Hi. I'm not a catholic, but I found this letter very interesting and just had to share it with you. I donno how many of you were planning on voting for John Kerry, but this article reveals some stuff about his catholic beliefs. I'm sorry it's lengthy, it was an email sent to me so I couldnt post a link to it. Here it is.
Dear Fellow Christian,
For the past few Sundays Senator Kerry has taken the opportunity to
deliver his political message from the pulpits of various churches. You
might have seen these events, which have been shown repeatedly by the
media. You might have also noticed that these broadcasts contained
little or no information regarding Senator Kerry's religious beliefs.
In this regard, we are forwarding you the following article.
Albert Mohler Author, Speaker, President of the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary
The Enigmatic Faith of John F. Kerry
Senator John Kerry has been introducing himself to the American people,
even as he is running for the nation's highest office. Through his
public appearances, televised debates, and political events, he has
revealed a great deal about his political positions, personal history,
and plans for America. Missing from this picture is any substantial
understanding of John Kerry's faith. When it comes to his religious
convictions, John Kerry is a portrait in paradox.
Christianity Today recently profiled Kerry, looking at his public
statements and private religious practices. The magazine had to dig deep
in order to find enough material to fill out the article. On the
campaign trail, Kerry routinely acknowledges his Roman Catholic
identity, though his theological convictions and moral positions are
often at odds with the doctrine of his church.
In his campaign manifesto, A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better
America, Kerry asserts his Catholic identity. "I am a believing and
practicing Catholic, married to another believing and practicing
Catholic, and being an American Catholic at this particular moment in
history has three particular implications for my own point of view as a
candidate for the presidency," Kerry explained. He went on to identify
these three implications as: an obligation to love God and neighbor, a
commitment to equal rights and justice, and an awareness of persecution.
Nevertheless, Kerry's well-known positions on abortion, homosexuality,
and a host of other issues place him directly in opposition to the
official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Kerry is resolutely
pro-abortion, having voted against every single piece of pro-life
legislation that reached the floor during his tenure in the Senate. Most
recently, he went out of his way to return to Washington in time to vote
against legislation that would protect fetal life. He has opposed a ban
on partial-birth abortions,and he has the stalwart support of the
nation's abortion-rights movement.
Similarly, groups promoting homosexuality have championed Kerry as the
most pro-homosexual presidential candidate in recent history. Kerry has
sponsored legislation that would add homosexuality as a protected class
in anti-discrimination legislation, and he was one of only fourteen
senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. He claims
to oppose same-sex marriage, but endorses civil unions with full marital
rights in the law. In other words, he supports same-sex marriage so long
as such unions are not called "marriages." Beyond this, he has
suggested that as the nation's conscience "evolves" on this issue,
same-sex marriage is likely to become a reality anyway.
There can be no question where the Roman Catholic Church stands on these
issues. Kerry has openly opposed the Catholic position on these
questions, citing the right of individual conscience. Father Richard
John Neuhaus, a Catholic theologian close to the Vatican, counters this
argument by reminding Senator Kerry that the Canon Law of the Roman
Catholic Church denies the right of public officials to sin by rejecting
church teaching, and forbids Holy Communion to those who "manifestly
persist in grave sin."
In the October 7, 2004 edition of The New York Times, reporters Jodi
Wilgorn and Bill Keller described the essentially secular character of
John Kerry's campaign and political philosophy. The reporters pointed to
a town hall forum held this week in New Hampshire, where Senator Kerry,
discussing his endorsement of embryonic stem-cell research, "never
uttered the words faith, moral, religion, prayer, conscience, or God,
instead conjuring Galileo and other scientists who once drew the wrath
of established religion." In other words, Kerry argued for unrestricted
embryonic stem-cell research, directly countering the teaching of his
own church and avoiding any reference to the moral dimension of the
issue. As Wilgorn and Keller remarked, "It was a typical performance for
Mr. Kerry, a Roman Catholic who attends Mass on most Sundays, but has
largely avoided discussions of faith throughout a campaign in which Mr.
Bush has frequently appealed to religious sensibilities and is trying to
raise the Election Day turnout of the evangelical and the orthodox."
According to the Christianity Today report, Kerry attends mass and
receives Communion at the Paulist Center in Boston, which it describes
as "quasi-independent of the local hierarchy." The Paulist Center is a
gathering place for liberal Roman Catholics disenchanted with the
official church and its positions on political, social, theological, and
moral issues. A Boston pastor who leads a church where Kerry has
occasionally attended told the magazine that Kerry is someone "who
belongs to the secularized elite and shares their allegiance to
inclusive theology." As Michael E. Haynes explained, Kerry sounds like
Henry David Thoreau or Ralph Waldo Emerson--hardly orthodox Christians.
