"The Vatican Has Few Indulgences For You, Rudy!"

(Hat tip: Amy Welborn)

From The New York Observer:

Rudy Giuliani has made it clear that he doesn’t “get into debates with the pope.”

The Roman Catholic Church, however, is already debating what to do with the likes of Mr. Giuliani.

Pope Benedict XVI and the bishops who run the Catholic Church have a longstanding practice of not directly commenting on the political candidates of any single country. But when presented with Mr. Giuliani’s position on abortion, American Cardinal Edmund Casimir Szoka, the president emeritus of the governatorate of Vatican City State, was clear.

“That’s not very acceptable to us,” said Cardinal Szoka in a phone interview with The Observer. “Because if he says, ‘Well, I’m personally opposed but I believe a woman should have a right to choose,’ well then, how can you be personally opposed? It’s a contradiction.”

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and a top Vatican official who is generally considered to have a more liberal outlook, also said in a separate interview that a Catholic politician holding positions like those of Mr. Giuliani—the former Mayor says that he is morally opposed to abortion but supports abortion rights—created a “contradiction.”

“To be pro-choice is directly against the fundamental Catholic position, and I don’t see how it could be possible,” said Cardinal Kasper, who is a member of the Roman Curia, the body that enforces the pope’s policies, shapes the doctrine and runs the government of the Holy See.

“It’s complicated,” he said. “Questions of conscience are always complicated. But if somebody wants to be in public life, as a Catholic, he should also state Catholic positions.”

LAST MONTH, FOR THE FIRST TIME since some high-powered Vatican cardinals indirectly criticized Democratic nominee John Kerry in the 2004 election for his pro-choice position, these esoteric questions about Catholic doctrine moved out of the theology classroom and onto the tabloid front pages. On a plane to Brazil, Benedict suggested to reporters that “excommunication” was a viable option for pro-choice Catholic politicians. (“Rudy vs. Pope” was the resulting Daily News headline.) The pope’s spokesman immediately clarified the position, emphasizing Benedict’s argument that such a position was “incompatible” with receiving communion.

Mr. Giuliani, who is the only pro-choice Republican candidate for President and the only pro-choice Catholic among the leading candidates in either major party—addressed the question by saying it was between him and his pastor. “Issues like that for me are between me and my confessor,” he said. “I’m a Catholic and that’s the way I resolve those issues, personally and privately.”

But that statement reflects only one aspect of a fundamental debate now occurring in the church between those members of the worldwide Catholic hierarchy who, like Mr. Giuliani, believe that the matter of communion is a private matter of conscience between an elected official and his confessor, and those who believe that the question of administering the sacrament to a public supporter of abortion rights is, as the pope recently wrote, “not negotiable.”

No matter what conclusion is reached, another question—of equal political significance—is how the church should apply its decision to Catholic elected officials who share Mr. Giuliani’s views. Cardinal Kasper, for example, laughed at the prospect of summarily excommunicating pro-choice Catholic politicians, a policy that would lead to the canonical expulsion of most elected officials in the traditionally Catholic countries of Western Europe.

“I don’t want to excommunicate all types of people,” he said. “But it’s a serious thing. The church has to take serious its own positions. It cannot be without consequence when a Catholic publicly departs from these positions. The church has to take serious its own position.”

That matter will soon come to a head once again in a highly visible debate with consequences for the candidacy of Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the nomination of a party that has voted in every Presidential election in the past three decades for openly religious Christians. In November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will finalize its position on political responsibility for Catholic politicians. And for the first time, the proceedings will be discussed in open session and opened up to the floor, so that any of the roughly 400 bishops can weigh in or propose an amendment to the conference’s statement.

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My Comments:
I have been, probably, the most anti-Rudy Catholic blogger out there, posting on the subject approximately once every day. That will continue.

But I want to make an observation and then a prediction. Observation: The Church, which was slow to react to the candidacy and eventual nomination of pro-abortion Catholic John Kerry, doesn't appear to be sitting on its hands with respect to pro-abortion Catholic Rudy Giuliani. Prediction: Bishops who were reticent about speaking out against the candidacy of Democrat John Kerry will NOT find that they have similar qualms about speaking out against the candidacy of Republican (albeit RINO) Rudy Giuliani.

I hope that the reverse will not be true, and that those bishops who were most outspoken against Kerry in 2004 will remain just as outspoken with regard to Giuliani in 2008.