- LOS ANGELES (CWNews.com)
- A consultant to the Vatican has said Democratic presidential candidate
John Kerry has incurred the penalty of excommunication from the Catholic
Church.
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- The consultant made his statement in a highly unusual
letter to Marc Balestrieri, a Los Angeles canon lawyer who formally sued
John Kerry in ecclesiastical court for heresy.
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- Balestrieri, who launched his case earlier this year
by filing a heresy complaint in Kerry's home archdiocese of Boston, told
EWTN's "World Over" program on Friday that he had received an
unusual, indirect communication from the Vatican's Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith regarding the pro-abortion stance.
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- That communication provides a basis, he said, to declare
that any Catholic politician who says he is "personally opposed to
abortion, but supports a woman's right to choose," incurs automatic
excommunication. It also provided a basis for Balestrieri to broaden his
canonical actions and file additional complaints against four more pro-abortion
Catholic politicians: Democrat Senators Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and
Tom Harkin of Iowa; Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine; and former
New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a Democrat.
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- The current action could be significant as it could undercut
the entire debate over denying Communion to pro-abortion politicians. An
excommunicated Catholic may not receive any of the sacraments of the Church,
including the Eucharist, marriage, and even Christian burial. The type
of excommunication outlined in the new information is called latae sententiae,
which means that it occurs automatically and does not require a formal
pronouncement by any Church official.
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- Balestrieri said he went to Rome in late August to discuss
his canonical case with experts, including an official of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith. Less than 10 days later, he received a letter
from Father Basil Cole, a Dominican theologian and consultant to the congregation
based in Washington, DC, who said he had been "delegated" by
Father Augustine DiNoia, undersecretary of the congregation, to give an
unofficial response to the question that Balestrieri had submitted.
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- "I went to Rome in person to submit two critical
questions to the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith," said Balestrieri.
"The first: Whether or not the Church's teaching condemning any direct
abortion is a dogma of Divine and Catholic Faith, and if the denial and
doubt of the same constitutes heresy. The second: Whether or not a denial
of the Church's teaching condemning every right to abortion also constitutes
heresy. Father Cole, an expert theologian who studied the matter carefully,
responded in the affirmative on both counts."
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- Father Cole wrote, "If a Catholic publicly and obstinately
supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the Church teaches officially
against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy envisioned by Can.
751 of the Code [of Canon Law]. Provided that the presumptions of knowledge
of the law and penalty and imputability are not rebutted in the external
forum, one is automatically excommunicated ...."
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- Balestrieri said the response was unusual in several
respects: that a response was provided to a layman at the request of the
undersecretary in only 11 days, that the response was in writing, decisively
clarifying the matter, and that it was in far greater detail than a typical
official reply. "Normally, only a bishop may request such clarification
of doctrine from the CDF, such responses usually take a much longer time
to be received, and they are rarely made public," he said.
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- He also said that the original canonical complaint of
heresy against Kerry had received so much response from the public that
the tribunal of the Archdiocese of Boston has been deluged with thousands
of letters from ordinary Catholics who wish to add their names to the complaint.
The head of the archdiocesan tribunal reportedly told him that the case
had not been rejected and was "now in the hands of the archbishop,"
that is, Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston.
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- Balestrieri, a self-identified political independent,
says that his actions come as a defender of the faith and Holy Eucharist
from sacrilege and scandal, not as one focused on an electoral outcome.
"Our victory can come as early as today: It would be for Sen. Kerry,
who publicly calls himself a Catholic and yet in violation of Canon Law
continues to receive Holy Communion, to repent of his grave sin and publicly
recant his abortion advocacy."
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- The complete text of Father Cole's response as well as
other details of the pending cases are available on the DeFide.com web
site: http://www.defide.com
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- http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=50517
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