Link to Catholic News Service -- Vatican official denial of claim that Kerry is a heretic

• Vatican denies it responded to lawyer seeking Kerry's excommunication (19 October 2004) "No, Kerry is not a heretic," he [Vatican official contacted by CNS] said. "There are three distinct questions involved" in the current U.S. discussion about support for legalized abortion and the worthiness of Catholic politicians and voters to receive Communion, he said. The three questions, he said, are: "Is Kerry a heretic? Is Kerry an 'obstinate sinner' because of his support for legalized abortion? Can a Catholic vote for Kerry?" Even if one answered "yes" to the second question, he said, it would not mean the senator is a heretic, nor would it oblige Catholic voters in all situations to vote against him.

Famous speeches of the past

• John F. Kennedy: Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association (delivered 12 September 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX)

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President  -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.
     I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.  

• Edward M. Kennedy: Truth and Tolerance in America (delivered 3 Oct 1983, Liberty Baptist College, Lynchburg, VA)

The real transgression occurs when religion wants government to tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives. The failure of Prohibition proves the futility of such an attempt when a majority or even a substantial minority happens to disagree. Some questions may be inherently individual ones, or people may be sharply divided about whether they are. In such cases, like Prohibition and abortion, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the state.  

• Mario Cuomo: "Religious Belief and Public Morality -- A Catholic Governor's Perspective" (delivered 13 September 1984, the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN
  
  In addition to all the weaknesses, dilemmas, and temptations  that impede every pilgrim"s progress, the Catholic who holds political office in a pluralistic democracy"who is elected to serve Jews and Muslims, atheists and Protestants, as well as Catholics"bears special responsibility. He or she undertakes to help create conditions under which all can live with a maximum of dignity and with a reasonable degree of freedom; where everyone who chooses may hold beliefs different from specifically Catholic ones, sometimes contradictory to them; where the laws protect people"s right to divorce, to use birth control, and even to choose abortion.
        In fact, Catholic public officials take an oath to preserve the Constitution that guarantees his freedom. And they do so gladly. Not  because they love what others do with their freedom, but because they realize that in guaranteeing freedom for all, they guarantee our right to be Catholics: our right to pray, to use the sacraments, to refuse birth control devices, to reject abortion, not to divorce and remarry if we believe it to be wrong

Vatican2 Listserv List

• John Schwarz: How to vote.
  
  When I see people wondering whether they can in conscience vote for Kerry because of his (rather moderate and unstressed, as a matter of fact) position on abortion, I am greatly reminded of the Jesus-saying about "straining out gnats while swallowing camels." Point one (overruling all others) MUST be that NOT to vote for Kerry is essentially to make a choice to will and acquiesce in and take responsibility for Bush being re-elected, and for his continuing, for the next 4 years, to be a disaster for almost everything that OUGHT to be of fundamental concern to Christians.

Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church

• The Politicization of thr Eucharist by Thomas P. Doyle (July 16, 2004; posted November 1, 2004)
  
  The Code of Canon Law reflects the fundamental right to the Eucharist when it says that “any baptized person who is not prohibited by law must be admitted to Holy Communion.”  (Canon 912).  This canon is directly related to another (canon 213) which codified the fundamental right of all Christians to receive help from the spiritual goods of the church, especially the sacraments:  "The Christian faithful have the right to receive assistance from the sacred pastors out of the spiritual goods of the Church, especially the Word of God and the sacraments." 
              Both canons 912 and 213 use the word Christian and not Catholic as the descriptive of the subject of communion.  This reflects the constant theology that the Eucharist is a fundamental right of all the baptized, not only those who are official members of the Catholic church. (Cf. Lumen Gentium 37).

Robert Blair Kaiser  

• Dave Myers: Kerry Promoter (August 23, 2004)
  I am a John Kerry promoter.  I am a Jesuit priest and a lawyer.  I believe in truth, in peace and in the right to life. ... John Kerry says he opposes abortion.   George Bush has personally authorized the killing of over 50,000 men and women in Iraq.  Over 1000 of them were Americans.  Who supports the right to life?  At the Prayers of the Faithful, I make sure we pray not only for slain Americans, but also slain Iraqis.
      I am deeply committed to the right to life: both "innocent" lives and the lives of the rest of us.  Human life before birth is sacred and human life after birth is more sacred.  Killing people in wars is wrong.  Starving people with inhumane economic structures is wrong.  Denying health care is wrong.  Using educational deprivation to create pools of cheap labor is wrong. 
     (This essay was also published in Robert Blair Kaiser's election issue) 

America Magazine (some of the articles may only be accessed by subscribers)

• "American Catholics and the State," by Gregory A. Kalscheur (August 2, 2004).
  Much of the current controversy regarding the exclusion from Communion of Catholic politicians who espouse pro-choice political positions displays a lack of the careful moral reasoning that ought to characterize serious Catholic reflection on important issues of public policy. 
   
