Baltimore Archbishop: Catholic Voters Can’t Vote for a Candidate Who Stands for an Intrinsic Evil

This has been stated time and time again. Nevertheless, it bears repeating.

“This is a big moment for Catholic voters to step back from their party affiliation,” Baltimore archbishop William E. Lori tells me from the Knights of Columbus annual convention in Anaheim, Calif.

For Catholic voters in November, Lori advises, “The question to ask is this: Are any of the candidates of either party, or independents, standing for something that is intrinsically evil, evil no matter what the circumstances? If that’s the case, a Catholic, regardless of his party affiliation, shouldn’t be voting for such a person.”
. . .
“Is it consistent to profess our beliefs in church on Sunday, and then during the week to promote business practices or medical procedures contrary to those beliefs?” the pope, perhaps prophetically, asked during his 2008 visit to Washington, D.C.

...“If we are going to transform the culture from within, which we are called to do, and defend our basic freedoms,” it will be primarily the role of the laity, Lori tells me.

“The bishops are teachers,” he said, but political leadership “really needs to come from the laity as citizens and mothers and fathers and voters.”

When it comes to election advice for Catholics: “The reality is we are defending something that transcends party. The defense of religious liberty,” he said, “should not be a Democratic or Republican issue.” For a Catholic voter, this should be “fundamental, as people of faith.”...

More here

Is it possible to see some PUBLIC EXCOMMUNICATIONS of those "Catholics" who publicly and obstinately defy the Church and her shepherds?

For example, Archbishop Lori could address the scandal occurring from the words and actions of former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend who is promoting same-sex "marriage" and is urging Catholics to uphold Maryland's same-sex "marriage" law at the polls. She is pushing Catholics to oppose Church teaching.

LCWR Assembly Begins; Vatican representative told attendance 'would not be helpful'

"Assembly 2012" begins today in St Louis


Previously from Catholic Culture:

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle, who has been charged by the Vatican with responsibility for supervising a reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), has been told by the group’s leaders that his presence “would not be helpful” at the LCWR’s annual assembly this week.

As the LCWR prepared for the annual meeting, at which members will discuss the Vatican’s demand for reform, the group’s president, Sister Patricia Farrell, told reporters that the group would continue to question Church teachings. She expressed concern that in the Vatican’s eyes, “that questioning is seen as defiance.”

“I would also say that there are very few doctrines in the Church that are not discussable, that are absolutely infallible,” the LCWR president said. She voiced her conviction that the women religious of the LCWR would “continue raising and responding to questions, according to our own consciences and according to new information and questions that arise in our day.”...

Liberal remnant of Church sees red

The following appeared in the online version of the National Catholic Reporter on July 31.

If last week’s elevation of Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, Calif., to archbishop of San Francisco proves anything, it’s that attacking marriage equality puts a man on the fast-track to promotion in the Roman Catholic Church. A quick survey of the hierarchy’s most recent, high-profile appointments reveals a common denominator.

The trend became apparent in March, when Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., was given his papal orders to take over the reins in the historic Archdiocese of Baltimore. Lori, the longtime chaplain of the Knights of Columbus, no doubt earned his reward as chair of the USCCB’s Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty.

...

Just weeks after Lori’s promotion, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle made national news for exhorting pastors in his diocese to use their parishes to collect signatures in support of a repeal of Washington state’s newly passed marriage equality law. Only 10 days after this headline, Sartain practically became a household name when he was tapped to head the “reform” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Given the backlash the LCWR crackdown created, it might be a dubious honor, but it is nevertheless a powerful and high-profile position.

Before their respective appointments, each of these men publicly declared himself a culture warrior ready to do battle with lesbian and gay couples who seek to formally honor their commitments and protect themselves legally.

There almost seems to be an element of retribution in these promotions. Lori’s anti-LGBT zeal was unleashed on a state in which the Catholic governor, Martin O’Malley, was instrumental in passing Maryland’s marriage equality. Sartain was charged with leading the hostile takeover of women religious who were in trouble for (among only a few other reasons) not pushing the church’s agenda against same-sex marriage.

It is possible to interpret the elevations of Lori and Sartain as payback by the Vatican. But the Cordileone appointment is downright combative. For years, Cordileone has quietly made his mark as the USCCB’s fiercest opponent of same-sex marriage. Last year, his labor earned him the role of chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage. And now he has been tapped to be the chief shepherd of a city known for its prominent LGBT population and its historic role in the LGBT liberation movement.