In a fascinating article and interview published in The American
Windsurfer, Kerry offered a fascinating glimpse at his inner life and
theological convictions.
An avid windsurfer himself, Kerry told the magazine, "I am a believer in
the Supreme Being, in God. I believe, without any question in this force
that is so much larger and more powerful than anything human beings can
conceivably define."
Nevertheless, Kerry's comments raise more questions than answers when it
comes to the substance of his theological convictions. Take this
comment, for example: "I think the more we learn about the universe, the
more we learn about black holes and the expansion of the universe and
the more we learn about what we don't know about: our beginnings
and--not just of us, but the universe itself, the more I find that
people believe in this Supreme Being." We find God in a black hole?
Kerry went on to explain, "I'm a Catholic, and I practice, but at the
same time I have an open-mindedness to many other expressions of
spirituality that come through different religions. I'm very respectful
and am interested--I find them intriguing."
Kerry told of visiting Jerusalem some years ago, and being "absolutely
fascinated by the 32 or so different branches of Catholicism that were
there." He expressed an interest in understanding the differences
between religions "in order to really better understand the politics
that grow out of them," asserting that religion is often a source of
political conflict, usually traceable to a "fundamentalism of one entity
or another." Nevertheless, Kerry's religious musings and investigations
have led him far from orthodox Christianity. "I've spent some time
reading and thinking about it and trying to study it and I've arrived at
not so much a sense of the differences but a sense of the similarities
in so many ways; the value system roots and the linkages between the
Torah, the Koran and the Bible and the fundamental story that runs
through all of this, that connects us--and really connects all of us."
Returning to Emerson and Thoreau, Kerry the windsurfer revealed an
openness to the worship of nature. As he told the magazine, "I've also
always been fascinated by the Transcendentalists and Pantheists and
others who found these great connections just in nature, in trees, the
ponds, the ripples of the wind on the pond, the great feast of nature
itself. I think it's all an expression that grows out of this profound
respect people have for those forces that human beings struggle to
define and to explain. It's all a matter of spirituality." Kerry was
willing to press the envelope even farther, arguing that "even atheists
and agnostics wind up with some kind of spirituality, maybe begrudgingly
acknowledging it here and there, but it's there."
What do we make of all this? In the first place, we should understand
John Kerry to be a liberal member of the cultural elite whose worldview
has been overwhelmingly shaped by secular influences and the
preoccupations of the academic elite. Beyond this, Kerry the politician
has aligned himself with the left wing of the Democratic Party, taking
positions on social issues that have uniformly pleased abortion
activists and the homosexual movement, while never apologizing or even
explaining for such a blatant violation of Catholic teaching. While he
claims Catholic identity on the one hand, he subverts and rejects
Catholic moral teaching with the other. He is what conservative
Catholics call a "cafeteria Catholic," identifying with Catholic moral
teaching on selected issues of economic and political impact, but
aligning himself with the forces that require absolute allegiance--the
abortion-rights and gay-rights movements, for example--in order for a
candidate to receive the Democratic Party's nomination for president.
James Carroll, a liberal Boston Globe columnist who, as a Catholic, has
called for the Church to abandon its central theological structure,
champions Kerry's mutation of Catholicism. According to Carroll, Kerry
is not a "renegade Catholic," but one among other liberal Catholics who
"understand that moral theology is not a fixed set of answers given once
and for all . . . but an ongoing quest for truths that remain
allusive." As Carroll further argued, "In the area of sexuality, for
example, for which so many hot-button issues arise, it is clear that the
human race is undergoing a massive cultural mutation, posing
excruciating problems that human beings have never faced before."
In other words, John Kerry is a Catholic who picks and chooses which
Catholic doctrines he will accept and which he will reject, and who
aligns himself with a worldview that understands morality to be relative
to the "massive cultural mutation" that now marks postmodern culture.
The portrait that emerges from a look at John Kerry's statements about
faith reveals a man driven by an overwhelmingly secular worldview. He,
like so many others in his generation, has formed his own "do it
yourself" form of religion, picking and choosing among doctrines and
accepting alternative worldviews directly at odds with his
"self-identified faith," without any sense of cognitive dissonance. The
very fact that his most revealing statements about his faith have come
in an interview with a magazine called The American Windsurfer tells us
a great deal in itself. When he cites the Transcendentalists and
Pantheists as sources of inspiration, he tells us more than he probably
intends. When it comes to orthodox Christianity, there is no wind in
Senator Kerry's sail.
