Still Comfortable?

WaPo notes today a new ad campaign from American Life League:

A Roman Catholic antiabortion group launched an advertising campaign against Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington yesterday, attacking him for saying he is not comfortable denying Communion to Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and other Catholic members of Congress who support abortion rights.

The Virginia-based American Life League said the advertisements are the beginning of a $500,000 print ad campaign targeting bishops who are reluctant to punish Catholic politicians for taking policy positions that defy the church. The first ad shows Jesus in agony on the cross and asks: "Cardinal McCarrick: Are you comfortable now?" ....

Later, we see that Cardinal McCarrick's "spokeswoman" is a very witty dissembler:

The cardinal's spokeswoman, Susan Gibbs, said he had not seen the full-page advertisement that began running yesterday in the Washington Times, the Catholic weekly the Wanderer and the conservative journal Human Events because he was in Italy following meetings with Pope John Paul II last week. But Gibbs responded to the campaign's rhetorical question about McCarrick's comfort by saying that he "is very comfortably in communion with the church on this issue."

"In our teaching, the primary responsibility is on the individual whether to receive Communion after serious reflection on whether they are in the proper state," she said. "The cardinal has been clear that he would be very reluctant to use the Eucharist as a political sanction." ....

If we let them — McCarrick & Gibbs — get away with (1) lying about "our teaching" and (2) casting this issue as a "political sanction", we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Then, a professor at Holy Cross in Worcester reveals himself to be either profoundly ignorant or another dissembler, or both:

.... David O'Brien, a professor of Roman Catholic studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., said McCarrick appears to be trying to find a middle road between punishing politicians and remaining silent. He said all bishops must "protect the integrity of the church's teaching" by speaking out against the "grave scandal" that results from high-profile Catholics flouting church doctrine.

But, he said, "if they push this too hard, it could easily backfire on them. People are going to say, 'Where is their moral leadership on a whole lot of issues? How many bishops have resigned because of their mishandling of sexual abuse? Why didn't they speak on the war in Iraq? What effort did they make to bring to the attention of their own people the positions they've taken on war, capital punishment and poverty?" ....

Why didn't they speak on the war in Iraq? is a question that could be asked only by (1) the ignorant or (2) the deceptive.

(Thanks, Fr. Wilson.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 05/07/04 06:41:06 PM
Categorized as Religious.