To read entire story, click here.

Vatican Canon Law Adviser: NY Governor Andrew Cuomo Should Be Denied Communion

(CNSNews.com) – In receiving communion at a Mass offered by the Roman Catholic bishop of Albany, NY, that state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, who supports abortion, gay marriage, and lives with his girlfriend, committed an “objectively sacreligious” act that “produces grave scandal,” according to Dr. Edward Peters, a top expert in Catholic Church law and a consultant to the highest court at the Vatican.

Peters specifically cited Cuomo's cohabiting with Food Network hostess Sandra Lee as "publicly acting in violation of a fundamental moral expectation of the Church," and that "as long as he persists in such conduct, he should refrain from taking holy Communion" and "if he approaches for holy Communion, he should be denied the august sacrament in accord with Canon 915."...

More here

Dr Edward Peters: Cuomo’s concubinage and holy Communion

Dr Peters writes:

Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, and Sandra Lee, a television celebrity, live in what is known technically as public concubinage.

The fact that both Cuomo and Lee are divorced renders the concubinage adulterous on both sides as well.

Read the about the modern canonical implications of concubinage here.

Phoenix hospital that performed abortion no longer Catholic

From LifeSiteNews:

PHOENIX, Arizona, December 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Catholic hospital that performed a direct abortion last year has lost its official endorsement as a Catholic institution by the local bishop.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Az. announced in a news conference Tuesday morning that St. Joseph’s Hospital was no longer Catholic after it refused to comply with the bishop’s terms, which included renouncing the direct killing of an unborn baby of a woman suffering from pulmonary hypertension, at 11 weeks gestation.

Olmsted said that, “Communication with leadership at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Catholic Healthcare West has only eroded my confidence about their commitment to the church’s ethical and religious directives for health care,” according to local news reports...

More here

Dr Edward Peters: Lisa Fullam's dangerous advice should be ignored

Dr Peters writes:

When informed that the Vatican would oppose him, Joseph Stalin shrugged and asked “How many troops does the pope have?” To the dictator, the only views that mattered were those backed-up by men with guns.

Lisa Fullam has offered authorities at Catholic Healthcare West / St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix similarly myopic, even dangerous, advice when she suggested that, because the word “Catholic” is not copyright-able, the enterprise should continue to call itself “Catholic” despite Bp. Thomas Olmsted’s threatened prohibition of such use, and simply “let the canonical chips fall where they may.” Apparently Fullam believes that, since men with badges will never show up to enforce a cease-and-desist order (that will never be issued) by a civil court regarding the word “Catholic”, Catholic hospital officials need not worry about bishops tossing a few “canonical chips” their way.

I strongly suggest that St. Joseph's seek advice from another expert.

Read more here.

Cardinal Burke: Authentic Catholic universities help resist ‘secular dictatorship'

The authentically Catholic university helps students resist “secularist dictatorship” by keeping Jesus Christ at the center of its mission and by exposing the moral bankruptcy of contemporary culture, Cardinal Raymond Burke said Dec. 4...

In a lengthy discussion of the nature of Catholic higher education, he said that a Catholic university faithful to its identity will help students give an account of their faith and help them resist “the secularist dictatorship which would exclude all religious discourse from the professions and from public life in general.”...

Cardinal Burke lamented the fall of many American Catholic colleges and universities that have become “Catholic in name only.”...

On the issues of creating curricula and hiring professors, Cardinal Burke advised “special care,” noting the poor religious formation of many young Catholics.

“Given the religious illiteracy which marks our time and in fidelity to the seriousness with which university studies should be undertaken, there is really no place for engaging in speculative theology and certainly no time to waste on superficial and tendentious theological writings of the time,” the cardinal contended...

Much more here from Catholic News Agency (CNA).

Rather timely considering the plans SLU has for a speaker

SLU Students Invite Controversial "Theologian" to Speak

The question is "Will Bishop Carlson stop it"?

The Post Dispatch states that:

Students at St. Louis University have invited....Todd Salzman, chairman of the theology department at Creighton University in Omaha, to give the keynote speech at its 6th annual Undergraduate Marriage and Dating Conference in April.