Dear Fellow Christian,
For the past few Sundays Senator Kerry has taken the opportunity to
deliver his political message from the pulpits of various churches. You
might have seen these events, which have been shown repeatedly by the
media. You might have also noticed that these broadcasts contained
little or no information regarding Senator Kerry's religious beliefs.
In this regard, we are forwarding you the following article.
Albert Mohler Author, Speaker, President of the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary
The Enigmatic Faith of John F. Kerry
Senator John Kerry has been introducing himself to the American people,
even as he is running for the nation's highest office. Through his
public appearances, televised debates, and political events, he has
revealed a great deal about his political positions, personal history,
and plans for America. Missing from this picture is any substantial
understanding of John Kerry's faith. When it comes to his religious
convictions, John Kerry is a portrait in paradox.
Christianity Today recently profiled Kerry, looking at his public
statements and private religious practices. The magazine had to dig deep
in order to find enough material to fill out the article. On the
campaign trail, Kerry routinely acknowledges his Roman Catholic
identity, though his theological convictions and moral positions are
often at odds with the doctrine of his church.
In his campaign manifesto, A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better
America, Kerry asserts his Catholic identity. "I am a believing and
practicing Catholic, married to another believing and practicing
Catholic, and being an American Catholic at this particular moment in
history has three particular implications for my own point of view as a
candidate for the presidency," Kerry explained. He went on to identify
these three implications as: an obligation to love God and neighbor, a
commitment to equal rights and justice, and an awareness of persecution.
Nevertheless, Kerry's well-known positions on abortion, homosexuality,
and a host of other issues place him directly in opposition to the
official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Kerry is resolutely
pro-abortion, having voted against every single piece of pro-life
legislation that reached the floor during his tenure in the Senate. Most
recently, he went out of his way to return to Washington in time to vote
against legislation that would protect fetal life. He has opposed a ban
on partial-birth abortions,and he has the stalwart support of the
nation's abortion-rights movement.
Similarly, groups promoting homosexuality have championed Kerry as the
most pro-homosexual presidential candidate in recent history. Kerry has
sponsored legislation that would add homosexuality as a protected class
in anti-discrimination legislation, and he was one of only fourteen
senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. He claims
to oppose same-sex marriage, but endorses civil unions with full marital
rights in the law. In other words, he supports same-sex marriage so long
as such unions are not called "marriages." Beyond this, he has
suggested that as the nation's conscience "evolves" on this issue,
same-sex marriage is likely to become a reality anyway.
There can be no question where the Roman Catholic Church stands on these
issues. Kerry has openly opposed the Catholic position on these
questions, citing the right of individual conscience. Father Richard
John Neuhaus, a Catholic theologian close to the Vatican, counters this
argument by reminding Senator Kerry that the Canon Law of the Roman
Catholic Church denies the right of public officials to sin by rejecting
church teaching, and forbids Holy Communion to those who "manifestly
persist in grave sin."
In the October 7, 2004 edition of The New York Times, reporters Jodi
Wilgorn and Bill Keller described the essentially secular character of
John Kerry's campaign and political philosophy. The reporters pointed to
a town hall forum held this week in New Hampshire, where Senator Kerry,
discussing his endorsement of embryonic stem-cell research, "never
uttered the words faith, moral, religion, prayer, conscience, or God,
instead conjuring Galileo and other scientists who once drew the wrath
of established religion." In other words, Kerry argued for unrestricted
embryonic stem-cell research, directly countering the teaching of his
own church and avoiding any reference to the moral dimension of the
issue. As Wilgorn and Keller remarked, "It was a typical performance for
Mr. Kerry, a Roman Catholic who attends Mass on most Sundays, but has
largely avoided discussions of faith throughout a campaign in which Mr.
Bush has frequently appealed to religious sensibilities and is trying to
raise the Election Day turnout of the evangelical and the orthodox."
According to the Christianity Today report, Kerry attends mass and
receives Communion at the Paulist Center in Boston, which it describes
as "quasi-independent of the local hierarchy." The Paulist Center is a
gathering place for liberal Roman Catholics disenchanted with the
official church and its positions on political, social, theological, and
moral issues. A Boston pastor who leads a church where Kerry has
occasionally attended told the magazine that Kerry is someone "who
belongs to the secularized elite and shares their allegiance to
inclusive theology." As Michael E. Haynes explained, Kerry sounds like
Henry David Thoreau or Ralph Waldo Emerson--hardly orthodox Christians.
