Catholic House Democrats prepare to send bishops 'statement of principles' on Communion vote

Fantine said:

This thread has deteriorated and gone off topic.

The bishops should not deny Communion to President Biden. The Vatican and half of our country's cardinals will or have agreed.

I agree.

He is the most faith-filled and moral president since Jimmy Carter, who still inspires and uplifts us with his goodness at age 97.

To those of you who see him--and all of life--through a very narrow lens neither of them is good.

I am scandalized by the bishops, not President Biden. We have endured 4 years of extreme corruption, cruelty, oligarchy, and continuing attempts to establish a dictatorship and subvert our democracy, and they--and you--remained silent.

Pope Francis had an audience with President Trump and his family. Melania Trump brought him her rosary and said she was a Catholic. He welcomed her as a prodigal daughter. He was generous. If she had gone up for Communion, he probably would have given her that moment of grace. He was cordial, although obviously not effusively so, with President Trump.

I always found it interesting that the day Pope Francis visited Speaker Boehner, a Catholic, decided to retire. Obviously he had a transforming moment.

On Fr. Jim Martin's FB page, it is surprising how many commented that the bishops had finally caused them to leave the Church. They are creating the scandal. They will not change a single person into putting making the world a better place on hold to fight abortion full time.

Those wonderful people will work in another vineyard.

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Here is the conflicting narrative. You want the USCCB to do what to Trump? Condemn him? A non-Catholic? I thought progressive Catholics stood on the principle of keeping the Church and state separated and one has to wonder what a Catholic organization has to gain in condemning him. Perhaps it would gain credibility in your eyes, but in the eyes of Conservative Catholics it would lose credibility. It's the conservatives theologically and politically that I'm willing to bet make up the majority of mass goers on Sundays as well. Should the Catholic Church condemn Obama as well? Clinton for his infidelity? How far should it go?

Yet the issue isn't Trump, no matter how many times you try to make it about Trump. It's about abortion, it's about Catholics (like yourself) who support abortion and refuse to condemn it. I asked you multiple times in this thread whether abortion is immoral and you couldn't answer me directly but only someone else who asked it of you. Like the Democrat leaders you so admire you adopt their tactics and remain silent when the hard questions come. That's the game politicians, left and right, play.

When you said that there was a slippery slope that if conservatives gained a pro-life victory they would go after IVF I agreed with the premise. Political power is always a push and pull situation. If you aren't pressing the advantage you have, you loose the momentum and the final goal will never be achieved. Yet you have not addressed what the final goal of the Democrats is with regards to abortion. Earlier you tried to make it seem as if this was the best Catholic Democrats could do, that if Biden is refused communion he will go even further to the left. Well I guess we best feed the dragon ten virgins, at least he's not demanding a hundred!

Yet you ignore the inevitable result of Democratic victory on this issue of abortion. What is the ultimate goal of the Democratic party you support? It is to completely liberalize abortion. It is to make abortion entirely a personal choice of the woman with no safeguards, no limits and no controls. I don't believe it will stop with abortion mind you and this sort of callous disrespect towards human life will give way to more movements of death in the future. Biden on top of that wants you, Fantine, to pay for it. Why support this? Why is this justified on a Catholic understanding of things? On a Christian understanding of things?

If you are so sickened by the Republicans, why aren't you equally as sickened by the Democrats? You've said Biden has this 'tragic flaw' and you refuse any notion of the Catholic Bishops doing anything to him. Not on theological grounds, not on the grounds that it might be good for Biden's soul that he be rebuked, but on purely political motivations.

Fantine said:

Stats show that Democratic administrations have been more successful in reducing abortions than Republican ones.

Next time you see a Democratic friend thank them.

Who says punitive laws are the only or best way to address problems?

Punitive laws exist to make the self-righteous feel good. The U.S. has 5% of the world population and 20% of its incarcerated.

We need restorative justice instead of punitive justice.

Rehabilitation instead of incarceration.

We have too many prisoners and too many prisons. 80% of the incarcerated are awaiting trial and can't afford bail. The innocent until proven guilty may lose their jobs. Their families may go into foster care. If their cars are impounded they may lose their cars.

But it makes the self-righteous feel good. Don't do what works. Do what gives the judgmental their pound of flesh.

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Fantine, if your position is that it is good to make abortion numbers go down you can make them go down even more by illegalizing it. I guarantee you, there are more abortions every year since Roe v Wade than there were back ally abortions.

Or do you prefer abortions of convenience? What's the Catholic moral argument for sex selected abortion? What about a girl who aborts their child because it's mixed race? Good or bad? Why is it a good thing for your tax dollars to pay for someone's abortion?

JimR-OCDS said:

Because Theodosius made Christianity the religion of Rome.

What he ordered was direct murder.

Now, should Biden be barred from receiving Holy Communion ? That's up to the Bishops, but I have had a problem with Biden dropping his support for the Hyde Amendment just when he decided to run for president. He's come out more strongly in support of keeping abortion legal since then.

In fact, he has stated he wants to make Roe V Wade locked into federal law.

So, yeah I have problems with Biden's claim to be a Catholic.

But again, it will be up to the Bishops, not me.

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I have no problem with it being up to the Bishops. But there is precedent in the past for denying communion to politicians who are doing things counter to the Church. The Church does not have remain neutral, nor do I see a significant difference between Biden and Theodosius in this manner. Except in this, Theodosius repented publicly of his error. Biden will never repent publicly for his support of abortion.

JimR-OCDS said:

You copied someone else's post and added my name to it when you pasted it.

I never wrote those words

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Apologies. Don't know how that happened. Have corrected the post.