The problem is that Salzman has espoused views in his book, "The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology," which are contrary to the teaching of the Church. The book was co-authored by Creighton emeritus theology professor Michael Lawler, and published by Georgetown University Press in 2008.

Of course, it appears that every dissenting "Catholic" praised the book and we only need to imagine why.

The Post continues:

After "The Sexual Person" was published, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' committee on doctrine began examining the Creighton professors' conclusions.

In September [of 2010], the committee of nine bishops issued a 24-page statement on the "Inadequacies in the Theological Methodology and Conclusions" of "The Sexual Person." The authors, it said, "reach erroneous conclusions on a whole range of issues, including the morality of pre-marital sex, contraception and artificial insemination."

There we have it! It really is a no brainer these days.

But let's look a bit closer at what the bishops discovered. From the 'Conclusion' of the 24 page report (PDF found here), we read [all bolding mine]:

Professors Lawler and Salzman present their book as a quaestio disputata, as an examination of a disputed question in the way of the medieval universities(4). The scholarly disputations of the Middle Ages, however, took place in a framework provided by Catholic faith, requiring a recognition of the authority of Sacred Scriptures and authoritative Church teaching and a knowledge and appreciation for the Catholic theological tradition. The authors of The Sexual Person, by contrast, base their arguments on a methodology that marks a radical departure from the Catholic theological tradition.

Consequently, it is not surprising that they reach a whole range of conclusions that are contrary to Catholic teaching. The Committee on Doctrine wishes to make it clear that neither the methodology of The Sexual Person nor the conclusions that depart from authoritative Church teaching constitute authentic expressions of Catholic theology. Moreover, such conclusions, clearly in contradiction to the authentic teaching of the Church, cannot provide a true norm for moral action and in fact are harmful to one's moral and spiritual life...

That such people as this "theologian" be invited to speak at a presumably Catholic institution of learning is a scandal.

The invitation should be withdrawn, saving SLU the embarassment of having Bishop Carlson nix the whole affair.

Post-Dispatch link here

Former BOD Chairman of St Stanislaus Sentenced to 1 Year

Brothers in tow company scandal get same sentence: 1 year, 1 day
From the Post Dispatch:

The brothers and owners of a towing and parking lot company each were sentenced to one year and one day in prison today for tax evasion.

A federal judge ordered William Bialczak to an additional two years of supervised release and a fine of $100,000....

The judge also ordered William Bialczak to make restitution of $370,185 to the Internal Revenue Service, although that money will be taken out of the $500,000 the government seized when it raided the towing company in August 2008.

...William Bialczak will serve his prison term first...

The Post-Dispatch article is here.

For previous posts regarding the excommunicated Bialczak, click here.

A special HT to Eugene B for the updates!

Archbishop Nienstedt Refuses Communion to Dissidents

At today's Noon Mass, a statement was read over the intercom prior to ommunion by the Archdiocese's Communication's Director one Dennis McGrath. This Sunday was Vocation Sunday and the Archdiocese has more students studying for the priesthood than it's had for thirty years, but Archbishop was not present.

The statement was to the effect that only baptised Catholics who are disposed to receive Communion and in agreement with the entirety Church's teaching may receive Communion, and specifically, that Rainbow Sashers may not receive Holy Communion, but they were invited to remove their sashes.

The approach he's taken to this situation matches the description of him given by the Star and Tribune as "cool and collected."...

More here

And another report here

CCHD - Same as it ever was?

USCCB “Review and Renewal of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development” betrays utter lack of reform

I've downloaded and read the CCHD “Review and Renewal of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development as Accepted and Affirmed by the USCCB Administrative Committee,” – promulgated on September 15, 2010 – and can only cry in absolute frustration, that nothing has changed. The new, improved CCHD is still all about funding Alinskyian organizing (organizing based on the organizational theories of the late, great Saul Alinsky)….which is still all about progressive politics…which is still all about killing babies...

Continued here at Orate Fratres

I, personally, would have a difficult time EVER contributing to this cause (agenda) of the USCCB until such time as it is thoroughly cleansed of those responsible for its rot and decay.

