The Pope's Stand in Obama's Notre Dame Controversy

[Mijoy2]

If the Vatican is abivalent, or simply could not care less, does this mean I should I not care? Where is our German Shepard? If the vatican does not take a stand on this I will hearby assume this matter (abortion) to be an overblown issue of the overly pious.
It is either the strong issue we make it to be, or I’ve been a fool.

Yes, this is “Time”, but regardless this issue is well taken here. The vatican, our vatican of which we so strongly profess and submit ourselve to before our brothers and sisters in Christ is SILENT. If they remain so, I see no reason to continue in my fight.

time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1898756,00.html?cnn=yes

 

[fermat]

If the Vatican is abivalent, or simply could not care less, does this mean I should I not care? Where is our German Shepard? If the vatican does not take a stand on this I will hearby assume this matter (abortion) to be an overblown issue of the overly pious.
It is either the strong issue we make it to be, or I’ve been a fool.

Yes, this is “Time”, but regardless this issue is well taken here. The vatican, our vatican of which we so strongly profess and submit ourselve to before our brothers and sisters in Christ is SILENT. If they remain so, I see no reason to continue in my fight.

time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1898756,00.html?cnn=yes

You are exactly right: This a Time article and you should not be looking to this publication to make such a decision as to whether or not the Church has commented on this.

The critical thing to realize is that the Vatican takes a longer view on issues like this. Holy Mother Church is not a dictatorship and she rarely hands down edicts to chastise priests. We, the Church Militant, are the people responsible for making sure that this issue is represented for the outrage that it is. The hierarchical structure of the Church is such to give local bishops leeway in how to handle these matters, which is what is happening here.

Also keep in mind that Father Jenkins holds his position as head of the university at the pleasure of the board of regents for Notre Dame and he is free to act in what he sees are the best interests of the university. The Church’s response to this has been to condemn the action, which is correct; however, the ultimate decision of what to do is still up the Father Jenkins. We all have free will to accept or reject the Church and the Church will not force anyone to make the right decision, no matter how much we may want her to.

Personally, I share your frustration; however, I have been able to use the issue to speak out about what the Church teaches and why, which is something that I am not always able to do. Use Father Jenkins mistake to your advantage.

We will get through this with prayer and each other. Hang in there.

 

[tap11]

Well the whole thing is shameful, so much so that I am for the first time in my life considering Eastern Orthodoxy. Either the papacy exists for the purpose of speaking definitively on a matter or they really are only “first among equals.”

 

[Holly3278]

Well the whole thing is shameful, so much so that I am for the first time in my life considering Eastern Orthodoxy. Either the papacy exists for the purpose of speaking definitively on a matter or they really are only “first among equals.”

Please don’t leave the one true Church. I can guarantee you that the pope is not the “first among equals”! Please read the following:

catholic.com/library/Peter_Primacy.asp

catholic.com/library/church_papacy.asp

scripturecatholic.com/primacy_of_peter.html

 

[CapIV]

If the Vatican is abivalent, or simply could not care less, does this mean I should I not care? Where is our German Shepard? If the vatican does not take a stand on this I will hearby assume this matter (abortion) to be an overblown issue of the overly pious.
It is either the strong issue we make it to be, or I’ve been a fool.

Yes, this is “Time”, but regardless this issue is well taken here. The vatican, our vatican of which we so strongly profess and submit ourselve to before our brothers and sisters in Christ is SILENT. If they remain so, I see no reason to continue in my fight.

time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1898756,00.html?cnn=yes

I can’t believe you are taking this article seriously. The Church is VERY clear on abortion.

The Pope represents the ENTIRE CATHOLIC WORLD. The only university he has control over in the US I believe is Catholic University in DC. This is a job for the bishops, not the Pope.

It is ridiculous for Time magazine to say that most US bishops are just ignoring the controversy. The fact that 70 have spoken out speaks volumes! That many US Bishops never speak out.

 

[katy]

**The Vatican Slams Obama over Abortion **

Note this is another headline farther down the website. Time magazine loves to stir things up and give its own slant. The Holy Father is not likely to weigh in much on things in Indiana, esp. when the local bishop is acting with both faith and prudence. I don’t live to far from there. It’s not like an American corporation, which is the way we tend to think. If someone in the Vatican decided to play overly nice with a US president, there may be a reason behind it we don’t know. I do agree that we could use backup here. At any rate, I don’t see a reason to give up the One, Holy, Catholic Church over behavior of journalists of any stripe.

