As you recall, Archbishop Chaput has been very forceful is saying that the culture of life should be predominant in our thoughts come election day. Well, you’d expect a motley bunch of secularists, atheists, and liberals to cry foul. I just didn’t expect it from a couple of nuns. Here’s a letter to the editor from The Denver Post from two Denver nuns who are essentially telling the Archbishop to mind his own business and they’re going to support Obama. Sad. Here’s the letter:
As Catholics and supporters of Sen. Barack Obama’s candidacy, we appreciate Archbishop Charles Chaput’s clarification in Sunday’s Post that he is speaking as a private citizen when he takes issue with Sen. Obama and his supporters.
We had supposed that since the official archdiocesan newspaper last week included a voter guide supporting John McCain from a group calling itself Colorado Family Institute (different from the guide promoted by the U.S. bishops), the archbishop might, perhaps, be attempting to influence the choices of Catholic voters.
We honor the archbishop’s right to support the candidates and issues he believes best represent his deepest values, and applaud his recognition that not all Catholics will make his choices their own.
We also appreciate the respect for primacy of conscience in our decision-making, as enunciated by Josef Ratzinger, now our current pope, Benedict XVI, who wrote: “Over the pope, as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else — if necessary, even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.”
We are making our ballot choices as adults and as faithful citizens who have weighed the issues in light of the gospels and the justice teachings of our church. We encourage all Catholics to do likewise.
Sister Mary A. Coyle, Denver
Sister Mary Ann Cunningham, Denver
This is a snarky letter written with nastiness in intent. It’s no wonder the faithful are so confused.
October 30, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Where did Benedict say that? Smells out of context.
October 30, 2008 at 2:43 pm
That is shameful and quite disgusting.
October 30, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I hate to say this but many Sisters seem to be the worst dissenters these days. We all answer to the same God, however.
October 30, 2008 at 3:10 pm
As bad as the Sisters’ letters are, you should avoid the comments section unless you want your blood pressure to double.
October 30, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Irenaeus,
This is the source of the quote:
A commentary on Gaudium et Spes (“The Church in the Modern World”) in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, Vorgrimler, Herbert (Ed.), Burns and Oats, 1969, p. 134.
October 30, 2008 at 3:46 pm
What these “Catholic” sisters (and all who put out this dissent-via-my-conscience) are missing is that the Pope is referring to a healthy, not deformed, conscience. Sure, your conscience can tell you that Obama is great, even if he thinks infanticide is good in some instances, but that choice shows that your conscience is DEFORMED.
Kate
October 30, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Thanks Crankycon. I don’t take BP medications yet. Didn’t Sahkespear say, “get thee to an apothecary”?
I can not understand how anyone, especially a religeous, can misunderstand that Christ’s statement about “No greater love…” and not understand that the greatest love of all for one’s fellow man (human being if you are a liberal theologian), is to promote and foster life, and to protect the most defenseless in society.
October 30, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Sorry, my fingers get lysdexic.
October 30, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I looked up the quote. It doesn’t quite mean what they take it to mean. But, more importantly, it is not an idea that belongs to Ratzinger. He is explicating what he believes Newman’s take on conscience to be.
They obviously didn’t read it.
October 30, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Reading is not necessary. Just grabbing quotes out of context that sound like they support our view. Or at least like they ought to.
Yes, many times nuns are the worst. Seriously infiltrated by feminism and socialism.
October 30, 2008 at 5:08 pm
The funny thing is, a lot of folks will dress up as nuns this Halloween thinking they’re being oh-so-transgressive, not realizing that Sister Mary Moonbat is probably at the same Halloween party dressed in devil’s horns or something.
October 30, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Wanna bet they’re in a dying order?
October 30, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Yup, there are some VERY wayward nuns out there. And not to generalise, but the most wayward I have met are in their 50’s – 70’s. What these particular nuns fail to grasp (or are simply ignoring) about the quote in question is that conscience does NOT mean you can trump dogma. Meaning, if your conscience tells you abortion is “just fine”, then you are at odds with fundamental Catholic teaching and are not a Catholic in good standing.
Frankly, this whole catch-phrase of “conscience” and “judgemental” is overused and most often a nauseating code-word for “dissident” or “protestant”.
October 30, 2008 at 6:19 pm
“We are making our ballot choices as adults and as faithful citizens (not faithful Catholics, however) who have weighed the issues in light of the gospels and the justice teachings of our church. We encourage all Catholics to do likewise.”
They, the good sisters, and not Holy Church will decide what the Gosple means. These women are not just silly, they’re blasphemous.
–William
October 30, 2008 at 7:30 pm
“if your conscience tells you abortion is “just fine”, then you are at odds with fundamental Catholic teaching and are not a Catholic in good standing.
This slop is what I was taught in the Episcopal Church preparing for my Confirmation. This is one of the BIG reasons I came into the Catholic Church- we have a Catechism and it says we cannot make our own moral judgements based on what we would like to believe, we must make them based on what God, the Saints, the Pope, and scholors much smarter than ourselves have figured out.
So sisters, read two big books, both the dusty one that says BIBLE on the front as well as the green one which says The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Bet you will learn a great deal of what true justice is.
October 30, 2008 at 7:32 pm
What these “Catholic” sisters (and all who put out this dissent-via-my-conscience) are missing is that the Pope is referring to a healthy, not deformed, conscience.
I remember a nun from the Archdiocesan office visiting our RCIA class and informing us quite clearly that our consciences were the final arbiter in all matters. I remember thinking, So all that stuff the Church teaches about morality is basically just hot air?
Way to confuse a neophyte Catholic, Sister. Thanks a lot.
October 30, 2008 at 7:59 pm
For a proper understaning of conscience see the book new book by Father Thomas D. Williams: Knowing Right from Wrong: A Christian Guide to Conscience. There was a Q&A with him at Zenit:
Q: Why this book, and why now?
Father Williams: This book is more necessary now than ever before. If ever our society needed greater moral clarity, it is now.
The two major errors concerning conscience — conscience as infallible, unimpeachable guide and conscience as a mere vestige of Freudian superego — are even more prevalent today than they were 30 years ago.
Q: Care to explain these errors in a bit more depth for the uninitiated?
Father Williams: Many today appeal to conscience as the final arbiter of good and evil. By this view of conscience, good and evil do not exist outside of our moral judgment, but are created by it. What I sincerely judge to be good and right becomes good and right because of that judgment. Sincerity is all that matters. By this logic, it makes no sense to try to tell someone else what is good or right, even, for example, if you are the Church's magisterium. In the end, conscience would not apply an objective moral law that stands above it, but would supplant the moral law. Conscience would trump everything.
October 30, 2008 at 10:43 pm
These twisted sisters are locked in the I’m-a-princess-in-an-honors-class stage of emotional and intellectual development. Such a prissy letter would disgrace a 16-year-old.
— Mack
October 30, 2008 at 10:53 pm
What they are quoting is true (not sure if Benedict actually said it)–but they are giving it a meaning it is not intended to have. Cardinal Newman’s letter to the Duke of Norfolk explains this correctly:
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section5.html
October 31, 2008 at 12:56 am
They left out the part about informing your conscience according to truth, which includes that directly procuring an abortion is also inherently evil and morally forbidden.
I guess these nuns just don’t like babies very much.