The one, holy, catholic, and apostolic stateAl Smith lost in a landslide. The 1928 Democratic presidential nominee may have been governor of New York, but he was also a Catholic. Smith garnered only 41% of the popular vote and a minuscule 16.5% of the electoral vote (most of that, ironically, from the deeply Protestant states of the Deep South, still solid for the Democrats in those days). To many people, the choice of a Roman Catholic presidential candidate made the Democratic Party the party of “rum, Romanism, and rebellion” all over again. Governor Smith's more paranoid opponents charged that he would, if elected, open a tunnel from the basement of the White House all the way to the Vatican, so that the pope could more conveniently run the affairs of the United States.
The lesson was not lost on John F. Kennedy. An ambitious young politician as well as a Roman Catholic, Senator Kennedy knew that many Protestants still regarded his church as the antithesis of church/state separation. During the many centuries when the only form of Christianity in western Europe was Roman Catholicism, popes were not shy about exercising temporal as well as religious authority. The Church fancied itself as the God-ordained superior to all civil governments and in many cases could make that stick by threatening excommunication or interdicts denying the sacraments to the subjects of rebellious princes.
That all changed when Christianity splintered into innumerable rival sects after Luther's rebellion against the authority of Rome, but Catholicism survived as the largest single sect and the single most influential religion in many nations. Its displeasure could result in the defeat of politicians and the frustration of social legislation. In the predominantly Protestant United States, Catholic politicians had to tread lightly, as Senator Kennedy proceeded to do, briskly but cautiously, in his encounter with the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Kennedy explained that he and the Protestant ministers shared many of the same concerns and sought the same goals for the nation:
Kennedy's speech occurred in September 1960 and was designed to defuse the religion question in the election that was less than two months away. It was certainly one of the keys to his narrow victory over Richard Nixon. (In such a close race, all factors can be regarded as crucial. Today most people remember the televised debates, since a candidate's personal religion has faded as an issue of contention.)But because I am a Catholic and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured—perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again—not what kind of church I believe in for that should be important only to me, but what kind of America I believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote—where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference—and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
A change of context
Kennedy's presidency seemed to make moot the issue of Roman Catholicism. Senator Muskie's religion was not cited as a problem in his 1972 campaign. Kennedy's brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, ran for president in 1976, but it was a weak campaign rather than his Catholicism that caused Shriver to fall short.
But the issue has been coming back to life. In the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI condemned all forms of chemical or prophylactic contraception (only “natural” avoidance of pregnancy by means of periods of abstinence was allowed). In the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the nation's abortion laws. As contraception and abortion became the focus of great political controversy, the Catholic Church found itself disappointed in its adherents. Many Catholics styled themselves “pro-choice” rather than “pro-life,” and the hierarchy insisted that such Catholics were embracing false doctrine. The authority of the Church is increasingly exerted toward influencing the political behavior of Catholics in the U.S., although that path is fraught with danger. It awakens Protestant and secular fears.
The Roman Catholic Church is on a mission in the United States to outlaw abortion (and, if it had its way, contraception, too). Still, it moves slowly, partly out of caution and partly because it is a big and somewhat clumsy institution. The pope husbands his resources and it is often the lesser prelates who first take the initiative. We've seen this recently with the lectures of Cardinal Schönborn, who wants the Church to step back from John Paul II's pronouncement that evolution is “more than a theory.” (Schönborn is a friend of intelligent design creationism.)
Although he never ran for president, New York governor Mario Cuomo was for several years regarded as one of the strongest possible candidates for the Democratic nomination. Like his predecessor Al Smith, Cuomo espoused the Catholic faith. With the attention being paid to Church teachings on life issues in general, and abortion in particular, Cuomo took the opportunity at a Notre Dame University forum in 1984 to address the role and responsibilities of the Catholic politician:
Although Cuomo's talk was widely criticized by conservative Catholics for defending the independence from Church dogma of his political judgment, many Catholics felt he had the weight of reason on his side. It was, after all, a clear echo of the position that John F. Kennedy had taken. But Governor Cuomo's absence from the presidential primaries and general election tempered the controversy; it simmered and did not come to a boil. The next round would play out on a regional stage rather than in a national arena.[T]he Catholic who holds political office in a pluralistic democracy, a Catholic who is elected to serve Jews and Muslims and atheists and Protestants, as well as Catholics, bears special responsibility. He or she undertakes to help create conditions under which all can live with a maximum of dignity and with a reasonable degree of freedom; where everyone who chooses may hold beliefs different from specifically Catholic ones, sometimes even contradictory to them; where the laws protect people's right to divorce, their right to use birth control devices, and even to choose abortion....
