It’s sad to say this, but unless politicians are publicly held accountable by the Church for defying basic fundamental rights, everyone thinks they can do the same.  A good public excommunication seems to be in order, but my opinion is that of one lowly Catholic.

The question of Communion for politicians may be interesting to debate, but that’s not what’s going to stop this bill.  The Governor has already separated himself from communion with the Church by his conduct.  He’s a politician.  That’s his religion.  All he understands is political power.  If he were open to the teaching and discipline of the Church we wouldn’t be here.  What’s needed now is for New Yorkers to contact the Governor and their legislators to stop this radical bill.

Gosh I hate politics….

I have come to the only reasonable conclusion I can:  the majority of our Bishops are cowards.  Its that simple.  I know I will be chastised for being “uncharitable”, etc.  So be it.  Cardinal Dolan is supposed to be willing to shed his blood for the faith—the symbolic color red he now wears—but I wonder if his biggest fear isn’t being spoken of badly on the Today Show and in the New York Times.  Its one thing to stand up to the HHS regulations when every other Bishop is as well; strength in numbers and all that.  But what will he do with Cuomo.  I say the same thing for Archbishop Lori in Baltimore regarding Gov. O’malley who seems to be in a constant competition with Cuomo to see which Catholic Governor can out liberal the other and get attention on the national scene.  Without censure or outright excommunication, the Bishops are causing serious scandal to the faithful with their inaction.

This guy needs to go until he gets in line. For sure. The only reason that I know of that such persons are not excommunicated as often as deserved is because of some hope that by remaining in communion, that God’s grace will lead to repentance. But if that worked, there’d be no need for correction or rebuke.

Well and bravely said, Pat, but for too long the Bishops have been little more than servile chaplains to the Democratic Party—and in saying this I do not praise the Republican Party in any way.

I agree Pat.  I can’t tell you how many times my non-denominational Christian friends point this out to me.  Why would they have any interest in the Catholic faith when most of the well known Catholic politicians are anything but Catholic.  I think if they publicly state they are Catholic and openly defy her teachings, then the bishops have the obligation to publicly correct them up to and including excommunication until the politician publicly states their mistake.

If it has not happened already, it needs to be made public.

Waiting for a sinner to repent is fine but didn’t St. Thomas More reproach King Henry VIII for his wicked behavior?  Didn’t John the Baptist warn Herod about his adultery?  Did Our Lord say that it be better for a millstone to be tied around one’s neck than to lead others to sin?  Isn’t it a spiritual work of mercy for the Cardinal to warn Cuomo that his soul is in mortal jeopardy?  Just wondering.

His state lost two congressional districts due to population shift, and this is his response?

Really?  The Bishop of Albany, he is pro-life but won’t excommunicate or take string action.  I’ve lived up there and know.

So when is Cardinal Dolan going to excommunicate Gov Cuomo ‘ab homine’?
What about Joe Biden?  Nancy Pelosi?  Carolyn Kennedy?  etc., etc?
When are US Bishops going to get serious about Canon 915 as well?
When are US Bishops going to stop the SCANDAL, and slow relativism within the Church?
1 Cor 5:11-13.
What are they afraid of, when they have Jesus on their side?

Cuomo is the product of Catholic education.  He went to Saint Gerard’s School, Archbishop Molloy High School and Fordham University which describes itself as “The Jesuit University of New York”.  What more can you say??  So much for supporting “Catholic education”.

I’m freaking out the whole ‘medical personnel outside of physicians’ being allowed to do abortions when this is signed.
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At my kid’s ortho (who really is good), you can also get botox because one of the other doctors went to a seminar and was trained/approved.  Will we see similar weekend seminars and signs at our dentists, orthodontists, etc., etc.?
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And while so many of the posts want to wag a finger at the bishops and cardinals as lacking a backbone.  How many other Catholics in NY State are going to start heading towards Albany and picket the capital building?

If Cuomo goes, so must they all go. @maureen: “A good public excommunication seems to be in order, but my opinion is that of one lowly Catholic.” must read: “but my opinion is that of one good Catholic.” You weren’t a “lowly” voter or citizen, why must you be a “lowly Catholic”? To save the unborn, you must be a majority of ONE. Kick that idiot out of office and give the office of governor of New York to somebody who can read…our Constitution. “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The Blessings of Liberty are not bestowed by Cuomo, but by our Creator, and Cuomo is not getting any.

