive septic shock due to uterine inflammation.
More than 14 months later, the FDA still hasn't pulled the drug, instead issuing a statement that warning labels would be put on bottles of mifepristone, commonly known as RU-486. Canada suspended trials of the abortion pill after a woman there died of septic shock after taking it. Said Cathy Cleaver Ruse, spokeswoman for the pro-life secretariat of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "RU-486 doesn't need a better label, it needs to be shelved. Young women depend upon the safety of FDA-approved drugs. How many have to die before this killer drug is taken off the market?"