New Jersey governor, …, says he won't receive communion

New Jersey governor, at odds with church over abortion rights, says he won't receive communion

Gov. James E. McGreevey, at odds with the Roman Catholic Church over his support for abortion rights, said Wednesday he will honor the wishes of the Newark archbishop and not receive communion.

Archbishop John J. Myers said in a statement that abortion rights supporters should not seek communion when they attend Mass. Myers stopped short of saying that priests would refuse to serve it to Catholics who disagree with the church's position.

(snip)

At a news conference Wednesday, McGreevey said he respectfully disagrees with the archbishop but will honor his request and not receive communion.

The governor said he is committed to both his Catholic faith and his pro-choice stance on abortion and believes strongly in the separation of church and state.

"I believe it's a false choice in America between one's faith and constitutional obligation," McGreevey said.

more…
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/05/05/national1609EDT0666.DTL

...they have them, ya know...

Most of the leaders of my church are corrupt or stupid.
I won't say what Archdiocese I am in, but let us say that they are drowning in law suits...

The Catholic Church is shameless. Pure scum. They moleste children and condemn abortion. They are HYPOCRITS!!! :mad: Pure Bull!!!!

:argh:

:mad:

They're pro choice too!

Remember the little indiscretions involving Gracie Mansion? He had his girlfriend living there, right in the middle of his divorce--and his wife was still a resident?

bush who sent more people to death row than any other gov. in the US. ironic isn't it??????

I am pro-choice, anti-death penalty, and favor the right to die with dignity law in my state

The only good thing I got out of surviving Catholic school was the nuns telling me to listen to that small voice within, because that is how god speaks to us.

Well, I don't buy that it's a god, but I do listen, and that voice tells me that a bunch of old men who have been denied the use of women their whole lives really don't have much of a clue about how women live (and die), and should be ignored when they start to blather about reproductive and relationship matters.

Call it a god, call it your gut, call it logic, whatever. As long as people listen to it, they'll probably ignore those celibate old men who are talking about things completely outside their experience and knowledge.

says that I need an Annulment to void my first marriage. A Catholic annulment costs from $2000 to whatever the church thinks it's worth it to you. Ted Kennedy paid $50K to the church for his annulment. Jacqueline Kennedy's annulment was not published, it was rumored that she paid in the high thousands for her annulment from JFK's marriage so that she could marry a non Catholic, Onassis.

Annulments are man-made rules...well..so are marriages. It's all for capitalism.

She did need a dispensation to marry somebody outside Rome's control. Those are given every day by parish priests, and require only that one attend classes and sign a bunch of intrusive paperwork.

Since the Pope condemned the Iraq war, then those Catholics who support it cannot receive communion.

Those Catholics who support the death penalty cannot receive communion.

Is the Church monitoring ALL these people? Will the press ask them?

are divorced and re-married. The annulment law is not really enforced because the church would be empty. No one has thousands of dollars to send to the Pope for the annulment. Besides, the Bishop who was just convicted of killing that poor guy in a hit and run in Phoenix, is still serving and taking communion in church. Most of all those priests involved in child molestation are still serving and taking communion. Yet, I must reframe from taking communion if I don't get an annulment from the Pope. McGreevy needs to tell his church to fok off. Mingle in spiritual matters and not in state matters, like Kerry said.

The Catholic Church will have to pack up and leave America if they start enforcing their rules on everyone instead of just Democratic Politicians.

McGreevey could have easily, quietly, ceased going up to the rail.

One gets the feeling he wants to force Kerry's hand on the issue, OR he's doing this as a bellweather for Kerry, to see what kind of reaction it gets.

a test of the reaction. NJ is very pro-choice. So was Borrow and Spend Christie Whitman (window dressing at EPA). Anti-choice Governor and Senate candidates go down in flames. Unfortunately, we have our share of wingnut Reps.

:beer:

...and drives away the rational forces in our society.

It's up to American Catholics do away with the wretched leadership of their church--by organized dissent if possible, but more likely by schism. This institution isn't one that takes kindly to its subjects having their own ideas.

Other people here have pointed out the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church condemning pro-choice politicians while turning a blind eye to those divorced, pro-death penalty and pro-war (all also contrary to catechism).

If this is the new way of the Catholic Church, I say they must lose their tax exempt status because they are clearly involved in politics when they publicly condemn pro-choice politicians and threaten them with not being able to take communion. What is next, they will condemn parishioners who vote for pro-choice candidates?

I feel sorry for sensible Catholics who believe their faith and are devoted to the teachings of Catholicism but do not believe the rest of us should be bound to it.

communion...the church is hurting for followers and they were stupid to take this stand....they are as dumb as the administration. Call their bluff!

To start referring to that religion/church as the Roman catholic church, I guess.
Don't see much universal here.

Besides, any self proclaimed leadership that has so little regard for the distaff half of the human race deserves little respect from the people it's supposed to serve.

proponents and those who support illegal wars, just wondering.

I'm reminded of a really profound thing Al Franken said recently. It was sort of off-the-cuff, but many good statements are. He was talking about how the righties love their country like toddlers, and liberals love their country like adults. He then went on to talk about what you would do if someone in your family or circle of friends was destroying themselves with an addiction, and how if you really loved them as an adult, you would make some attempt to intervene. (I think Franken's "Stuart Smalley" 12-step character is an homage to an individual close to him who is in recovery; I know I heard him talk about it years ago).

I think the same thing is happening with the Roman Catholic Church. We have a tiny group of people in the Church, drunk on power and being enabled on one hand by the hierarchy's own corruption and unaccountability, and on the other by JP II's physical decline and seeming inability to rule. In some ways, it really is analogous to an out-of-control addict in the family.

This addiction to power is amplified by the increasingly triumphalistic, strident rhetoric of the right-wing echo chamber of corporate-funded think tanks, talk radio, and the regime in the White House--and now by extreme reactionary movements within the Church itself. These retrograde institutions include Opus Dei, right-wing publishers like Spence and Regnery (affiliated with Opus Dei), far-right journals like "First Things", and "Catholic" media groups like EWTN and several talk radio networks (mostly funded through the Domino's Pizza fortune of Tom Monaghan).

These people are following a really totalistic agenda, not unlike a junkie chasing the ultimate high. Without significant resistance, they will simply keep pushing for this maximal agenda. For an addict, we all know where this ends up; you either get into sobriety, or you get a pine box. I don't think this is hyperbole; I foresee the destruction of the American church, or at least a schism. But this schism will most likely come in the splitting off of an ultra-conservative wing from American Catholicism, not unlike the schism of the Lefèvre followers in France. Already we have intimations of just such a thing from Opus Dei member Fr. C. John McCloskey, who has gone as far as to suggest, in a document that has been reproduced all over the Internet, that civil war is a desirable outcome.

Here's some links to groups that are trying to prevent the coming trainwreck:

http://www.cta-usa.org/ (Call to Action)
http://www.clnnlc.org/ (Clergy Leadership Network)
http://www.odan.org/index.htm (Opus Dei Awareness Network)

And a good story on the reactionary movements in the Church:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2003/11/02/the_crusaders/

try for a bull of excommunication against him since he's basically saying "I don't need to take that sacrament if it means abdicating my sworn duty to my constituents and the constitution"? And since he can converse freely with God without the eavesdropping of a priest and still gain forgiveness therein, that's 2 things he doesn't need the church for. What's left in the church's arsenal? Bulls of excommunication.

This tactic was used in the 16th century in England--Catholics were ordered to choose between their church and their queen. The Bishop of Rome lost.