Washington Cardinal McCarrick Says He Supports Same-Sex Civil Unions o

[Seven77]

The Cardinal is a good man... i mean i've heard his homilies. Sometimes i do think that when it comes to PR stuff he doesn't know what he's saying/doing..

pray. hope. don't worry.

[XIX]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1001294' date='Jun 9 2006, 12:30 PM']
This saddens me. Cardinal McCarrick is a good man and a good Bishop.

That said, even a good man errs. I doubt this will be the last we hear of this. Hopefully Cardinal McCarrick will clarify himself.

By the way, someone asked if the Church has addressed this. Pope Benedict XVI issued a document not to long ago, when he was still a Cardinal:
[/quote]
ssssssscore

[OLAM Dad]

[quote]Cardinal McCarrick is a good man and a good Bishop [/quote]

I won't be so bold as to make a judgement about his person. However, sending messages to a nationwide audience that conflict with the official teachings of the Magisterium would make one question just how good of a bishop he is. At best, he is confusing his flock. At worst, he is leading them astray.

[quote]Hopefully Cardinal McCarrick will clarify himself.[/quote]

Clarification is not necessary. He did not just answer 'yes' to the the question. He answered yes and THEN he clarified his answer immediately. He has clearly placed his position on this manner as one outside the Church. He needs to publically recant his statement and do penance.

[Guest Rick777]

[quote name='thedude' post='1001222' date='Jun 9 2006, 09:49 AM']
I cannot describe my disgust.
[/quote]

Ditto.

[heavenseeker]

you have got to be kidding. If I had not just read that I would not believe a Cardinal would ever say such things.

[Era Might]

[quote name='OLAM Dad' post='1001386' date='Jun 9 2006, 03:57 PM']
He has clearly placed his position on this manner as one outside the Church. He needs to publically recant his statement and do penance.
[/quote]

I am willing to give Cardinal McCarrick, who has been a consistent defender of Church teaching, the benefit of the doubt. It's true that what was said does not appear to be consistent with Church teaching (if it is an accurate transcript), but that does not mean Cardinal McCarrick is necessarily setting himself against the Church. Again, let's wait and see what comes of it. There is a difference between doctrinal error and theological error. Perhaps Cardinal McCarrick is making fine distinctions which ultimately will not square with the established teaching of the Church; but that would constitute theological error rather than disobedience.

It's evident that he was not coming out and supporting homosexuality or homosexual relationships, but personal benefits (such as visiting someone in the hospital). This itself is an important nuance. Again, that doesn't mean his considerations would ultimately justify civil unions, but even the holiest of Saints have gotten their theology muddled.

[quote]Among the prelates, indeed, one or other there may be affording scope to criticism either in regard to personal conduct or in reference to opinions by him entertained about points of doctrine; but no private person may arrogate to himself the office of judge which Christ our Lord has bestowed on that one alone whom He placed in charge of His lambs and of His sheep. Let every one bear in mind that most wise teaching of Gregory the Great: "Subjects should be admonished not rashly to judge their prelates, even if they chance to see them acting in a blameworthy manner, lest, justly reproving what is wrong, they be led by pride into greater wrong."

--Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter "Sapientiae Christianae"[/quote]

Edited June 9, 2006 by Era Might

[cmotherofpirl]

Lets give the good man the benefit of the doubt. He wasn't giving a speech, he was having a conversation.
How many of us have tried to make a point and it just doesn't come out quite the way we meant?

[qfnol31]

Two words:

"Natural Marriage."

[OLAM Dad]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='1001456' date='Jun 9 2006, 04:34 PM']
Lets give the good man the benefit of the doubt. He wasn't giving a speech, he was having a conversation.
How many of us have tried to make a point and it just doesn't come out quite the way we meant?
[/quote]
I agree, he should be given the benefit of the doubt. He made his statement 4 days ago. I'm waiting on some sort of official correction. In the past he has sided with John Kerry regarding the issue of whether pro-abort polititions should be welcomed at the communion rail.