Catholic Voters Get Guidance from Rome [Archbishop Burke]

Cardinal-designate Raymond Burke in exclusive new interview, "There is a discrimination which is perfectly good and just"

As Americans approach the eve of election week, U.S. Cardinal-designate Raymond Burke is reminding Catholics in an exclusive 25-minute video interview that they are bound in conscience to vote for political candidates who oppose aborting babies, embryonic stem cell experiments, euthanasia and so-called homosexual "marriage."

"Millions of Catholics have no idea it's a sin to vote for candidates who favor these grave evils, which attack the very foundations of society," said Thomas McKenna, President of Catholic Action for Faith and Family. "This matter-of-fact, pointed interview granted to me by Archbishop Raymond Burke in Rome last week makes it very clear what the responsibility of every American Catholic will be next Tuesday...

More here

See the Archbishop Burke videos here

St. Stanislaus Lawsuit filed in St. Clair County

From the Belleview News Democrat:

St. Stanislaus lawsuit filed in St. Clair County alleges law firm used a 'spy'

A St. Louis-based law firm with an office in Belleville planted a spy and encouraged the former attorney for a rebel parish fighting the Archdiocese of St. Louis over property to violate, "...every relevant ethical duty and breached virtually every rule in the Rules of Professional Conduct," according to a lawsuit filed in St. Clair County.

Lawyers for the archdiocese planted the spy and caused a former lawyer for St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in St. Louis to turn against his ex-clients in the archdiocese' efforts to regain control of a church and its property, according to the lawsuit.

Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale "violated every relevant ethical duty and breached virtually every rule in the Rules of Professional Conduct" when it enlisted Roger Krasnicki, the former attorney for St. Stanislaus Church, stated a complaint in the Oct. 15 lawsuit filed by Thomas Q. Keefe Jr. of Belleville....

Read more here

Archbishop Burke's Epic Speech

The recent speech given by Archbishop Raymond Burke continues to send shockwaves through the Catholic world. More than a few bishops must be feeling very uncomfortable.

Vatican Archbishop Burke: Public Repentance is Required for Pro-Abort Politicians

October 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Speaking at the Human Life International World Prayer Congress Saturday, Archbishop Raymond Burke received sustained applause when he noted that Catholic politicians who support abortion are required to repent publicly.

Speaking to pro-life leaders from 45 nations, the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura (the highest Vatican court) also noted that those who recognize the scandal caused by such public, dissident Catholics assist the Church in repairing a serious breach, but are nevertheless often ridiculed for it...

Archbishop Burke stressed that “both bishops and the faithful” must be obedient to the Magisterium...“If the shepherd is not obedient the flock easily gives way to confusion and error.”

Burke, who is also a member of the Congregation for Bishops added: “A most tragic example of the lack of obedience of faith, also on the part of certain Bishops, was the response of many to the Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae of Pope Paul VI, published on July 25, 1968. The confusion which resulted has led many Catholics into habits of sin in what pertains to the procreation and education of human life.”...

The Vatican prelate [also stated]:

Lying or failing to tell the truth, however, is never a sign of charity. A unity which is not founded on the truth of the moral law is not the unity of the Church. The Church’s unity is founded on speaking the truth with love.

The person who experiences scandal at public actions of Catholics, which are gravely contrary to the moral law, not only does not destroy unity but invites the Church to repair what is clearly a serious breach in Her life.

Were he not to experience scandal at the public support of attacks on human life and the family, his conscience would be uninformed or dulled about the most sacred realities.

More here.

(Read the complete talk here) [PDF}.

[Hat tip to Penny for the link!]

Dr Edward Peters: Dissection of baloney journalism

Dr Peters writes:

Care to see just how many errors one AFP article on “women priests” can contain? Check it out my Dissection of baloney journalism, here.

It’s got me seeing red!

Priest is excommunicated over 'ordination' of woman

[Bishop Thomas Olmsted], the bishop of Phoenix has excommunicated another priest.

The Rev. Vernon Meyer, who had submitted his resignation to the bishop earlier this summer, becomes at least the fifth priest to be ousted from the church under Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted. He was not defrocked, which is a separate penalty...

Pray for the conversion of the heretics who repudiate Christ and His Church.

More here.