Cuomo’s sins will be visited on his children for ten generations.

To Mary De Voe:

Yay! and Amen!

Yay! and Amen regarding the first post.

Cuomo’s sins being vistied on his children?  I pary to God not for their sake.  Hopefully, somewhere they were correctly catechized and do not share their father’s view on things.

I agree with many of the comments above.  The effects are DEVASTATING when Catholic politicians, entertainers and academics are permitted to flagrantly and publicly defy the Church and its teachings without reprecussion. No one is saying they can’t advocate for abortion rights, or gay “marriage”, or women’ ordination, or call the Holy Father a “Nazi”, to name just a few recent examples, but they should not be able to remain Catholics in good standing if they do. At least not until they repent.  It causes SCANDAL.  It leads the less sophisticated among the faithful into error and puts their souls in jeapardy. In my opinion, this is the result FEAR: fear of being seen as too political; fear of losing state funding for charitable programs; fear that the pews may be emptier (and thus the coffers emptier) if people are put to hard choices. Well, it’s time to put people to hard choices before it’s too late.  Would St. Peter or St. Paul have allowed this nonsense from members of Christ’s Church?  I think not! In the early Church penances were PUBLIC and ONEROUS.

Agree with comments especially Don’s.  The bishops are letting these public figures cause scandal.  I pray for our bishops and priests every day.  Maybe we should all say a daily prayer for them as part of our prayers.

Is Andrew Cuomo the problem or is the problem Cardinal Dolan who refuses to excommunicate Mr. Cuomo?

@LarryW2LJ “Yay! and Amen regarding the first post.” God bless.

“Cuomo’s sins being visited on his children?  I pray to God not for their sake.  Hopefully, somewhere they were correctly catechized and do not share their father’s view on things.”

I, too, pray. The fact is that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children for ten generations as are the blessings of God for goodness and virtue. Cuomo ought to realize that violence to the law of God will have consequences for ten generations and there is no escape, except maybe repentance. Obama is their “savior” but Obama is not going to be here to save anybody in 350 years. The bishops ought to have mercy on the children of these imbeciles and stop the scandal or ready the millstones.

If I may play Devil’s Advocate:

I think that barring a politician from Communion or even excommunication would not have the intended medicinal effect.  Instead, not only would the Church be further vilified (no surprise there), but the politician would be further praised for “being courageous” and “witnessing truth to power” and other various empty expressions. He/she would then attend services at an Episcopalian or “inclusive Catholic” community (like Spiritus Christi in Rochester), and, amid the cameras, receive Communion there…

@Dave P. Your point is well taken. There will be persons led astray by a politicians excommunication and the resulting “praise”. However, many many more persons are led astray everyday by the thinking that its ok to be——- and still be Catholic. This is one of the tactics of the enemy “keep the game in play”. And although people may leave the Church, at least excommunication is honest, one way or the other.

  Total agreement with all here who favor excommunication.  Abortion is clearly infallibly settled in section 62 of Evangelium Vitae.  I differ only in that I see the Pope as also responsible for not excommunicating once a Cardinal fails to do so.  The hierachy is trying to image the Church as never hurtful.  It’s their way of changing history in retrospect.  That’s how we got the bizarre change on the death penalty.  Church as the softer side of Sears.

Dave P - If I may play Devil’s advocate in reply: I guess you are saying the Bishops should not take a public and forceful stand for the Truth because too many people might reject it? What would the Apostles have done? I doubt they would have permitted a member of God’s Church to publicly advocate the slaughter of the unborn, or homosexual “marriage. Are not our Bishops the successors of the Apostles?

“But Cuomo doesn’t want live children, he wants dead ones and more of them.”
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Thanks for this Pat, keep up the great work. Please continue the hyberbolic right wing rhetoric that was instrumental in preventing the election of Christianist republicans and other assorted zealots. Thank you for the continued divisive, intolerant, and juvenile comments which ensure the declining influence of the Church on our society. Thanks for forgetting that the majority of New Yorkers listened to this kind of hateful bile throughout 2012 and voted to reject it. You are a truly a gift to secular society.

