Pope Talked About Church, Not State

An Op/Ed from the La Crosse (WI) Tribune:

Last week, as Pope Benedict XVI traveled to Brazil on his first intercontinental apostolic voyage, he also conducted another first of his pontificate as the plane was in-flight — a full-fledged media interview.

The questions ran the gamut from liberation theology to the pope’s new book; but the question on which the media fixated was that of La Repubblica reporter Marco Politi, who asked the Holy Father whether he agreed with the threat of the Mexican bishops to excommunicate the Mexico City politicians who had recently voted to legalize abortion.

“Yes,” the Holy Father replied. “This excommunication is not something arbitrary, but it’s part of the Code (of Canon Law). It’s based simply on the principle that the killing of an innocent human child is incompatible with going to Communion with the Body of Christ.”

Within minutes, literally, articles began appearing on the Internet, with their headlines screaming, “Pope confirms excommunications.”

And, even before the plane landed, the media furor and confusion were so great that spokesman Father Frederico Lombardi had to release a transcript of the pope’s remarks and reiterate precisely what he had said — that Catholic legislators who promote initiatives like the legalization of abortion exclude themselves from receiving Communion.

Here in the United States, outrage greeted the pope’s comments. Just days after they were given, 18 pro-choice members of Congress condemned the remarks in a letter. The penalty of excommunication “offend(s) the very nature of the American experiment and do(es) a great disservice to the centuries of good work the Church has done,” they wrote.

But the Holy Father was not concerning himself with these Catholics’ politics in his answer — he was concerning himself with the state of their souls.

Whether religion has a place in politics, especially here in the United States — where many people erroneously believe that the separation of church and state means not only that the state may not interfere in religion but also that religiously motivated people may not interfere in the state — is not at issue here. At issue, rather, is whether a spiritual body can formulate a system of belief and say: “If you don’t believe what this spiritual body believes, then you do not belong to us.”

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This Week's Rosie Award Winner: Catholic Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives

House Dems Repudiate Pope’s Abortion Remarks

Belated Rosie Award Winner for Last Week: Sen. Patrick Leahy

Democrat Response to Pope's Abortion Comments