History Forum / General / General Topics / December 2003

From: "Robert Nordlander" <nord@famvid.com>
To: <bilcar80@aol.com>
Subject: Response to Ronert E. Meyer Re Bishop Burke
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 12:03:26 -0600

December 20, 2003

Editor

Readers Response

Togethe in Faith

pmkiley@hotmail.com

715 W. Harris Street

Appleton, WI 54914

Robert E. Meyer, an evangelical Christian, applauded the decision of a
Roman Catholic bishop to impose spiritual sanctions on Roman Catholic
legislators who do not cast votes in conformity with the political stance
of the Vatican on certain issues. His letter in the December 14 issue of
Together in Faith presented the view that the sovereign ruler of a foreign
country should be able to dictate to American legislators what the laws of
the United States should be.

Mr. Meyer might counter by saying that only Roman Catholic legislators are
affected by the decision of Bishop Raymond L. Burke and other bishops, who
could follow his lead by requesting certain Catholic legislators not to
present themselves on occasions when they expect to receive the sacraments
of their church. It so happens that Roman Catholic legislators occupy a
goodly portion of the seats in America's legislatures and in the Congress
of the United States of America.

Does Robert Meyer want Protestant clergy to dictate to legislators
belonging to a Protestant denomination who share their faith? Are the
clergy.going to be our behind-the-scenes dictators of legislative policy?
Fortunately, there is no danger of that happening as there is no monolithic
Protestant position on any of the many controversial social issues
confronting American legislators today.

And why is this the case? Mr. Meyer speaks of a legislator's "duty to God."
He assumes that Bishop Burke knows of what that duty consists because it
happens to conform with his own notion of what that duty should be.
Fortunately, "God" conveys different messages concerning "duty" to people
who do not believe the pope is infallible in matters of morals and faith.

When Alfred E. Smith ran for President on the Democratic ticket in 1928, he
lost the election partly because of the idea held by the vast Protestant
majority that the Vatican would make Smith its puppet. America was a land
where it was respectable to belong to the Ku Klux Klan, an organization
that not only hated African-Americans but also had a visceral hatred for
Catholics and Jews. The action of Bishop Burke can only succeed in adding
fuel to this kind of animus against Roman Catholics and perhaps even revive
the kind of anti-Catholicism that was brought out in the presidential
election of 1928.

In 1960, the election of John F. Kennedy showed that America had matured
since 1928 although it was necessary for the Democratic candidate for
president to demonstrate his fidelity to that unique American
constitutional principle known as separation of church and state before a
group of Protestant ministers in Texas. Thanks to JFK, Americans no longer
fear the prospect of a Roman Catholic president. That healthy state of
political affairs could change if the Roman Catholic Church withholds the
sacraments to legislators who wish to receive them. That form of spiritual
terrorism is anathema to Americans.

It is my understanding of Roman Catholicism that if the pope has not spoken
ex-cathedra on a topic, Catholics are under no moral obligation to accept
pronouncements on various subjects when not delivered ex-cathedra. If my
understanding is wrong, I am sure someone reading this will hasten to
correct me. According to Marquette University moral theologian Daniel
Maguire,

Catholics are free to exercise their conscience and take their chances with
"God" when it comes to the issue of abortion. Moreover, it would appear
that the official philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church, St. Thomas
Aquinas supports this view as he concluded that "ensoulment" did not occur
in the womb until six months of a pregnancy had passed. (See THOMAS
AQUINAS:THE ANGELIC DOCTOR, Professor Jeremy Adams, Southern Methodist
University, The Teaching Company, 2000).

One would have thought that Bishop Burke would have learned that spiritual
coercion, as the cases of Luther and Galileo proved, suggests that his
church is morally and intellectually bankrupt if it cannot make its case on
the issue of abortion and other controversial social issues through
persuasion, by providing a better argument than the other side is able to
muster. Is that the conclusion Bishop Burke would like non-Catholics to
come to - not to mention many thinking

Catholics of conscience themselves?

And Robert Meyer needs reminding from an atheist, that Christianity hears
many messages from "God." What messages are "authentic" can only be
determined, if at all, by serious reflection and thought. Spiritual
terrorism is bad policy for any church. It is quite amazing, that an
evangelical Christian applauds the Roman Catholic version of it. Mr. Meyer
would do well to ponder the words of Chuck Currie, a United Church of
Christ seminarian, who has written the following:

"Threatening to withhold sacraments to punish people for their political
leanings is upsetting to people in many different faiths. Hopefully, the
recipients of his letters will continue to vote without fear of punishment
in a free society."
(http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2003/12/bishop_raymond_.html)

Robert E. Nordlander

nord@famvid.com

333 Lopas Street

Menasha, WI 54952

920-725-1864