A Fine Way for the Catholic Church to Lose Tax Exempt Status

The bishop targetted four topic, abortion rights, stem-cell research, euthanasia and gay marriage.

 

I am sorry. The article I had read did not mention anything but abortion; I freely admit I did not read yours. I stand corrected.

Makes more sense to me now.

-Paul

 

All right, I appologize for misreading the article.



In my defense, it was reported around here that it was mainly abortion. I must have confused the two.

That being said, I still disagree, but then, I don't take communion anymore.

 

I haven't read this entire thread, so forgive me if I've missed anything important.

1. The Catholic Church has every right within it's power, to do what it feels is necessary. Far too long have politicans used the "Catholic label" game to win votes, even though they do not live a lifestyle of a faithful Catholic believer.

The Catholic community (including the clergy) are tired of this. That is why action is being taking, even though this should have been done a long time ago. I do not know why this will make the Church lose it's Tax Exempt Status. Catholicism is a religious belief system, it has a right to enforce a doctrine which they hold dear to. What is the point of belonging to such a religous institution, if you do not follow it's teachings? The Church is against pro-abortion politicans not because it wants political power or finacial gain, but because it sincerly believes abortion is a grave evil.

Should Catholics be forced to voting pro-life politicans? No, they have a conscience of their own. Does this mean they can control the Catholic Church because of it? No, it's their choice, and theirs only. Either live a Catholic, or be denied of Communion.



2. Some priests within the Catholic Church can marry. There are two major Rites within the Church, the Roman (Latin or Western) Rite, and the Byzantine (Eastern) Rite. The Roman Rite of course, is the most common.

Married men can enter the priesthood in the Byzantine Rite, but single men who become priests in that Rite, cannot marry. Within the Roman Rite, single men can only become priests, niether can they marry later on. Though there are a few exceptions where married Anglican priests were allowed to become Roman Catholic priests.

To allow Catholic priests to marry, will NOT aid the priest shortage. Dioceses that promote priestly celibacy and are loyal to the Church, have been proven to have a higher number of men entering seminary, than those who are promoting marriage in the priesthood.

Also, priests tend to be much busier than a typical Baptist preacher. Married anglican priests who've converted and were granted permission to become Catholic priests, have a difficult time to fulfill their duties and run a family. Allowing priests to marry, will not solve this problem. The problem is, far too many people are discriminating their children from the religious life.

 

I just read the last few posts, and hopefully I can help address them. The Catholic Church is not against the death penality. The Church is however, against the abuse of the death penality. That is a big difference.

Also, why is the Church only specifically targeting abortion? Because abortion itself is the greater of evils compared to others. Homosexual marriage goes against the Catholic Church, but considering abortion is (and since I'm a Catholic, I'm gonna speak like one) the direct killing of an innocent child, this of course is a much more grave issue.

It's not about politics, it's about morality.

 

Are you sure? I thought the Catholic version was "Thou shalt not kill." And how can there be any use of the death penalty that is anything other than an abuse?


Force of Nature brought up a good point, which was ignored. How will this bishop, or any other priest, know how any of his parishioners vote? Every place I know of in the US, one's vote is secret. One never knows how a particular individual voted, unless one actually asks that person (and he remember, which he won't always). Is the Church planning to commit felonies in order to illegally find out how its members vote, in order to decide whether they get communion or not?


Many people here have been debating an irrelevant issue about non-profits. The tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church is not the same as that of other non-profit organizations, such as the Sierra Club or whatever. Churches are tax-exempt specifically because of their status as religious organizations, relating to the Establishment Clause separation of church and state. Since that separation cuts both ways, this specific tax exemption, 501(c)(3), requires that the religious organization refrain from certain political activities (I'm not sure exactly how specifically they're spelled out). If the religious organization violates that requirement, by engaging in such activities, their tax-exempt status can be, most likely will be, and IMHO should be, revoked.

This particular example does not yet make sense to me for above reasons (how will they know?) and once that question is answered, I will form an opinion on whether or not their actions are in violation of the conditions of their 501 c3 tax-exemption.


Guin, as far as the specific focus here, on Catholic positions that agree with American conservatives, ignoring the death penalty and social justice, that's probably the influence of Pope John Paul II and the conservative Cardinals who elected him. John XXIII and Paul VI were more concerned about socioeconomic reform and practices. John XXIII especially made many steps in the right direction, but unfortunately, was cut down all too soon.


