Let’s Admit It: The Anti-Catholics Are Right!
David Carlin, a reasonable fellow, raises the question of whether our bishops should “excommunicate Catholic elected officials who consistently support pro-choice (pro-abortion) positions” (Our Sunday Visitor, Sept. 17). He sees it as a question “worthy of debate.”
Carlin is concerned that if Catholic pro-abortion politicians aren’t excommunicated, the question arises whether “the Catholic Church in America stands for Catholicism.” But! On the other hand, Carlin sees “weighty” reasons for not excommunicating them, and so he says “I’m still far from being convinced [that] excommunication…is a good idea….” His reasons:
(1) “It wouldn’t deter the politicians in question.”
(2) Those politicians would garner popularity by claiming that “they are being persecuted for ‘voting their conscience’ and for refusing to be dictated to by Rome and its episcopal minions.”
(3) Excommunication would resurrect the old anti-Catholic accusations that “Catholics are incapable of intellectual independence,” and that “a good Catholic cannot be a good American, since his or her first loyalty is to a ‘foreign prince’ [the Pope]….”
You May Also Enjoy
I assumed that I could secretly be Christian but came to realize that my spiritual life was too important to keep entirely a secret. So I told my husband.
Love of neighbor may impel us to act like socialists, but we must not fall into the illusion that others' salvation is necessarily advanced from the charity shown them.
Those who have studied conventional economics will find in Heinrich Pesch a starting point that is faithful both to economic facts and to the Church's teaching.