We cannot justify our aspiration to goodness as Catholics simply on the basis of the vigor of our demand for an elusive and questionable civil law declaring what we already know, that abortion is wrong. Approval or rejection of legal restrictions on abortion should not be the exclusive litmus test of Catholic loyalty. We should understand that whether abortion is outlawed or not, our work has barely begun: the work of creating a society where the right to life doesn't end at the moment of birth, where an infant isn't helped into a world that doesn't care if it's fed properly and housed decently and educated adequately, where the blind or retarded child isn't condemned to exist rather than empowered to live.
A test case?
In the pro-life cause, one of the first overtly political actions was taken in 1989 in San Diego, where Bishop Leo Maher announced that he would refuse to give communion to Lucy Killea, a pro-choice Democratic assembly member who was running in a special election for state senate. Killea was a Catholic and Bishop Maher announced that her position on abortion rights was “in complete contradiction to the moral teaching of the Catholic Church.” The bishop's action was counterproductive. Killea won a clear victory in a race that had been expected to be very close. Some commentators suggested that the bishop's intervention had secured the election for Killea, who went on to serve a couple of terms in the California state senate.Perhaps the Killea episode taught the Church that it had overreached, but in 2004 ecclesial authority was exercised as never before in opposing the candidacy of a Roman Catholic for president. Cardinal Ratzinger—better known today as Pope Benedict XVI—issued a private letter to Catholic bishops in the United States on denying the eucharist to politicians who did not adhere sufficiently closely to the Vatican line. Titled Worthiness to receive Holy Communion—General principles, the document clearly prompts American clerics to refuse the sacrament to candidates like Senator John Kerry:
Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist....There was no mistaking its intent. This time the intervention worked. Although Vice President Al Gore (a Baptist) had carried the Catholic vote in 2000, American Catholics in 2004 turned their backs on their co-religionist and voted instead for Bush. The Vatican chalked up a win.
A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia.
Pelosi in the hot seat
The stakes are continuing to rise. As Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi is now the highest ranking Catholic in the federal government. She is also resolutely pro-choice, supports same-sex unions, and otherwise departs from strict adherence to the Church's political platform on social issues. The nuanced approaches of John Kennedy and Mario Cuomo are all but forgotten. Pelosi will have no honeymoon with the Vatican or its American representatives. They are stalking her. Indeed, they have already broken cover:
Pelosi's CatholicismPelosi's defenders were quick to swing into action, including some of her co-religionists. Here's one from the January 10, 2007, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle:
Editor—Regarding “Pelosi's new image as Italian Catholic mom—more than a ‘San Francisco liberal’” (Matier & Ross, Jan. 7): What a joke! If Nancy wants to reclaim her Catholicity, she had best start by reviewing Catholic teaching. She said that she considered herself a conservative Catholic, but nothing is further from the truth.
She supports too many positions the church is against, beginning with pro-life issues: embryonic stem-cell research, gay adoptions, partial-birth abortion, funding contraception and U.N. family planning, same-sex marriage. She favors allowing minors to have an abortion without their parents' knowledge. She is against making it a crime to harm a fetus while committing other crimes. She is against allowing funding for health providers who do not provide abortion—which would close Catholic hospitals.
She is not a Catholic in good standing with her church.
Rev. John Malloy
SS Peter & Paul Church
San Francisco
Casting stones at Pelosi's CatholicismThrust and riposte. The duel has been going on a long time and the end is obviously not in sight. Will San Francisco's bishop decide he has to make an example of Speaker Pelosi by formally reading her out of the Church? If he does, what will occur? Will Pelosi's political career be crippled or will she be strengthened?
Editor—I find Rev. John Malloy's attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's faith (Letters, “Pelosi's Catholicism,” Jan. 9), describing her as “not a Catholic in good standing in her church” because she refuses to legislate Catholic doctrine into U.S. law, untoward and a little bit frightening.
While a religion can preach anything it likes, and its adherents are free to follow it to the last tenet, politicians who foist that faith on the rest of us have no business being in the government—and it's hoped the November election proved that.
It boggles the mind that the good reverend doesn't seem to understand that people may follow a faith, believe in its values for themselves, but understand that our pluralistic government should never legislate that faith or any other into our body of law.
That's the kind of person of faith I admire. Someone such as Pelosi, a Catholic grandmother, literally. I'm appalled that our local church is so blatantly political, and suggest that it has more in common with the fundamentalist fanatics that are destabilizing the world than the tolerance, understanding and forbearance for which San Francisco is famous.