Just for fun, let me throw out that dogma of any kind= ********

 

EagleJedi, you said...

Are you sure? I thought the Catholic version was "Thou shalt not kill." And how can there be any use of the death penalty that is anything other than an abuse?

You are correct on the Thou Shalt Not Kill part, however this doesn't mean that all killing is sinful, it depends on the circumstances at hand (Example: someone about to murder your wife, and you have no other way of stopping him).

To quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which is a summary of what Catholics believe, large document too)...

Legitimate defense

2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. "The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one's own life; and the killing of the aggressor.... the one is intended, the other is not."

2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one's own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:

If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful.... Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than of another's.

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another's life. Preserving the common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. To this end, those holding legitimate authority have the right to repel by armed force aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their charge.


Capital Punishment

2266 The State's effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime. the primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.

2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.
"If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

"Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent.'[John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56.]

Hope that helps.

Force of Nature brought up a good point, which was ignored. How will this bishop, or any other priest, know how any of his parishioners vote? Every place I know of in the US, one's vote is secret. One never knows how a particular individual voted, unless one actually asks that person (and he remember, which he won't always). Is the Church planning to commit

 

Thanks, eaglejedi. I agree with you on John XXIII.

 

Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI may have been concerned with socioeconomic reform and practices. But to assume that they put that above traditional moral teaching, is ludicrous.

 

Who said they did? No one.

The point is, they weren't always griping about petty things. Nor were they, as far as I know, getting angry when people rightly condemned how the church handles child abuse by priests.

 

Underpaid_Soldier: I was referring to the College of Cardinals, not Vatican II.

As Guin said, that was not what I meant. I meant that they were more concerned with these issues, and in the case of John XXIII, a bit less concerned with anachronistic repression, than some others are (John Paul II) and have been (Pius XII, damnatio memoriae).


My question "Will they... to find out?" was not meant to be taken literally. It was more of a reductio ad absurdum. Some of these details you supplied were either missing, or I missed them, in the initial post in this thread.


If they are asking them not to receive Communion, rather than actively denying it to them, that is a different thing. I am interested to know if this is just an initiative of this local bishop, as it appears from the initial post here, or if this action is sanctioned by higher Church authorities.

 

People have been denied Communion before. This isn't something new.

 

I've brought this thread back from the grave in the hopes of finding a channel--okay, a cell with a large iron door--for a debate that has at least temporarily derailed pretty much every recent discussion about the 2004 election, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, religion, homosexuality, stem cell research, abortion, and church vs. state issues. Which basically means every thread on the board with more than 10 pages.

The burning question: Who or what can a Catholic vote for without proceeding directly to hell, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

To put the question in some perspective, I'll give you an imaginary scenario. Say you're a devout Catholic living in New York, and it is the afternoon of November 7, 2000. You are a member of the Latin Mass Society, you admire the courage of a stand-up guy like Cardinal Ratzinger, and you have a near-Rain-Man-like ability to recall which saint's feast day it is, on any given day of the year. (Quick! November 7--whose day is it?! Of course--Sts. Congar and Willibord. Not the 12th century missionary Congar, though. The dates-unknown Congar who's patron of hope in Clwyd, Wales. Duh.) It scarcely bears mentioning that you intend to take your faith with you to the polls.

When you look down at your ballot, you see you have a senate race to decide on: Rudy Guiliani vs. Hillary Clinton. Who do you vote for? Well, the choice is obvious.

Hillary Clinton.

You see, Rudy Guiliani is both a Catholic and a pro-choice Republican, and therefore excommunicable at the discretion of his priest. He's not even a shy, embarrassed pro-choice Republican. He's quite open and outspoken about it; he has the endorsement of the Republicans for Choice Political Action Committee.

Hillary Clinton is pro-choice too, of course, but it's not as bad for her. As a very devout Catholic, you know that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reserves especial disapproval for Catholic politicians who vote pro-choice, since, as Bishop John Ricard of the Office of Social Development & World Peace puts it: "as Catholic lawmakers we hold them to a higher standard."

