Vatican denies it responded to lawyer seeking Kerry's excommunication

Vatican denies it responded to lawyer seeking Kerry's excommunication

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- An official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said a California canon lawyer seeking a formal decree of heresy against Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, Democratic presidential nominee, has misrepresented his contact with the Vatican office.

"The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has had no contact with Mr. (Marc) Balestrieri," said Dominican Father Augustine DiNoia, undersecretary of the congregation.

"His claim that the private letter he received from (Dominican) Father Basil Cole is a Vatican response is completely without merit," Father DiNoia told Catholic News Service Oct. 19, declining to discuss the matter further.

Balestrieri is the head of De Fide, described on its Web site as an organization created "to deal with the burgeoning scandal of Catholic politicians supporting the 'right to choose' murder."

In an Oct. 15 interview on the Eternal Word Television Network and in an Oct. 18 statement posted on his Web site, Balestrieri said he had "received a written response prompted by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith affirming that Catholic politicians who persist in supporting the right to abortion are 'automatically excommunicated.'"

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

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http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0405749.htm

Bush was 15 minutes late for a Papal appointment. NOBODY gets away with that.

WARS. Like maybe the WARS that bush LIED to hustle us into. And there's always that good ol' favorite, capital punishment. I guess bush supporters cherry-pick their "right to life" rationales the way their hero cherry-picked the intel he used to make his case for the invasion of Iraq.

That is, with all due respect to my Roman Catholic friends . . .





. . . . . . .

to the Vatican, of all places!

whopper.

Asses come in all shapes, sizes, races, and religions.

This guy might just fit the 'all of he above' category.

Please do not post entire copyrighted stories. Limit quotations to 4 paragraphs and a link to the original.

Thank you.

Need help attacking a threat with the same vigor as Sinclair.

I understand Catholics make up 1/4 of the vote. I,as a Catholic, am extremely offended and upset with the smear tactics of a site www.catholic.com and their Voters Guide for Catholics. It has distributed millions of copies of a guide that describe:

THE FIVE NON-NEGOTIABLE ISSUES - Abortion,Euthanasia,Embryonic Stem Cell Research,Human Cloning and Homosexual Marriage.

According to them, these are the only issues a Catholic must use to choose a candidate. Social values, war and public execution policies of the candidate can't be considered. I have been a Catholic a long time and never heard of such nonsense. A true Catholic using all Catholic values to judge a a candidate could easily determine that John Kerry , a Catholic, would be the no brain choice over the demon seed Bush. I think Bush is one of the most evil leaders in history if you haven't guessed. This is a right wing effort which I seriously doubt are actual Catholics. The website www.catholic.com has a forum that is filled with Kerry hate and nonsense. Any attempt, short of calling Bush a saint and Kerry the devil is not tolerated. It is met with vicious and nasty attacks no Catholic I ever met would do. I expressed my opinions and posted every rebuttal I could and was cheered by many in private messages but was suspended anyway after about 4 days. It is time a army of real Catholics and all others seeking justice in this world from the lies and deceit of the right wing even the score and promote the truth about John Kerry. Please join this forum and attack in PoliticsII. These people go as far as saying a vote for Kerry is a mortal sin. Polls have shown Kerry has a 4% lead among Catholic voters. I think there is a lot of room for improvement here and could be a deciding factor. Any other ideas to neutralize this organized Republican effort would be greatly appreciated.

Surely the RCC, or any subdivision thereof, rates a .org.

For example, my aunt is a nun of the Order of St. Ursula. The website for her convent is http://www.ursulineslou.org. I would recommend surfing there for awhile; they advocate social justice and all the other things you normally associate with the RCC. They're really quite progressive, in strong contrast to the people who run catholic.com, which likely has no official affiliation with any agency of the RCC except that they go to Mass every week.

I taught at Beaumont in Cleveland Heights for two years, and it really was the best place I ever taught. The Ursulines are one of the best parts of the Catholic Church, I think, having seen their compassion in action.

"A Catholic moral framework does not easily fit into the ideologies of "right" or "left", nor the platforms of any party.... Our responsibility is to measure all candidates, policies, parties, and platforms by how they protect or undermine the life, dignity, and rights of the human person, whether they protect the poor and vulnerable and advance the common good."

"Faithful Citizenship" as issued by the United States Catholic Bishops 2004
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It is a common misconception of politicians seeking office that the Catholic vote can be courted by addressing a narrow range of issues. In reality, the great majority of Catholics in the U.S., in agreement with the U.S. catholic Bishops, will vote for the candidates based "on the full range of issues, as well as on < the candidate's> personal integrity, philosophy, and performance"

Faithful Citizenship, U.S. Catholic Bishops, 2004
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Members of the media- and indeed a few of our own religious leaders- do a great disservice to our church and nation when they attempt to use one or another issue as a benchmark for Catholic identity.

"The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church's social doctrine does not exhaust one's responsibility toward the common good"
(Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, November 24, 2002, and approved by the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II)
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The Catholic Church teaches that all life is sacred. A candidate for office must understand that the Church stands against any policy or course of action that diminishes life, dignity or the rights of the human person: abortion, capital punishment, war, scandalous poverty, denial of health care, mistreatment of immigrants and racism, to name but a few.

There are 60 million Catholics in the U.S. We take the responsibility of voting seriously. Each of us will evaluate candidates based on what our conscience- formed by reading the signs of the times in light of the example of Jesus in the Scriptures and the teachings of our Church throughout the ages- demands. We will examine the broad range of issues, measuring "all candidates, policies, parties, and platforms by how they protect or undermine the life, dignity, and rights of the human person, whether they protect the poor and vulnerable and advance the common good."

"Faithful Citizenship" U.S. Catholic Bishops 2004.
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But then again, I'm stuck in my cubicle.... is it even on any of the networks??

You just gotta know he's going to hell for that one...

eom

Doesn't this represent an embarassing about face for the New York Times?

compare to Rathergate, how did the NYT let this happen?

have automatically been excommunicated.

"You can incur excommunication 'latae sententiae' (automatically) only if you procure or perform an abortion," one said.


Sounds like he should sign up for confession, right away!
For your penance my son, you must say the rosary, three our fathers and vote for John Kerry!

By his own lights, he has damned his soul to eternal fire....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

"I thought I was advising a student who was working on a project. I referred him to a reliable theologian on the matter. I was acting in my capacity as a theologian trying to be helpful to a young person," he told Reuters.

"I had no idea his aim was actually to build a heresy case against John Kerry or against anyone else. I feel that we have been instrumentalized," Di Noia told Reuters.

I guess "instrumentalized" is a theologian's way of saying "screwed, blued and tattooed without even a kiss!"

And what kills me is he had no problem giving abstract, yet ultimately false information to someone. Sounds like this guy has a problem with shooting his mouth off without thinking. Tsk, tsk--he should be flogged while being rigorously quizzed on Canon Law by a bunch of pissed off Jesuits!