 

[tap11]

Please don’t leave the one true Church. I can guarantee you that the pope is not the “first among equals”! Please read the following:

catholic.com/library/Peter_Primacy.asp

catholic.com/library/church_papacy.asp

scripturecatholic.com/primacy_of_peter.html

Holly,

The reason I haven’t left, and probably will not leave is that I am fully aware of the theological justification for the papacy. I am just feeling a wee bit overwhelmed by the tidal wave of secularism and the advance of far left ideology. I am also deeply concerned that the Church hierarchy refuses to address these advances in a meaningful way. We hear some bishops say things like “the Eucharist should not be politicized,” and yet in the past bishops and popes aggressively did just that to kings and nobles who misbehaved. Excommunications were not unusual. Ever hear of inderdict?

I think the controversy an Notre Dame demonstrates the point. Even when the Conference of Catholic Bishops issues a document with clear guidelines with respect to who may receive honorary degrees, there appears to be no real effort to censure dissidents.

Our catechisis is failing (I had 10th graders who couldn’t define a sacrament), as was demonstrated when Catholics elected the most pro death president in our nation’s history. In other words, a majority of American Catholics are either ignorant of their faith, or they choose to defy the most basic tenets of the faith. Meanwhile, the Church does little to combat the problem.

I am hopeful that the Holy See responds to the crisis.

 

[lizaanne]

Well the whole thing is shameful, so much so that I am for the first time in my life considering Eastern Orthodoxy. Either the papacy exists for the purpose of speaking definitively on a matter or they really are only “first among equals.”

As my European husband likes to remind me, we have it pretty darn good here in North America and the pope honestly has bigger issues elsewhere. We are not being burned for our Faith, having to hold Mass secretly in underground bunkers, our priests and nuns are not being beheaded, and we are not being physically persecuted for our beliefs as in other parts of the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been one of the most vocal about the whole Notre Dame thing, but honestly when you think about it, I would much prefer that the Holy Father and the Vatican as a whole focus on REALLY serious issues in the world right now and deal with this when he can.

If it comes down to the pope having to decide which issue he’s going to tackle today - the Church in China, or a scandal at Notre Dame, I really would prefer that he address the issues in China first.

This is far from me being indifferent - this is just putting things into perspective. And hardly anything to leave the Church over. sheesh.

EDIT TO ADD:

The article says:

…the Vatican has stayed completely silent on the matter.

This is so far from the truth, and in the very first paragraph!! I stopped reading any further, if they can’t get THIS right the rest is going to be garbage. Archbishop Raymond Burke is about as high ranking in the Vatican as you can get for cryin’ out loud!! Did Time not read his remarks on the issue?

What garbage.

~Liza

 

[SIb4G]

With the Church leadership as it is, it is little wonder to me that there are approximately a million babies killed in this country each year. Who REALLY cares? Many see a tacit, de facto, acceptance of Obama, and what he stands for, with this “Doctor of Laws” honor. I do. But; in fairness to Jenkins, he really seems to be consistent with most of the Church’s hierarchy. He’s also consistent with that everyday Catholic and his favorite mantra: “I, personally don’t believe in abortion; but , who am I to impose…” Who REALLY cares?

Giving the hierarchy the benefit of the doubt, the BEST than can be said for them is that they are burying their collective heads in the sand (and thereby shirking their responsibilty in the gravest of matters), hoping the matter will correct itself. Well, that is NOT the direction this holocaust has been going for the past 36 years!

Explanation? Are they afraid of offending people? Is that the motivation for their silence and timidity? I find it interesting, looking at the demographics, how few, if any, bishops west of the Mississippi have formally protested against this Notre Dame/ Obama thing. This can’t–and shouldn’t-- be just a matter of Church policy (staying out of politics) as there is clearly a divide among the bishops themselves. Thank God for the courageous ones! If it’s pastoral, a matter of representation of respective flock, well God help us, the problem would be even worse than abortion (if that’s possible): the democratization of the Church! A true regression: the worship of a God created by man!

 

[RLT]

Um, the Church in America is not the center of the Holy Mother Church. There is tons of wrongs going on every day all around the world and the Holy Father cannot address all of them. That’s why we have bishops.

 

[tap11]

Um, the Church in America is not the center of the Holy Mother Church. There is tons of wrongs going on every day all around the world and the Holy Father cannot address all of them. That’s why we have bishops.

This is true, but far too many remain silent.

 

[katy]

This is true, but far too many remain silent.

All the more reason to rally behind the ones who are finally trying to help us get our act together.

 

[SIb4G]

Um, the Church in America is not the center of the Holy Mother Church. There is tons of wrongs going on every day all around the world and the Holy Father cannot address all of them. That’s why we have bishops.

What I think is that one million babies a year should get EVERYONE’S attention. What I think is the most powerful man in the world going around promising to give Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice people his full support should get EVERYONE’S attention. What I think is Obama’s appointments of all these pro-choice people to his government (esp. Sebilious in health care, no less) should get EVERONE’S attention. What I think is that sin and evil should stop being ignored in the Sunday sermons. What I think is that there is too much FEAR out there—and it is fear of the wrong things.