• "My Conscience, My Vote," by David R. Obey, member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
  The basic problem is that I remain a John Courtney Murray kind of Catholic, while Archbishop Burke is not. Murray was the key American theologian who advised the American Catholic bishops during the deliberations of the historic Second Vatican Council convened by Pope John XXIII. Archbishop Burke and I differ only occasionally on what is moral and what is not. But we differ significantly about what requirements the law can be expected to impose in a democratic society on those who do not share our religious beliefs. 
   
• "Prophecy for Justice: Catholic Politicians and Bishops," by Most Rev. Raymond L. Burke, archbishop of St. Louis ( June 21-28, 2004).
  For a bishop or any pastor to exclude someone from Communion is always a source of great sorrow. The sorrow is caused by the care that a pastor naturally has for a soul who rejects the teaching of Christ and his church. What would be profoundly more sorrowful would be the failure of a bishop to call a soul to conversion, the failure to protect the flock from scandal and the failure to safeguard the worthy reception of Communion.
   
• "Holy Communion and Unholy Politics," by Rev. John P. Beal, associate professor, school of canon law, The Catholic University of America (June 21-28, 2004).
  By making it difficult for church authorities to refuse admission to holy Communion to politicians whose public records arguably cannot be squared with church teaching, a necessarily strict interpretation of Canon 915 serves as a brake on the temptation to politicize the Eucharist by allowing the sacrament that signifies and effects the union of love between Christ and the church to become a sacrament that signifies and brings about disunity. Zeal to protect the Eucharist from profanation by sinners can unwittingly lead to an even greater profanation by transforming the eucharistic celebration into a continuation of politics by liturgical means.
   
• "Caught Between God and Caesar," by Joseph A. Califano, Jr. (June 21-28, 2004) As a citizen I consider it preposterous and wrong for the political parties to impose an abortion litmus test on eligibility for their party"s presidential nomination: pro-choice for Democrats, pro-life for Republicans. But that is no reason for the bishops to make the same mistake by imposing a similar litmus test on the right to receive Communion.
   
• "Christians in the World," editorial (June 21-28, 2004).
  John Courtney Murray, the Jesuit theologian who was one of the chief architects of the Second Vatican Council"s "Declaration on Religious Freedom" (1965), used to point out that the church has two goals in its relationship to any state: freedom to pursue its own mission and as much harmony as possible between its values and laws and those of civil society.
   
• "Catholics and Politics 2004," editorial ( May 24, 2004). When questioned by Catholic News Service, European and British bishops showed no interest in employing the denial of Communion as a weapon to control the Catholic politicians in their countries. The Tablet of London even reported last year that Pope John Paul II gave Communion to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a pro-choice Anglican, during a private Mass. One Italian bishop identified the underlying issue with admirable simplicity: "Faith is one thing. Legislation is another." Legislators who believe that abortion is immoral may, rightly or wrongly, decide that legalized abortion is the least of several possible evils in a pluralistic society.
   
• "Voting Conscience," by John F. Kavanaugh (May 17, 2004). The Catholic tradition affirms the supremacy of conscience, our moral judgment. It also calls for a willingness to inform that conscience. I am open to evidence and argument. But I do not accept the dictum that the sole moral issue of November"s election is either the war or abortion. For me it is an election, a choice, between two terribly deficient candidates. With the best evidence I can muster, by November, I will choose one.
   
• "Abortion, Faith and Politics," by John F. Kavanaugh, S.J., (Feb. 16, 2004). If some Catholic politicians seem unwilling even to talk with you about it or give their reasons for supporting unrestricted legal abortion, would you, as a bishop, question whether they should receive Communion as fully integrated members of your faith community?
   
