Here is letter by Bishop Michael Sheridan, S.T.D. on Amendment 43 and Referendum I relating to same-sex marriage in Colorado. His letter is very forthright, as he usually is. Though some of it seems more like a blog post than an pastoral letter. He uses Wrong!, Wrong again!, and Wrong yet again in his letter.
The Commonweal blog wasn’t pleased so you know the letter reflected Church teaching.
It is well known that the Bishop has threatened to deny Holy Communion to Catholics who vote for candidates who support same sex marriage, same sex unions, abortion, or euthanasia. Curiously, the Bishop does not support denying Holy Communion to Catholics who vote for candidates who support the death penalty, torture, or unjust war.
Have you ever met anybody that supported unjust war? They also say that the bishop does not support withholding Communion for candidates who support torture. What do they base this charge on? He has never said no such thing. Has there been a Catholic politician in his diocese advocating torture for him to react to? I bet that since his short list on withholding Communion does not include torture that this is their evidence. By this lousy reasoning the bishop also does not support withholding Communion for politicians who support racism, genocide, rape, and murder. Since there post talks only about "death penalty, torture, or unjust war." I guess that proves that this writer does not support withholding Communion from Candidates who want to nuke Iran.
When will progressives learn that to bring up the death penalty whenever abortion is mentioned only shows their ignorance and that by doing this they will not be taken seriously.
There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
From that little known theologian Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger who I think had his name change. I agree with what Pope John Paul II wrote in The Gospel of Life, but progressives do little to advance a culture of life when they engage in moral relativism.
11 comments
Amen.
Liberals, whom you charitably call ‘progressives’, are not as intelligent and sophisticated as they think they is (pun intended).
Mischaracterize your opponent and then attack the mischaracterization.
This is the attack method of choice by the sec-progs.
Pro-unjust war? Indeed! Why don’t they just fall to the ground bawling and carrying on like the pathetic babies they are?
dotCommonweal strikes me as a case study in why official blogs shouldn’t have comments. They don’t, as a whole, reflect well on the readership (though there are exceptions).
And though correlation doesn’t imply causation, not a few of the posts themselves reflect the sort of snark that is best left to unserious commenters.
Don’t you know, “unjust war” means war THEY say is unjust, since they KNOW that it is impossible for anyone to REALLY disagree with their Majesterium, so anyone who claims to believe differently is lying. Just like Gary Wills informs us that that when the papacy disagreesx with him, it is not just wrong, but “lying”.
“It’s not that liberals are ignorant, it is just that so much of what they know is not true.”
R. Reagan
While many of us in St. Louis certainly miss Bishop Sheridan, we are grateful that he is doing the Lord’s work so well – in season and out of season…He’s another fearless shepherd in a world consumed by deceptions and evil. The faithful of Colorado Springs are truly blessed to have him as their bishop.
Commonwhine.
“Curiously, the Bishop does not support denying Holy Communion to Catholics who vote for candidates who support the death penalty, torture, or unjust war.”
If this were a Kritik in policy debate, this would be known as a “link by omission”- you didn’t mention A, therefore you justify B. It’s a terrible argument, and is almost univerally rejected by judges. Just because he didn’t specifically mention these things doesn’t mean he implicitly supports them; they just weren’t relevant to the question at hand.
Check out the comments of one Fr. Joseph Komonchak on dotcommonweal (and how lame is the name of this blog?). “Maybe Sheridan LEARNED SOMETHING THIS TIME?” Yeah, Komonchak, like you could maybe learn something about Church doctrine.
Just a little clarification… this letter originally appeared as his column in the Oct. 6 issue of The Colorado Catholic Herald (www.coloradocatholicherald.com). The Colorado Catholic Conference decided to re-release it on their end as part of a last-second push for Amendment 43 and against Ref. I.
There is not, however, a legitimate diversity of opinion among Catholics as to whether torture can be just — yet the majority of US Catholics now believe it can. How odd that the Bishop omitted reference to this act of death and instead put the construction of life and love, among two men or two women, on the same plane as life-destroying and love-destroying sins like abortion and adultery.