Gay Marriage and the End of Christian Civilization

From Fr Thomas J. Euteneuer of HLI:

Back in the 90s when Fr. Paul Marx, founder of HLI, was asked his opinion about the efforts to legalize "same-sex unions" he commented in his usual forthright fashion, "When they do that," he said, "it's the end." He meant "the end" of the Christian civilization whose values used to form the basis of American common life. Fr. Marx, in a prophetic sense, saw rightly that a society cannot survive the perverse manipulation of the very structure of reality that God Himself has revealed to us, one very fundamental element of which is the institution of marriage. When we allow that to be changed-"It's the end."

In 2009, 52% of the voting population in California endorsed Proposition 8 which ratified the constitutional protection of marriage as between a man and a woman. One might argue that even 52% was shockingly low on something so important, but the people won that battle despite the veritable war of the homosexual militants to sink that Proposition. In fact, Christian decency won and the structure of reality stayed intact, at least in this aspect of law in California, until this week when a single judge just nullified 7 million votes and the will of the people and lifted the "ban" on gay marriage. There was rejoicing in Sodom on the Bay, but how sad for our nation and even for our poor, misguided world that will weaken in its opposition to the homosexual lifestyle as a result of this decision.

So why, you ask, is gay marriage wrong? Let me count the ways.

Continued here

A Reminder: Liberalism is a Sin

Another reminder which is necessary to be more fully understood, especially in these time in which we live [from Our Lady's Warriors]:

In 1886 there appeared in Spain a little work under the title El Liberalismo es Pecado, "Liberalism Is a Sin," by Don Felix Sarda y Salvany, a priest of Barcelona and editor of a journal called La Revista Popular. The book excited considerable commotion. It was vigorously assailed by the Liberals. A Spanish Bishop of a Liberal turn instigated an answer to Dr. Sarda's work by way of another Spanish priest. Both books were sent to Rome, praying the Sacred Congregation of the Index to put Dr. Sarda's work under the ban. The following letter, under date of January 10, 1887, from the Sacred Congregation itself, explains the result of its consideration of the two volumes:

TO THE MOST REV. JACOBO CATALA ET ALBOSO, Bishop of Barcelona

Most Excellent Sir:

The Sacred Congregation of the Index has received the denunciation of the little work bearing the title El Liberalismo es Pecado by Don Felix Sarda y Salvany, a priest of your diocese; the denunciation was accompanied at the same time by another little work, entitled El Proceso del Integrismo, that is, "A refutation of the errors contained in the little work El Liberalismo es Pecado." The author of the second work is D. de Pazos, a canon of the diocese of Vich.

Whereupon, the Sacred Congregation has carefully examined both works and decided as follows:

In the first, not only is nothing found contrary to sound doctrine, but its author, D. Felix Sarda, merits great praise for his exposition and defense of the sound doctrine therein set forth with solidity, order and lucidity, and without personal offense to anyone.

The same judgment, however, cannot be passed on the other work, that by D. de Pazos, for in matter it needs corrections. Moreover, his injurious manner of speaking cannot be approved, for he inveighs rather against the person of D. Sarda than against the latter's supposed errors.

Therefore, the Sacred Congregation has commanded D. de Pazos, admonished by his own Bishop, to withdraw his book, as far as he can, from circulation, and in the future, if any discussion of the subject should arise, to abstain from all expressions personally injurious, according to the precept of true Christian charity; and this all the more since Our Holy Father, Leo XIII, whereas he urgently recommends castigation of error, neither desires nor approves expressions personally injurious, especially when directed against those who are eminent for their doctrine and their piety.

In communicating to you this order of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, that you may be able to make it known to the illustrious priest of your diocese, D. Sarda, for his peace of mind, I pray God to grant you all happiness and prosperity, and subscribe myself with great respect,

Your most obedient servant,

FR. JEROME SECHERI, O.P.
Secretary of the Sacred Congregation Of the Index.

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"Liberalism is the dogmatic affirmation of the absolute independence of the individual and of the social reason. Catholicity is the dogma of the absolute subjection of the individual and of the social order to the revealed law of God. One doctrine is the exact antithesis of the other. They are opposites in direct conflict." (Ch. 6).
___________________________________
"Protestantism is now a dead dog; Liberalism a living lion going about seeking whom be may devour. Its dreadful doctrine is permeating society to the core; it has become the modern political creed and threatens us with a second revolution, to turn the world over once again to paganism." (Page 74).

Read all about it here & bookmark it! What was written over a hundred years ago is just as applicable today!