• "The Body Politic and the Body of Christ: Candidates, Communion and the Catholic Church," Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, June 23, 2004. Speakers: Thomas J. Reese, S.J., and George Weigel. Moderator: Luis Lugo
  Question by  Alan Cooperman from The Washington Post: . . . And for Father Tom, John Allen has been asking all the bishops that he can buttonhole in Rome during their ad limina visits a hypothetical question: Could a Catholic lawmaker in good conscience say that he or she opposes abortion flatly, but that as a matter of prudential judgment does not believe that criminalizing abortion is the best way to try to reduce the number of abortions? How would you answer that question?
   
• "Who"s a Catholic to Vote For?" by Joseph A. Califano Jr. (September 9, 2000)
  So what"s a Catholic to do? Make up his or her own mind for whom to vote and, most important, be both informed and engaged. For information without engagement is the stuff of impotence in American politics, and engagement without information is the stuff of demagoguery.
   
• "Ten Building Blocks of Catholic Social Teaching," by William J. Byron (Oct. 31, 1998).
  And if anyone wonders why the Catholic bishops reflect and write occasionally about war, peace, nuclear weapons, the economy, abortion, euthanasia, health insurance and a wide range of other topics that have a clear social and moral dimension, these principles provide the necessary interpretative framework for understanding the significance of the bishops' pastoral letters. They cannot be dismissed out of hand as political tracts; they must be held in respect as important instruments for teaching the Catholic faith.

Articles in other newspapers and magazines

• Kerry's Catholicism  by James Carroll (Boston Globe, September 28 2004) 
  IN LABELING John Kerry "wrong for Catholics," the Republican National Committee is lying about the meaning of Catholic faith, insulting Kerry, and moving the political exploitation of religion to a new low. The Globe's Michael Kranish reported Sunday on the RNC plot to target Kerry's religious unworthiness as a Catholic. Not only do the Republicans distort Kerry's positions on complicated moral questions; they misrepresent the current state of Catholic ethical thought. General outrage is the proper response to this strategy, but Catholics in particular should repudiate it.
     I worship at the same Catholic church in Boston where John Kerry and his wife often attend Mass. Across the years I have observed the senator at prayer, and I have some sense of the seriousness he brings to his devotion. John Kerry's Catholicism is for real. His faith is informed by the spirit of the great renewal that occurred with Vatican II. At that council (1962-65), the Catholic Church finally and fully embraced the principle of religious liberty that had been pioneered in America.

• An election guide for honest-to-God serious voters
  by Joan Chittister,OSB (National Catholic Reporter, September 2, 2004)
  It is not the place of political parties to seek to enlist the religious community as part of its campaign staff. That smells far too much like collusion to me. It smacks far too much of the kind of theocratic thinking that preceded both the French and the Russian revolutions. It sounds too much like the rise of a new Christian Taliban to me. It sounds too much like this year's election, in fact.
     It is not the function of religious figures to condemn specific politicians. That, as far as I know, is still God's role. It is the function of religion to teach religious values and criteria that can then be applied by you and me to the political positions of our politicians. Religion must form us "to hear the cries of the poor" and then to vote accordingly.
  
• "Vatican: Be Careful on Denying Communion" (Beliefnet , Associated Press).
  A top Vatican cardinal told visiting U.S. bishops they should be cautious about denying Communion to Roman Catholic politicians who support policies at odds with church teaching, according to a news report. 

• "Communion Issue Creates Split Among U.S. Bishops" (archived and for sale at NY Times site).
  Six months after Archbishop Raymond L. Burke announced that he would deny communion to Roman Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, only a handful of bishops have said they agree and many more have made it clear that they think he went too far.

• "Does GOP get a free ride?" by Joe Feuerherd (National Catholic Reporter, July 2, 2004)
  On June 2, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., released a report that compared the voting records of Senate Catholics with the  legislative priorities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The scorecard includes a total of 48 actions the Senate took on 24 issues in the current Congress, plus the 2003 Iraq war resolution. The actions were divided into three categories -- domestic, international and pro-life.
       Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry had the highest rating -- supporting the bishops" positions more than 60 percent of the time, though his only "pro-life" actions were those related to the death penalty. Republicans Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois and Sam Brownback of Kansas voted with the bishops more than half the time, with most of that support coming on abortion-related issues.

