LAT to Pope Benedict: Don't Listen to Conservative Catholics
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/dave-pierre/2007/11/14/lat-pope-benedict-dont-listen-conservative-catholics
LAT to Pope Benedict: Don't Listen to Conservative Catholics
By Dave Pierre | November 14, 2007 - 22:45 ET
A trip to the United States from Pope Benedict is still nearly six months
away (April 2008), but the Los Angeles Times is already in a tizzy. An
editorial in Wednesday's Times (11/14/07) advises the Pope to shun
"hard-liners" and "conservative Catholics" and listen to "other Catholics."
The Times is concerned with the issue of whether or not abortion-friendly
politicians who claim they are Catholic should receive Holy Communion. As
they so often do, the Times avoided the "liberal" tag for these "other
Catholics":
When Benedict comes to the United States, he is likely to be importuned
by conservative Catholics to side with the hard-liners. He would be wiser
to listen to other Catholics, laypeople as well as clergy, who know what
mischief would be caused by a decree that would seem to force some Catholic
officials to choose between their responsibility to their constituents or
the Constitution and their standing in the church. These American Catholics
believe, as President Kennedy said in 1960, in "an America where the
separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would
tell the president -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no
Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote."
Do you believe this? The Times believes that when Catholic politicians
support unfettered abortion, they are showing "their responsibility to
their constituents [and] the Constitution." Good ... grief.
The Times also exhibits a glaring double standard in quoting President
Kennedy about a "separation of church and state" and that "no Protestant
minister [should] tell his parishioners for whom to vote." This past
spring, as we reported in this post, candidate Barack Obama openly
campaigned at First AME Church in South Los Angeles. "Obama danced and sang
with the choir and the congregation prayed for him to become president,"
reported KTLA in Los Angeles. "[Stevie] Wonder was ushered onto the stage
next to Obama, where he sang a song saying in part 'Barack Obama is going
to be the next president,' as the congregation amened."
Yet there was not a single syllable of criticism or a cry from the Times
about this. Meanwhile, the Times wants to advise the Pope and Catholics
over "separation of church and state."
A double standard at the Times? Of course. It's ... not ... the ... first
.... time.
(P.S. - I won't even get into the condescending headline of the Times's
editorial: "Teaching the pope." The Times wants to teach the Pope? It's
Pope Benedict who could teach the Times a few things!)
—Dave Pierre is the creator of TheMediaReport.com and a contributor to
NewsBusters.
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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