It also shows a shocking disregard for our inviolate separation of church and state. Kudos to the speaker for a pitch-perfect swearing-in. She does our great city proud!
Eric Diamond, San Francisco
Killea or Kerry? Which example tells us the future?
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18 comments:
If she is excommunicated, I certainly hope it spells the end of the RCC in the US. My mother long predicted a schism between American Catholics and Rome before the middle of this century, and that might do it. Though it might equally fuel the right wing of the RCC... could get ugly.
Zeno,
Thanks for the interesting read and for mentioning Mr. Diamond's editorial. He seems to have an opinon worth listening to.
Many people have grown old and died while waiting for the Catholic Church to go away. Don't hold your breath. I do, however, agree with Ridger's mother: a schism in the ranks of American Catholics is just waiting to happen. But that's another post, just waiting to be written.
The RCC wouldn't and doesn't try this sort of arm twisting in the civilized world (Europe). This is why the arm twisting is largely left to local prelates.
The Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the legal foundation of the separation of chuch and state, and the cornerstone of the sovereign (and secular) nation state, has made this sort of church interference illegal for the past 350 years. In the civilized world that is.
England not being a participant or signatory to the Treaty of Westphalia, does not have this legal foundation, and by extension, neither does the US. Which is why the US still has these problems. It's settled law in the civilized world, and has been for over 350 years. Even the Italians and Spaniards wouldn't put up with this sort of nonsense.
btw - when fundamentalists accuse Supreme Court justices of practising "foreign law", it is the Treaty of Westphalia that they are refering to. They fear it!
Now there is something I would like to see - lets have the Church excommunicate Nancy Pelosi. On what grounds exactly? The view of the Catholic Church is one that in public, many people say they are part of, but privately do the opposite, i.e. use condoms, don't mind about gay rights, and so on.
I'd love to see the Church try it, just to watch this blow up on their faces.
Truly Equal - have you seen the Vatican try to excommunicate Italian, Spanish, or any other European politicians for their secular political leanings?
My ex-brother-in-law is an ex-priest (lots of ex's, I know) who left the priesthood to marry my (ex-)wife's sister. He still holds a position of importance in a fairly large diocese.
One of the reasons he was so willing to give up the priesthood is because he knows that the church is dying. It has held on to far too many outmoded patterns that not only do not keep up with the times, but actively hinder the message of the Church in the community.
It's a gigantic, glacial beauracracy where terrific plans to help with the work of the Church in the community are routinely either ignored or actively destroyed, because the priest who wants to do it did someting to insult another priest at seminary thirty years ago.
In the business community, IBM is fighting for its life, partially because its management structure had become calcified. It has only been around since 1911. Imagine a company in business for a millenium, and you'll begin to see why the church is doomed to fail.
yeharr
Excommunication can only be incurred as an automatic penalty for a limited set of actions or after a formal sentence by a church authority with jurisdiction. So any possible action regarding Pelosi would depend on Archbishop Niederauer or the bishop of whatever DC-area diocese Pelosi attends. None of the American bishops involved in the Kerry case had jurisdiction, and Ratzinger's statement was a doctrinal opinion rather than a formal sentence. The bishops who did have jurisdiction either kept quiet (Boston) or tried to moderate the impact of the hardliners (DC). Since Archbishop Niederauer appears to be a moderate, I would expect him to follow the latter example in Pelosi's case.
Second, Malloy probably sent his letter on his own initiative, unless he is a archdiocesan spokesman or holds some similar position. As such, it does not really qualify as stalking, any more than any other letter to the editor. As for her reception in the Vatican, it really depends on which prelates you ask. There is much more diversity of opinion among Vatican officials than is generally portrayed in the American press.
All of this is fantastic nonsense.
If the "Church" pushes too hard here, or Opus Dei tries some slimy "Swiftboating" against the speaker on religious grounds, Pelosi needs only attend a Protestant church if churchgoing is really something she does.
She doesn't need to sit there and be bossed around by some pushy collection of scolds in cassocks when I notice Bishops, Cardinals and even Benny himself hasn't said a word about Speaker Pelosi, not even congratulations even....I think.
The attack implies that the Speaker takes orders directly from Rome. She doesn't. And, she shouldn't. The attack does the church no good either as the writer can skip scot free but the church looks like a ham handed collection of backward goofs.
Church is church, but government, well that's power, and the Speaker's position is very powerful.
Cardinal Ratzinger met with George Bush in person (in Italy) ONE WEEK before the Cardinal following up on his Hitler Youth experiences attempted to interfere in a U.S. election by declaring that Kerry could not receive Holy Communion.
A few months later, and he was Pope. One dirty hand washes another.