• "Bishops spare us Eucharist politics," (National Catholic Reporter, July 2, 2004)
  As this week"s cover story demonstrates " and as we have repeatedly pointed out in this space " perfect candidates simply don"t exist. Catholics and the bishops face a genuine dilemma at times in sorting out the obligations of citizenship and of membership in the church. For too long, however, the U.S. bishops have been badly used by politicians whose antiabortion rhetoric is rarely matched by action. Unfortunately, those same politicians know they need not worry about the rest of the church"s social agenda because they"ll never be called on it. President Bush is merely the latest and highest profile politician to benefit from the bishops" single-issue approach. 

• "Catholic Teaching: Does abortion trump all other issues?" by David Van Biema (Time Magazine, June 21, 2004)..
  When Dick Durbin's hometown priest slammed the Senator's pro-choice voting record, Durbin's office did not sit idle. It compiled a scorecard ranking 24 Catholic Senators by their votes on issues of concern to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Abortion made the list, but so did the minimum wage, the death penalty and media ownership, all weighted equally. Democrats did better than Republicans, and the test's high scorer was John Kerry.

• "Battling the Bishops: Is Kerry Catholic enough?" by Karen Tumulty (Time Magazine, June 21, 2004).
  "For most Catholic voters, his appeal"and the campaign's appeal"is around issues that are of importance to the Catholic faith: social justice, the death penalty, taking care of the poor," says Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill. "Catholics, like most people, take things an issue at a time, and they'll decide on the entirety of John Kerry's record and the plan that he puts forward."

• "Documents Add to Abortion Debate," by Peter Steinfels (The New York Times, June 26, 2004).
  

On the question of whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be barred (or bar themselves) from receiving holy communion, the statement simply said that bishops can legitimately make different judgments on the most prudent course of pastoral action.

• "The Bishops And Me," by Joseph A. Califano Jr. (Washington Post, June 27, 2004).
  
When God and Caesar claim controlling jurisdiction over public policy in America, public servants who are Catholic can get caught between a religious rock and a public policy hard place. Sen. John F. Kerry, who is at the center of a controversy over whether Catholic politicians should be denied Communion if their political views contradict church teaching, finds himself there. But he's not the first. I know. I've been there, too.

• "Targeting Democrats Raises Profile of Catholic League," by Kevin Eckstrom (Religion News Service Washington, Aug. 10, 2004).
  Bill Donohue, the bombastic head of the Catholic League, has never met Mara Vanderslice or Brenda Bartella Peterson, but he knows enough about them to know that he doesn't like either one. Both women were charged with overseeing election-year "religious outreach"--Vanderslice for the Kerry campaign, Peterson for the Democratic Party--but fiery criticism from Donohue got them both muzzled.

• "Kerry Seeks to Close Democrats' 'Religion Gap," by Rolando Garcia  (Reuters August 8, 2004).
  Kerry regularly attends Catholic Mass but has often claimed a New Englander's reserve when it comes to publicly talking about his religion. In contrast, Bush, a born-again Christian who openly discusses his conversion, has made his faith a key part of his public persona.
  

• "The Man Behind the GOP's Catholic Strategy," by Deborah Caldwell (Beliefnet).
  Deal Hudson publishes a small-circulation Catholic magazine called Crisis and volunteers as a Bush-Cheney campaign adviser on Catholic matters. This week he announced he would step down from his volunteer position, after the National Catholic Reporter, another Catholic publication, published the details of a decade-old sexual harassment case involving Hudson and an 18-year-old college student.
  

• "A Catholic Social Conscience: Can it be Reclaimed in Our Time?" By Frank Brennan, SJ (Uniya, June 10, 2004 -- An Australian comment on the role of conscience in the Catholic tradition).
  

Were Catholics like me not to talk about the primacy of conscience, we would find it difficult to communicate the message of the Second Vatican Council in its Declaration on Religious Freedom:


In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience faithfully, in order that he may come to God, for whom he was created. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious.

The Church teaching on conscience gives no consolation to the uninitiated thinking they can simply do their own thing. But neither does it accord religious authorities the liberty of insisting upon wooden compliance with their instruction or view of the world. Good conscience must always be accorded primacy even by bishops who would act differently in the circumstances, bearing in mind John Henry Newman"s observation that "conscience is not a judgment upon...any abstract doctrine ... but bears immediately on something to be done or not done".



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Webpage Editor: Ingrid H. Shafer, Ph.D.
Posted 24 August 2004
Last revised 2 November 2008
Copyright " 2004-2008 Ingrid H. Shafer