JimR-OCDS said:

Bishops of the past also condemn people to be burned at the stake. Even St Thomas Moore condemned four people after they were tortured in the Tower of London and refused to recant
their heresy. Yeah, it was the state that actually carried out the torture and execution, but he was the one who accused and condemned them knowing they'd be executed.

On well, he ended up suffering the same fate, but it just goes to show how politically trapped the Church got into when it got in bed with the political powers, which began as far back as the forth Century.

There have always been saintly reformers like St Catherine of Sienna and St Francis of Assisi. However, they too had to suffer persecution from some of the hierarchy of the Church, before the Church changed.

The division in the nation today has carried itself into the Church as well. There are the fundamentalist Catholics and the so-called Progressives. Neither will give in, so yeah, it
will be up to the Bishops. Whatever they come up with, I see a schism by one side or the
other if it's a definitive decision. Mostly likely, they'll try to take a neutral position and try
not to upset politicians or lay people of either side of the political persuasion. Heaven help is !

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If you don't disagree with the actions of Ambrose then the only reason you are bringing up Thomas More is because you want to see a limit on what the Church and state can accomplish together. That's entirely reasonable, but there is still the fact that Ambrose called out the Emperor. If I were to take the modern American position on this matter Ambrose by rights should have remained silent, should have given Theodosius communion and done nothing. It was a peculiarly protestant notion that denied the Church any power in the affairs of public life and instead centralized all social values in the the head of state. Yet to see Catholics today argue for it, It's kind of amazing how the USA has been able to dismantle classic notions of the proper role of religion in society.

Landon Caeli said:

Just imagine though, if Catholic politicians were denied communion for not being against the legality of divorce... Should Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi be activists for banning divorce in America?

...If you say yes on abortion but no one divorce, in regards to the receiving of communion, please help me tonunderstand the rationale on why *all* Catholic teachings should not become the law of the land, and why politicians who disagree should receive communion in only certain cases, but not others.

I ask this not because of any position I hold, BTW.

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Why shouldn't Catholic politicians advocate for Catholic principles in law? Would that not be the ideal? If not, you will find yourself continually submitting to standards which are foreign to your particular creed. The more you admit outside elements have legitimacy and tolerate others, the less Catholics will find themselves able to resist the pull into the mass of the USA.

That's part of the reason why Christianity in general is dying in the west. In the effort to tolerate completely one another we have completely relativized the importance of Protestantism, Catholicism and Christianity in general. Instead of becoming more Protestant or more Catholic, Westerners have become less of each and more secular. This is good news for the secular progressive, but why should Christians rejoice at this?

Why encourage the trajectory and continue to operate on principles which undermine Christianity in the long run? To me it seems suicidal.

JimR-OCDS said:

No, I brought up Thomas Moore because the Church hasn't always followed the tenets Jesus gave us in the Gospels. Some have taken Jesus statement, "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, will be loose in Heaven" to an obscene level. Using excommunication for those not taking the political line was often used by corrupt Bishops.

Heck, it was the corruption in the use of indulgences that Martin Luther saw when he first went to Rome which was the catalyst for the Reformation.

Are we in the same situation today ?

As I said in past replies, we'll have to wait and see what the Bishops and Pope Francis come up with.

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That's the question isn't it? Is this a proper action for the bishops to take? Given the importance of life in the womb and Biden's flagrant disregard for it and seeking to expand the means of ending it, it would appear to me to be a legitimate use of such authority.

Landon Caeli said:

I think if Catholics were expected to unite in an American Catholic theocracy, I'm afraid it would send a signal to other groups that they should do the same as well - such as the Muslims.

...I'm not sure America could continue on as a world leader under that model, where competing groups all fight over total control. In fact, that's why the Middle East has never progressed, because that appears to be the exact position they're in.

By judging the Middle Eastern systems of government, where all groups are in constant conflicts over total control, I would even argue that by the looks of it, it's not at all pleasing to God.

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There are more ideas for government than just theocracy and most Christian states throughout history haven't been theocratic in nature. Yet, if you find yourself unwilling to promote your religious ideals as a social solution to life today, then you will gradually find that the religious life of old will disappear as it is already. That's the cost of putting secularism and 'impartiality' ahead of your own ideas for how society should operate.

There should thus be no surprise why the west is losing it's faith, no? I understand love of country and patriotism, though I have no patriotic feelings towards my own country, but is the existence of the USA worth so high a cost?

Landon Caeli said:

I think the idea of "liberty" was born out of Western knowledge of what happens when religions assume political control... I'm thinking it was a hard lesson learned.

...But still, abortion should be illegal, IMO, out of good conscience, and not out of religious duty.

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In that case you are subjugating your own moral outlook to that of a secular outlook. You are right to say that the idea of liberty, or at least secular liberty, was born in part due to a rejection of religion on the social life of people. If the thirty years was was the justification for this, what do we now say about ww1 and ww2? Wars thought by secular regimes which were more bloody and devastating than any before them. Or what about American Imperialism and it's imposition of 'democracy' on countries whose populaces neither asked for or wanted it?

If we are going to abide by the premise of secularism, that is the modern secularism of the USA or France, then we should not act surprised when we see Christianity receding. That is the natural result of a choice to put all things under the aegis of the secular authorities.

Christianity never completely subordinated the secular to the religious but at least then there was a balance. An effort by the spiritual estate and the secular estate towards a common idea of society, a division of respective spheres of influence.

Why should Christians by in large refuse to let their religion influence their politics? Do other religions do this? No, only Christians have and we can see the fruit of such thought over the last two centuries.