Wasn’t there something in the bible regarding Jesus’ opinion of “lukewarmness”?

And how much time and effort does it take a bishop on the west coast or the southwest part of this country to ADDRESS the Notre Dame issue? It’s not too much of a stretch to assume they’re OK with it. Then it comes back to: why? Two answers immediately come to mind: fear and indifference. If it is either of these, I hope it’s FEAR.

 

[7_Sorrows]

TIME magazine will go out of their way to put Obama in the most favorable light in any situation he is targeted, so this is the angle they went with in the article. the Pope has remained silent. BUT students, priests, other bishops, and many Catholics have voiced their disappointment and confusion over this matter. i am sure that the Pope was informed of this and he probably knows which Bishops have spoken out against this invitation. he has had his trip to the Middle East to prepare for and i am sure he has many other pressing issues before him. i wouldn’t be too hard on the Pope. i know it is frustrating, but i don’t think there is anything he can do to prevent Obama from speaking tomorrow night.

 

[chewchoo]

I think the controversy an Notre Dame demonstrates the point. Even when the Conference of Catholic Bishops issues a document with clear guidelines with respect to who may receive honorary degrees, there appears to be no real effort to censure dissidents.
.

yes the church is behind on censure in many arenas, but the church is a huge organization. and over the years it has learned the hard way to not over react too soon. as we see with fr. jenkins, even clear guidelines can be misinterpretted, either due to misunderstanding or on purpose. how many people are good parents with bad kids? why don’t those good parents do a better job of censuring their bad children. if they did then the world would be a much better place. so now take the church and multiply by a million or two or three. i’m not trying to excuse the church hierarchy, but the church has been infiltrated over the years with bad shephards and it is going to take some time to either excommunicate them all or atleast wait for them to die off.

Our catechisis is failing (I had 10th graders who couldn’t define a sacrament), as was demonstrated when Catholics elected the most pro death president in our nation’s history. In other words, a majority of American Catholics are either ignorant of their faith, or they choose to defy the most basic tenets of the faith. Meanwhile, the Church does little to combat the problem.

its a little of both, in this extremely secular society, most people get their current events of the church from time and cnn, who do their best to shoot down the church as this article shows. so all of these lukewarm catholics who are either catholic in name only or just go to church on sunday out of some sense of obligation, but are writing up their grocery list while they are there. and in the mean time, many pastors are just as ignorant. some “just” celebrate mass the same way some parishioners “just” go to mass. we have had 40+ years of the “spirit” of Vatican II, and Catholicism has been extremely watered down. there are many very good priests doing their best to get the message of the Church out to the people. but the problem is that most of the lukewarm Catholics have never even heard of fr. corapi and others.

What I think is that one million babies a year should get EVERYONE’S attention. What I think is the most powerful man in the world going around promising to give Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice people his full support should get EVERYONE’S attention. What I think is Obama’s appointments of all these pro-choice people to his government (esp. Sebilious in health care, no less) should get EVERONE’S attention. What I think is that sin and evil should stop being ignored in the Sunday sermons. What I think is that there is too much FEAR out there—and it is fear of the wrong things.

it doesn’t get their attention because the lukewarms have been desensitized to it. TV has been slowly building the agenda of the left for decades. everyone doesn’t think abortion is a problem. they think babies in the womb are just a blob of tissue even tho there is plenty of information to the contrary. again, if you are immersed in the secular society like so many Catholics-in-name-only are, you don’t know that these things are a problem. sure we have EWTN as a TV source for the Catholic voice, but over here, the cable company stopped carrying EWTN, the Catholic voice was silenced. where are this poor secular Catholics going to learn about these atroscities??

 

[SIb4G]

TIME magazine will go out of their way to put Obama in the most favorable light in any situation he is targeted, so this is the angle they went with in the article. the Pope has remained silent. BUT students, priests, other bishops, and many Catholics have voiced their disappointment and confusion over this matter. i am sure that the Pope was informed of this and he probably knows which Bishops have spoken out against this invitation. he has had his trip to the Middle East to prepare for and i am sure he has many other pressing issues before him. i wouldn’t be too hard on the Pope. i know it is frustrating, but i don’t think there is anything he can do to prevent Obama from speaking tomorrow night.

7 Sorrows—Thank you for your words of encouragement. In my two posts to this thread I have made several references to the Hierarchy, the U.S. bishops and the pope (by the way, I love Benedict XVI and respect him greatly) as followup thoughts to the article which occasioned the thread. Although my remarks may have seemed harsh and perhaps judgemental, and on one level I mean every word I typed ,( I hope I can make this clear) my REAL concern is not the bishops nor the pope. They are players in this drama whom I truly cannot judge. My deep and heartfelt concern is for the babies and the scandalized, that’s all.

