Ratzinger said Catholics voting pro choice IS PERMITTED

[Proud2BAmurkin]

Before the election Ratzinger made a statement saying it was OK for Catholics to vote pro choice if their conscience said there were counter-balancing issues.

I took it as practically begging people to vote against the war mongering Idiot Son who could have spent billions saving lives with disease research and welfare and social programs which the Catholic church favors.

Edit: Here is the story from the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3534-2004Sep7.html

Catholic Voters Given Leeway on Abortion Rights Issue

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 8, 2004; Page A06

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's arbiter of doctrinal orthodoxy, has given Roman Catholic voters leeway under certain circumstances to vote for politicians who support abortion rights, U.S. Catholic officials said yesterday.

<snip>

Ratzinger's statement came at the bottom of a one-page confidential memorandum that he sent in June to Washington's Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, head of a commission of U.S. bishops on Catholics in political life. It was published in full by the Italian press this summer, and the section dealing with voting was first reported yesterday by the Detroit Free Press.

"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," wrote Ratzinger, who is head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department charged with ensuring fidelity to church teachings.

But Ratzinger added: "When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."

Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for McCarrick, said Ratzinger's statement means that "a Catholic can never vote for a candidate precisely because the candidate supports abortion."

"However, there could be circumstances where a voter, bearing in mind the primacy of the life issue, supports the candidate for other serious reasons," she said. "Each Catholic is called to consider these issues from a faith perspective and to weigh the candidates' positions very carefully before voting."

[rodeodance]

1. seems like it is venial sin vs a moral sin

[K-W]

3. No, it says it is not at all a sin to vote for a pro choice person,

as long as you are not attempting to promote abortion in doing so and have weighed the issue as an issue of life in your decision.

[Toots]

2. You know what pisses me off about this story?

We are labeled as for abortion rights while they are labeled as Pro-life. We are always Pro-Choice while they are always Anti-abortion yet the "Liberal Media" never says so..

[MADem]

9. Pro life, until they leave the womb

Then the GOP is pro-death. Kill the retarded, kill the teens after being tried as adults, kill, kill, fry, lethally inject. They are so full of shit it ain't funny!

[alcuno]

4. This is how the Church operates. Sin lies in the heart of the individual.

The right wing of the Catholic Church has a hard time with this concept. I'm on a Catholic forum and someone there is calling for a return of the inquisition because they want total conformity.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

7. The Repukes are doing all they can to corrupt the church

There's a fight in this country for the soul of the church between the Repuke "Christian" right and traditional moral Catholics.

[Solly Mack]

5. Is this anything like wrapping Viagra in kosher capsules?

You know, Viagra, which isn't kosher for Passover, is "deemed" kosher for Passover if it's wrapped in kosher materials first...before swallowing

so voting for a pro-choice candidate is OK, even if abortion is viewed as absolutely wrong by the Church, as long as your vote wasn't motivated by a candidates pro choice position...

Is this what he is saying?

[bleedingheart]

6. Ratzinger was one of the people involved in Vatican II reforms

however he supposedly had a change of opinion after some of the reforms came to pass...

However one can wonder that perhaps his outward opinion changed to suit his desire to wear the papal crown...perhaps there is a liberal priest waiting for his turn to be pope??? who knows....

[MADem]

8. Believe it or not, that is a true interpretation

of where the church stands. Acts of faith are acts of faith. They are internal and personal. Faith without works, nothing. But the bottom line is you do not IMPOSE your faith, you live it. So if you are voting specifically FOR someone on that SOLE issue, then you have difficulty. Same with the death penalty, when you think of it. But Ratzinger understands that we live in a real world, even though he is VERY conservative.

Kerry tried to explain this, that it was not his role to IMPOSE his faith, but to reflect the clear desires of his constituency as their representative in the Senate, and the media would not let him. Guess they didn't care to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

[mmonk]

10. Ratzinger is correct of course. It was the

actions of some American bishops making such a big deal of the situation. The American church was willing to ally itself with its traditional antagonists (the fundamentalists) over the abortion issue concerning a chance for a justice appointment and this ticked me off greatly. Especially when the opposing candidate was Catholic.