In a fascinating article and interview published in The American
Windsurfer, Kerry offered a fascinating glimpse at his inner life and
theological convictions.
An avid windsurfer himself, Kerry told the magazine, "I am a believer in
the Supreme Being, in God. I believe, without any question in this force
that is so much larger and more powerful than anything human beings can
conceivably define."
Nevertheless, Kerry's comments raise more questions than answers when it
comes to the substance of his theological convictions. Take this
comment, for example: "I think the more we learn about the universe, the
more we learn about black holes and the expansion of the universe and
the more we learn about what we don't know about: our beginnings
and--not just of us, but the universe itself, the more I find that
people believe in this Supreme Being." We find God in a black hole?
Kerry went on to explain, "I'm a Catholic, and I practice, but at the
same time I have an open-mindedness to many other expressions of
spirituality that come through different religions. I'm very respectful
and am interested--I find them intriguing."
Kerry told of visiting Jerusalem some years ago, and being "absolutely
fascinated by the 32 or so different branches of Catholicism that were
there." He expressed an interest in understanding the differences
between religions "in order to really better understand the politics
that grow out of them," asserting that religion is often a source of
political conflict, usually traceable to a "fundamentalism of one entity
or another." Nevertheless, Kerry's religious musings and investigations
have led him far from orthodox Christianity. "I've spent some time
reading and thinking about it and trying to study it and I've arrived at
not so much a sense of the differences but a sense of the similarities
in so many ways; the value system roots and the linkages between the
Torah, the Koran and the Bible and the fundamental story that runs
through all of this, that connects us--and really connects all of us."
Returning to Emerson and Thoreau, Kerry the windsurfer revealed an
openness to the worship of nature. As he told the magazine, "I've also
always been fascinated by the Transcendentalists and Pantheists and
others who found these great connections just in nature, in trees, the
ponds, the ripples of the wind on the pond, the great feast of nature
itself. I think it's all an expression that grows out of this profound
respect people have for those forces that human beings struggle to
define and to explain. It's all a matter of spirituality." Kerry was
willing to press the envelope even farther, arguing that "even atheists
and agnostics wind up with some kind of spirituality, maybe begrudgingly
acknowledging it here and there, but it's there."
What do we make of all this? In the first place, we should understand
John Kerry to be a liberal member of the cultural elite whose worldview
has been overwhelmingly shaped by secular influences and the
preoccupations of the academic elite. Beyond this, Kerry the politician
has aligned himself with the left wing of the Democratic Party, taking
positions on social issues that have uniformly pleased abortion
activists and the homosexual movement, while never apologizing or even
explaining for such a blatant violation of Catholic teaching. While he
claims Catholic identity on the one hand, he subverts and rejects
Catholic moral teaching with the other. He is what conservative
Catholics call a "cafeteria Catholic," identifying with Catholic moral
teaching on selected issues of economic and political impact, but
aligning himself with the forces that require absolute allegiance--the
abortion-rights and gay-rights movements, for example--in order for a
candidate to receive the Democratic Party's nomination for president.
James Carroll, a liberal Boston Globe columnist who, as a Catholic, has
called for the Church to abandon its central theological structure,
champions Kerry's mutation of Catholicism. According to Carroll, Kerry
is not a "renegade Catholic," but one among other liberal Catholics who
"understand that moral theology is not a fixed set of answers given once
and for all . . . but an ongoing quest for truths that remain
allusive." As Carroll further argued, "In the area of sexuality, for
example, for which so many hot-button issues arise, it is clear that the
human race is undergoing a massive cultural mutation, posing
excruciating problems that human beings have never faced before."
In other words, John Kerry is a Catholic who picks and chooses which
Catholic doctrines he will accept and which he will reject, and who
aligns himself with a worldview that understands morality to be relative
to the "massive cultural mutation" that now marks postmodern culture.
The portrait that emerges from a look at John Kerry's statements about
faith reveals a man driven by an overwhelmingly secular worldview. He,
like so many others in his generation, has formed his own "do it
yourself" form of religion, picking and choosing among doctrines and
accepting alternative worldviews directly at odds with his
"self-identified faith," without any sense of cognitive dissonance. The
very fact that his most revealing statements about his faith have come
in an interview with a magazine called The American Windsurfer tells us
a great deal in itself. When he cites the Transcendentalists and
Pantheists as sources of inspiration, he tells us more than he probably
intends. When it comes to orthodox Christianity, there is no wind in
Senator Kerry's sail.
Still praying for a Bush win.