 

[bookgirl32]

What I think is that one million babies a year should get EVERYONE’S attention. What I think is the most powerful man in the world going around promising to give Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice people his full support should get EVERYONE’S attention. What I think is Obama’s appointments of all these pro-choice people to his government (esp. Sebilious in health care, no less) should get EVERONE’S attention. What I think is that sin and evil should stop being ignored in the Sunday sermons. What I think is that there is too much FEAR out there—and it is fear of the wrong things.

Wasn’t there something in the bible regarding Jesus’ opinion of “lukewarmness”?

And how much time and effort does it take a bishop on the west coast or the southwest part of this country to ADDRESS the Notre Dame issue? It’s not too much of a stretch to assume they’re OK with it. Then it comes back to: why? Two answers immediately come to mind: fear and indifference. If it is either of these, I hope it’s FEAR.

President Obama is getting the Vatican’s, and most Catholics’, attention. He has been chastised (along with those “Catholics” around him) by the Vatican very publicly. The matter at stake here is not even Obama, it’s the president of Notre Dame! The issue, in this specific instance, should be with him. Obama is far from guiltless here, but he never should’ve been invited in the first place. The fact that the Vatican or the Pope personally have not publicly addressed this specific situation is only due to the fact that there are people who are supposed to be doing so in his authority, and are. Far more could be done, of course, but don’t act as if no one is doing or saying anything at all.

So often Americans tend to think of America as the center of the world, and therefore the center of Catholicism. The Pope not publicly commenting on the actions of the president of a US college is NOT an indication of his position on abortion. Of course Time would spin it this way. And you’re reacting exactly how they want you to. Dramatically responding (responding at all, really) in agreement with Time magazine is only giving credence to its ridiculous propoganda. Ignore them, have faith in the Church and it’s Pope, and do what you personally can to stop abortion. And pray – the Rosary preferably, don’t think that the person for whom this institution is named isn’t deeply involved in all of this!

 

[7_Sorrows]

7 Sorrows—Thank you for your words of encouragement. In my two posts to this thread I have made several references to the Hierarchy, the U.S. bishops and the pope (by the way, I love Benedict XVI and respect him greatly) as followup thoughts to the article which occasioned the thread. Although my remarks may have seemed harsh and perhaps judgemental, and on one level I mean every word I typed ,( I hope I can make this clear) my REAL concern is not the bishops nor the pope. They are players in this drama whom I truly cannot judge. My deep and heartfelt concern is for the babies and the scandalized, that’s all.

i am sure you are respectful of the Pope, i didn’t mean to insinuate that you aren’t.
all of us opposed to Obama being at Notre Dame have a heartfelt concern for the babies.
it is so frustrating to see people have such a nonchalant attitude about this and see nothing wrong with Obama speaking at a Catholic university and receiving an honorary degree. we need to pray that someday there will be an end to all of this death.

 

[RLT]

What I think is that one million babies a year should get EVERYONE’S attention. What I think is the most powerful man in the world going around promising to give Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice people his full support should get EVERYONE’S attention. What I think is Obama’s appointments of all these pro-choice people to his government (esp. Sebilious in health care, no less) should get EVERONE’S attention. What I think is that sin and evil should stop being ignored in the Sunday sermons. What I think is that there is too much FEAR out there—and it is fear of the wrong things.

Wasn’t there something in the bible regarding Jesus’ opinion of “lukewarmness”?

And how much time and effort does it take a bishop on the west coast or the southwest part of this country to ADDRESS the Notre Dame issue? It’s not too much of a stretch to assume they’re OK with it. Then it comes back to: why? Two answers immediately come to mind: fear and indifference. If it is either of these, I hope it’s FEAR.

“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and your religious act like religious.” - Servant of God Fulton J. Sheen

 

[quiet52]

About one-fourth of the U.S. bishops have written to Father Jenkins and/or publicly written and/or publicly spoken against Notre Dame honoring President Obama. Individually – not collectively! Think about this – offhand, I cannot think of any other time when so many bishops spoke up about a singular event, as one voice. If I’m wrong, I’m sure I’ll be corrected in this forum.

Many, many of us are upset about Father Jenkins’ and ND’s action. But because so many bishops, priests, and noted Catholic authors and spokespersons have voiced their protest up about this issue, I have a huge sense of hope. What we must not do after this weekend is to remain silent – let’s keep fanning the flames by insisting that our bishops collectively and individually do what they can to guide and exhort Catholic institutions of higher learning to present a Catholic face rather than one of seeming indifference to pro-life and other issues.

We must also help our parishes raise their collective consciences and activism, and of course we must keep praying.