Now Hillary is a Baptist, you see, and the American Baptist Church "opposes abortion as a means of birth control or a means of eliminating unwanted pregnancies, but differs on when life begins and whether the church should advocate for governmental restrictions on abortion." (Beliefnet.com) So she's a questionably liberal Baptist, but not necessarily a bad one. At least she isn't directly defying her faith. The equivalent, sadly, cannot be said about Rudy. He has utterly strayed from the Church's magisterium, and thus you cannot risk your soul in voting for him.

So, even though you loathe Hillary Clinton, loathe her politics, loathe her social mores, loathe her husband, and think she will probably be a dreadful influence on your state, you grit your teeth and check "Hillary" on the ballot. What else is a good Catholic to do?

Let's fast-forward now to 2004, and a situation that was non-imaginary for many of us. On the one side, we have John Kerry, who, though he gets the high score on the senate Catholic-ometer, votes disturbingly pro-choice. (The Senate Catholic Scorecard (warning--large .pdf file) was compiled by a collection of Catholic senators, with the obvious and unapologetic intent of shutting the media up about what "bad Catholics" the Democrats are. Despite the partisan intent, I was very impressed by the scrupulous--almost obsessive--documentation involved. Most academic sociology studies aren't documented and footnoted this well. The source is questionable--namely the "official" second-best Catholic in the Senate--but having read the document they based many of their ratings on, I believe the data is good. Anybody who has read two of my posts knows that I'm no dummy about dat

 

Edit: Maybe not.

 

"Maybe not" I edited my post and don't really want to say what I said, or "Maybe not" Catholics can't vote for Rudy Guiliani?

 

ophelia - When you look down at your ballot, you see you have a senate race to decide on: Rudy Guiliani vs. Hillary Clinton. Who do you vote for? Well, the choice is obvious - Hillary Clinton.

I agree, completely. I still find it hilarious how there hasn't been a demand for Rudy Guiliani's head, however. If we're going by this - I hope that Mayor Rudy Guiliani and Senator Harry Reid are the two candidates for 2008, seeing as how Senator Harry Reid would be winning in a landslide, because the Catholic Republicans could not vote for Mayor Rudy Guiliani (although I think the Church would make an exception for him, because he's a Republican - even if he is a liberal one).

 

*That* would be funny. Stupid liberal Republicans, trying to ruin the morals of this country . . .

Running Reid against McCain would be confusing too, since they seem to vote the same way on all the "five non-negotiables." Technically, they'd both be out of the running since they both voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, but even if you wanted to pick the lesser of two evils, you couldn't. You'd be left spinning in cirles.

 

i go to a catholic school, so i get theology classes every day. our theology textbooks as well as the official chatecism of the catholic church state that a priest reserves the right to deny anyone communion, and that any parishoner not "fit" to receive communion should not do so.

twisted and ****ed up, but it's true.

personally, i think we should leave the judging to god. but then who would have the power to control the masses?

 

a priest reserves the right to deny anyone communion

That's true, but an individual priest's decision isn't binding on the whole Catholic Church. I know a priest who refuses to marry Catholics and non-Catholics. He just won't do it, and there's nothing anybody can do to make him. That doesn't mean that all Catholic/non-Catholic weddings are invalidated, or that Catholics who marry non-Catholics are going to hell.

Being excommunicated by a Bishop is a more serious matter, and being excommunicated by the Pope is serious bad news--although niether of the above actually happened in this election or any other. The Archbishop of St. Louis said that he would personally deny Kerry communion, although I haven't seen anything to indicate that he pronounced Kerry excommunicated throughout the diocese. To my knowledge, no one in the Catholic heirarchy has even proposed that every Catholic who voted for Kerry should be excommunicated.

As for the "fitness" of someone to receive communion, it is ultimately between them and their conscience.

 

ophelia - That's true, but an individual priest's decision isn't binding on the whole Catholic Church. I know a priest who refuses to marry Catholics and non-Catholics. He just won't do it, and there's nothing anybody can do to make him. That doesn't mean that all Catholic/non-Catholic weddings are invalidated, or that Catholics who marry non-Catholics are going to hell.

That's exactly my point that I was trying to make over same-sex marriage. Simply because the Catholics don't believe in it and think that it is wrong, does not provide reason for there being a amendment to ban same-sex marriage across the nation - if the Catholic Church doesn't want to marry two women, then they don't have to.