Bishop Martino takes stand on faith at forum

Local and national Catholics reacted Tuesday to statements by Diocese of Scranton Bishop Joseph F. Martino apparently discounting teachings of the national body of bishops during a political forum at a Honesdale Roman Catholic Church this weekend.

“No USCCB document [Faithful Citizenship] is relevant in this diocese,” he was quoted as saying in the Wayne County Independent, a Honesdale-based newspaper. “The USCCB doesn’t speak for me.”

[...he ] described it as a consensus document “written to mean all things to all people.”

“The only relevant document ... is my letter,” he said at the forum, according to the Independent. “There is one teacher in this diocese, and these points are not debatable.”

[A diocesan] spokesman ... released a statement that noted the bishop attended the event because he “was concerned because of the confusion and public misrepresentations about Catholic teaching on the life issues.

“Certain groups and individuals have used their own erroneous interpretations of Church documents, particularly the U.S. Bishops’ statement on Faithful Citizenship, to justify their political positions and to contradict the Church’s actual teaching on the centrality of abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research,” the statement said.

Great News! Confronting errors and those who promote error and heresy face-to-face! How many other bishops would do this?

And what do those who rebel against the Church and embrace heresy have to say?

Professor Douglas Kmiec, a Catholic constitutional legal scholar who advises Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama, said Tuesday he respects Martino’s passionate speech about life and doubts the bishop intended to separate himself from the larger church.

The "larger" Church? Kmiec is lost - he has surrendered his soul to the racist, communist Muslim who works for the evil one...