| Before anyone gets up in arms, I know the answer to the title question is a resounding "Yes!" But I also know that John Kerry served his country faithfully and well in Vietnam. The difference between what is true and what we will hear ad naseum through November is going to be an ever-increasing distance.
The Boston Globe's Michael Paulson is already trying to make a wedge for the McCain campaign to use. He quotes Fidelis, a right-wing Catholic group, as saying: Now everywhere Biden campaigns, we?ll have this question of whether a pro-abortion Catholic can receive Communion. Senator Biden is an unrepentant supporter of abortion in direct opposition to the Church he claims as his own. Selecting a pro-abortion Catholic is a slap in the face to Catholic voters.
Apparently, having Joe Biden serve as Senator of Delaware is no problem to the Catholics in that state. Somehow, it becomes a problem only when he gets the Veep nod. Why does Fidelis think so little of the Catholics in Delaware? |
Catholics United, on the other hand, issued this statement: ?Senator Biden?s well-known commitment to his Catholic faith has inspired his advocacy on issues such as genocide, universal health care, education, workers? rights, and violence against women. His faith has helped him to find solace during times of tragedy and crisis. We are optimistic that Senator Biden?s history of seeking practical means of addressing abortion will help move our nation beyond the divisive, acrimonious, and unproductive debate that has come to surround the issue. Senator Biden accepts his church?s teachings on human life and can work to advance these teachings in ways that Americans of all political persuasions can support. Catholics United is especially hopeful that operatives on the far right will refrain from using Senator Biden?s faith and the teachings of the Catholic Church as political weapons in the coming campaign. Faith and values should be used to unite Americans behind solutions to the key challenges of this age ? war, poverty, lack of health care, and a looming climate crisis ? and not as partisan wedges to divide voters.?
I think they are wasting their breathe with that last bit. See: Fidelis' statement.
This is where I point out that the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has found that 52 percent of Americans want religion left out of their politics. This is a swing from 51 percent wanting religion mixed with politics just four years ago. The crosstabs show that it is pretty much even throughout the political spectrum, too. 51 percent of Republicans, 52 percent of Democrats, and 55 percent of Independents have had enough of "Thus Spake the Lord" pronouncements about political differences.
The fact is that Americans don't like extremists. On the issue of abortion, which Fidelis is trying to demogogue, the same Pew poll shows that only 17% of Americans think abortion should always be legal but 15% think it never should. That sort of defines the extreme positions, doesn't it? If you look at only Catholics, those numbers change to only 16 and 21 percent.
That 21 percent who want abortion totally illegal is roughly the same as those age 65 and over, people with a high school education or less, and Black Protestants. The only two categories that are mutually exclusive there are Black Protestants and Catholics. In other words, a lot of those who are being counted in the Catholic vote are already being counted as over 65 and/or having only a high school education or less.
There was a time, not long ago, when I would have completely gone off on Fidelis - like it would have mattered to them. But here's the thing - I'm not Catholic and never have been. My wife left the Catholic church over just such "my-way-or-the-pits-of-Hell" rhetoric. And we found a warm and welcoming church that loves us as much as we love them.
Fidelis, for all their chest-thumping hatred for anyone not exactly like them, serve a purpose. They provide a space for people who can't get past that short-sightedness to experience God. Whether or not that is authentic is not my place to say.
It isn't their theology that I want to neutralize, even though I think it's inaccurate and misguided. It's their political action. Or rather, it's the selective attack in an effort to create a wedge. You see, official Catholic doctrine states: Christian Communities born out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century... do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called "Churches" in the proper sense.
So if Fidelis is going to challenge Biden to be a "better Catholic" by adhering to official Catholic doctrine, then they should do the same and tell Americans that Obama - and everyone in America who isn't Catholic - really doesn't belong to a church at all. That Communion that we all receive? Fake. If they are really going to call Catholics back to some form of electoral purity, that's the message they need to deliver.
Don't vote for McCain or Obama. Both of them belong to false churches (though the power of Christ still uses these imperfect tools for salvation). Biden, as a "bad Catholic" is still an improvement over these other two heretics.
How about it, Fidelis? Do I hear a taker? |
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