C-Span 7a.m. call-in Catholic Church denying communion to politicians.

So far, most callers are critical of the Catholic church.

being a Catholic myself, I find the Bishop to hypocritcal. We do not hear an outcry from the church when retarded inmates are executed. this is a personel decision on whether to receive communion or not. The church is a hospital for sinners and not for holier than thou people who think they know how we should vote. very disturbing for this type of discussion about an election. judge not and you shall not be judged.

Wish they'd ask if that also applies to all pro-choice repub Catholics.
Bring up Tom Ridge, Guiliani and Pataki and ask if they are being denied communion.
And, if it applies to all politicians, why not ALL pro-choice Catholics (not just those who can "INFLUENCE" public policy).
Hypocrites!

If they denied communion to everyone breaking the laws of the Catholic church, there would be so few people still eligible.

Back in my childhood when I was still a Catholic, I took classes for the First Communion and I remember the difference betweenmortal sin and venial sin being described and the wafers being likened to bread. Those who commit mortal sins are dead to Christ (until they go to confession) and can't take communion because dead people can't eat. Those who commit venial sins are sick and sick people need to eat, so they are encouraged to take communion and go to confession.

And to further confuse a seven year old, as I was then, venial sins are small things, and mortal sins are big things that you know are wrong and do anyway. A few years later, I puzzled out the mortal sin issue, wondering whether it was possible to commit a mortal sin.

To do so, it has to be big, like torturing the prisoners at Abu Ghairal, and it has to be wrong (torture, you bet it is!), and you have to know that it's wrong (Look at how many people are justifying this horror), and you have to do it anyway, knowing that it's wrong.

I can't make the call as to whether the torturers would have committed a mortal sin, because I have no way to know whether they thought they were doing the right thing or not. But how much do you want to bet that cardinals in America would have no problem offering Communion to the torturers, assuming that some of them were Catholic?

Seems to me that Communion is only denied to well-known politicians who are pro-choice. I've never heard of it denied for any other reason or to any other group of people.

In the years I've gone to Catholic schools, Catholic evening classes during the few years I was going to a public school, classes before going through any of the sacraments (the only one that DOESN'T require classes is Extreme Unction) and every time abortion comes up, it trumps everything. Being pro-choice is worse than being a serial killer in the eyes of the church, and I once had a teacher who thought that missing church on either Sunday or a Holy Day of Obligation was also a trump card in the deck of mortal sins. If abortion was the ace, missing church was the King.

but he has draped himself in strong Church positions, cherry picked, exaggerated, and abused in the service of right wing political coercion as they are.

A retired bishop "coincidentally" also from Colorado, speaking from Vatican City seemed to be addressing the insufficiency of naming a narrow range of issues and not putting at least the war and the death penalty atop the list.

I don't know who drew up the list our active bishop Sheridan used but it wasn't him. I have seen the exact list and arguments in fundie political action rags which in the past would suspiciously taint the Catholicity of anyone parroting them. In fact the formulation, the usage and the above all the campaign of repetition and pressure is almost purely political on behalf of Bush and the ultra conservatives. In not in the death penalty and social justice issues then surely in the unjust war and prosecution of the anti-terror campaign there is in fact an unbreechable chasm between the Catholic Church and the WH.

But no such chasm exists between the American bishops and Bush. When the Pope stormed along with the rest of the world, the rest of the Church and Catholics of conscience here, the bishops and their media organs for all intents and purposes were tuned to a different planet. Whistling in the storm, hands over ears, eyes fixed on the ground, mumbling fiery tenets in subdued murmurs, one might think they feared a pogrom or were awaiting help from Bush on what to say. Maybe instead of reading the Pope's speeches and letters they were tuned to the Fox channel. The Catholic press editorial pages were as freeped as any other adversarial organs of protest because of the Pope's stand against war. Perhaps that level of intimidation was too much for the meek and mild American dioceses.

In fact it is conservative blowback and having been suckered for too long in supporting groups because of moral issues or questions of aid to private schools. It is blowback for the Vatican in naming even more conservative, or just plain docile, bishops to remove the threat of liberalizing powerful movements from the rest of the Church. Even now, I don't think they see the threat of American conservatism is an even more deadly menace than whether we have women altar girls or priests.

But rendered unable to rebuke the bishop for stating, even overstating
certain positions and using overbearing discipline in the realm of political choice, I think they nevertheless sent a message to this luminary which- just perhaps- he is not too dim to notice. Though- as with anti-war, anti-death penalty and other liberal Church teachings- I am sure he try very hard to do just that.

I notice in the affairs in the Gospels where Jesus was asked about legalistic problems concerning sex or marriage, he swept aside the petty stuff and did not punish, push off or damn to hell those who did not adhere to his words. He was absolutely livid and downright cussing the manipulative elite rule crunchers who had no heart for the true values and worked assiduously like demons to keep the people from them as well. The bishop in fact is the one treading very very dangerous spiritual ground through a very very fundamental misconception of his Lord and the ministry of service, the warnings about authority.

In any event, in case Americans of any ideology need reminding, the Church is bigger and older than America and not all that impressed by any claims to progressiveness or bully superiority. And the Catholic Church has seen much too much of these sorts of poisons. There were periods when its clergy, perhaps as zealous as Bishop Sheridan had free license to use them themselves. Those masters of the game are thankfully gone. Their legacy though still needs purging.