Below is a mostly even handed column written by Robert Novak (a convert to the faith) regarding his meeting with Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign.

[quote]WASHINGTON -- Readers of the Catholic Standard, official publication of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., raised their eyebrows two weeks ago. They learned of a 45-minute meeting April 15 of Sen. John Kerry with the Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Why did Sen. Kerry seek a meeting with a prelate who was not his bishop and whom he never had met?

The answer was grounded in high-level political intrigue. McCarrick heads the task force on Catholic participation in public life established by the U.S. bishops. Its most publicized task is to inquire whether politicians who defy Catholic teaching should receive the sacraments. About to become the first Catholic since John F. Kennedy to be nominated for president, Kerry was lobbying McCarrick against being denied Holy Communion as an unwavering pro-choice abortion advocate.

Whether his lobbying helped, Kerry could not have been more pleased by his interview published in last Thursday's Catholic Standard. While asserting abortion "may be primary," he added that "people who are with us on one issue" may be "against us on many other issues." McCarrick concluded: "All these things will have to be weighed very carefully." Intentionally or not, he was following the lead of liberal, pro-choice Democrats and providing cover for Kerry with traditional Catholics.

Cardinal McCarrick is so respected and well-liked that not only priests but also prominent laymen do not want to criticize him. Without mentioning McCarrick by name, publisher Deal Hudson of the conservative Catholic magazine Crisis told me: "Anytime our leaders allow the life issue to be made one of many issues provides cover for Kerry's effort to attract Catholic votes."

McCarrick's interview is far more important than Cardinal Francis Arinze's recent Vatican declaration that priests must deny Communion to pro-choice politicians. The decision is not in the hands of Rome but of local bishops. I asked one highly placed source to measure Arinze's impact on leaders of 195 American dioceses. "Little or none," he said. "The weak will ignore it. The brave and courageous will be encouraged, but they already know they are right."

Even before last week's interview, McCarrick had opposed withholding Communion as a "sanction" against offending Catholics. He fortified that position last week by asserting that abortion is only one issue even if it's the most important one. That fits the claim made by Catholic Democrats in recent days that Cardinal Arinze's position raises questions about sanctions for advocating capital punishment or even war in Iraq.

Actually, the Catholic Catechism asserts that "the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty." As far as war in Iraq is concerned, it apparently meets the Catechism's definition of "just war."

In contrast, Vatican Council II declared abortion to be an "unspeakable crime." Pope John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae (Gospel of Life) encyclical in 1995 asserted that responsibility for this crime "falls on the legislators who have promoted and approved abortion laws." This encyclical, uncompromising on abortion, defends the death penalty "in cases of absolute necessity." Indeed, abortion is not only a "primary" issue as described by McCarrick, but there is no other issue described in Catholic doctrine as threatening a loss of sacraments.

The problem may be the Cardinal's statement April 11 on Fox News Sunday a few days before Kerry came to visit him: "I'm happy that I have friends on both sides of the aisle." He obviously meant not an abortion aisle but the political aisle, a concept that imposes on a prince of the Church the burden of exercising even-handed judiciousness between Republican and Democrats.

The pro-choice politicians seem to be winning the first round, but one priest familiar with how the Church operates told me that more and more American bishops, influenced by John Paul II, will deny communions and "finally 'out' liberal Catholics for what they are at heart, Protestants." This priest sees the day when "pro-abortion politicians will stop calling themselves Catholic or repent of their sins." That surely will not happen before the 2004 election.[/quote]

[OLAM Dad]

5 days. Still no clarification that I've seen.

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

He was clear enough for me.

[Fides_et_Ratio]

... Let us double our prayer for priests and bishops, that they remain faithful and obedient to the Church and her teachings at all times.

[Oik]

Amen to that Fides.

[KatS]

[quote]He thinks it is his swan song. He is saying it and can say it because he is retiring.[/quote]

Seems so. I just figured that this kind of talk is something that can get a Church leader excommunicated.

[dspen2005]