George Bush, by meeting with Ratzinger with the obvious result a week later, committed a(nother) federal crime.
Americans, in both hemispheres, have been fighting the Catholic Church involvement in crooked rightwing political parties for two centuries.
Jesus upsidedown on a Crucifix for the Cardinal's pleasure. Hey! Pass the syphillis -- this is God's Church.
WHAT ABOUT THE NOVEMBER 2006 ELECTION? CATHOLICES VOTED FOR THE DEMS IN BIG NUMBERS.
I BELIEVE THAT THERE WILL BE 2 CATHOLIC CHURCHES IN AMERICA SOMEDAY. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WHICH WILL SURELY FOLLOW THE "SERMON ON THE MOUNT".
First let me begin by saying I am pro-life. Second I will say that many Catholic leaders who are pretending to be pro-life are no such thing. They are hypocrites. This is why. Both Pope John Paul II as well as Pope Benedict XVI stated as a matter of the Catholic Faith that the Iraq War is an “unjust war” and therefor mass murder. Also Church teachings have been for many years that Capital Punishment is imoral and likewise murder. That’s not surprising since Christianity is founded on the teachings of someone who suffered the Death Penalty at the hands of authorities. Despite this Catholic leaders in the US have not threatened politicians who support either the Iraq War or the Capital Punishment despite their being murder in the eyes of the Church. Both Rev. Malloy and others like Bishop Sheridan in Colorado who told his diocese that he would refuse to give communion to any Catholic who voted for a candidate who didn’t actively oppose abortion in the performance of their duties as elected officials (guess he has ESP and can tell who voted for whom – couldn’t be that he was trying to scare Catholics into voting Republican – naw) are using their positions in the Church to further their own political ideological aspirations. If that were not the case they would have threatened Catholic politicians who support the Death Penalty and the Iraq War. Because these men are cherry-picking from Catholic teachings in their threats against politicians and voters it is clear that their aims are political and not ecclesiastical. These men have abused their positions in the Church in an effort to strong-arm their political favorites into power. It worked in 2004. My only solace in this is that Our Heavenly Father will deal forcefully and eternally with any Church leaders who have abused their positions in the Church for political ideological purposes. Hope they don’t mind warm weather.
Does this mean we can blame the Catholic Church for the horrors inflicted on the people of Iraq? I thought the Church was against that war.
Joe above stole my thunder! Is the Catholic church going to bar servicemen/women who fought in the Iraq war from communion for their "formal cooperation in evil"? (Not likely.) Are the US Bishops EVER going to speak out agains the Iraq war declared "immoral" by PJPII? Are the Bishops EVER going to investigate and throw out the priests and bishops who worked so diligently to cover up the abuse scandal and deny any spiritual care to victims?
The right-wing of the UC Catholic church loves to excoriate "cafeteria" catholics, yet can't quite get around to removing the beam from their own eye while obsessing about specs in others...
Hi! I thought you and your readers might be interested in some post-Easter news about Pope Benedict XVI...
The Pope's car is being auctioned off to raise money for Habitat for Humanity:
www.buyacarvideos.com/popecar.htm
The bidding is already more than $200,000! Personally, I think this is a really fun and creative way to raise
money. The auction goes until April 14th if you and your readers want to check it out.
The decision the excommunicate is obviously up to the Church. However, she is responsible for her action, beliefs, and votes. Since she has publicly supported abortion...she should publicly apologize. She has taken herself out of the private realm with her views that also may have led others to commit sin. If you read the Catechism of the Catholic church it will address the other issue raise in this chain. You cannot compare moral relativism to true moral beliefs.
Sure she doesn't take orders from Rome, but she also doesn't speak for the Catholic church.
Do some research with an open mind. God Bless.
PC
I am a Catholic, and if the US Church breaks from Rome, there is always the Orthodox Church for those of us who believe that Big Tits should be excommunicated.
What Pelosi wants is to force Catholics to accept her vision on abortion, gay marriage, and to punish religious people who disagree with her. Pelosi can join an alternative church that preaches that fetuses are not human, that preaches that infanticide is is acceptable. But, for Catholics like myself, if the US Church breaks away from Rome, there is always Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Thank you, Anonymous, for a perfect illustration of how to be a bad Catholic who has difficulty emulating Jesus (unless you have little-known historical information that "Big Tits" was Jesus's special pet name for Mary Magdalene and can therefore be used without necessarily being construed as a tasteless insult). In addition, you follow your suggestion that Pelosi join another church while simultaneously threatening to do so yourself. So much for faithfulness to the "one true church." Lucky Rome, to have so faithful an acolyte (for at least the time being).
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