“Zeke”, are you one of those “thinking Catholics”?  Do you think Cardinal Dolan is “divisive, intolerant, and juvenile”?

It’s ironic that when it comes to abortion, my very Protestant home state of Mississippi is more “Catholic” than any allegedly “Catholic” blue state.

Greg, Cuomo’s Catholic Education, at least not in Elementary and High School, did not cause him to be as he is, I blame his family and how they lived what he was taught in Catholic Education.

Cbalducc,
Not at all, in fact I think Dolan is a class act. As he wrote to the the president in his letter of congratulations after the election in November: “We pray, too, that you will help restore a sense of civility to the public order, so our public conversations may be imbued with respect and charity toward everyone.” He knows how to disagree with pro-abortion folks without resorting to calling them murderers.  And I sincerely doubt he would wish, as one faithful Catholic has put it, that “Cuomo’s sins will be visited on his children for ten generations.” Repulsive.

Dear Zeke,
“Cuomo’s sins will be visited on his children for ten generations.” Repulsive.

Tell it to God, Zeke, that is straight from Holy Scripture,. I will find it for you, try the Old Testament. Do you think God is not seeing or hearing or knowing what Cuomo is doing? Look what Mario did to Andrew.

Zeke are uou a practicing Catholic or a liberal progressive watchdog who has been assigned to comment on anti-progressive thoughts?

Zeke,

Is abortion murder?

Is abortion murder? Legally, clearly no, so I assume you ask if it is morally murder. Is the abortion of an 8-month old fetus, which we know feels pain and could survive outside the mother with medical care, morally murder? Yeah, probably. Can we say the same about a 4-month old fetus? What about a 2-month old? Hmmm, now the morality of it gets trickier. Is using hormonal birth control that may prevent a minuscule mass of reproducing cells from implanting and developing further (i.e. abortifacients) murder by any fair definition? I certainly don’t think so.
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Only when we add the notion of “ensoulment” does this last scenario become even worth arguing about. Even past Popes and great doctors of the Church didn’t believe that newly fertilized eggs had souls. So in the pluralistic society we live in, it makes little sense to criminalize such “abortions”, and those who scream at others who simply don’t believe this (which includes a fair percentage of, if not the majority of, Catholics) are rightly marginalized as fanatics. The point is, if Catholics want to have a meaningful public conversation about abortion with the hope of enacting laws to limit them, calling the Catholic Governor a killer is a poor strategy.
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PS - I’m not a Catholic. I’m just an ex-Catholic atheist who still admires much about Catholic culture and tradition and probably has too much time on his hands.

By all means speak out against abortion but don’t present crude and unChristian caricatures of others. To open your article by stating that Gov. Cuomo ‘wants dead children’ is wholly reprehensible and means that nothing else you say can be taken seriously. Appearing to line up with the pro guns lobby is not a recommendation either. You have a forum - treat it and others with respect and dignity.

Zeke, Geris:The Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the Catholic Church maintaining that from the moment when she was conceived the Blessed Virgin Mary was kept free of original sin and was filled with the sanctifying grace normally conferred during baptism[1][2] It is one of the four dogmas in Roman Catholic Mariology. Mary is often called the Immaculata (the Immaculate One), particularly in artistic and cultural contexts.
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, here copied from Wikipedia, tells us that the soul is present from the very first moment of existence for every human being. The human being is composed of body and soul and begins his life because of his soul. God creates the soul and endows the human soul with unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, Happiness, intellect, free will, sovereign personhood and sanctifying grace. Man procreates the body. The procreated human body is being aborted. The breath of God in man, his human soul, is scraped from the womb. When the soul leaves the body, death occurs. If the soul is violently torn from the body, it is called capital one homicide.
The newly begotten sovereign person, a morally and legally innocent human being, constitutes our sovereign nation from the very first moment of his existence and is the standard of Justice for the state.  Abortion cannot be legalized or codified because crimes cannot be legalized. This innocent person becomes a citizen at birth. But as a man created equal, is put to death for the crimes and sins of his parents. DNA proves that the child is an individual person. His personality grows from his personhood. And yes, sins are visited onto the tenth generation.

Well, Geris, How does one tidy up broken baby bodies, scraped from the womb in torn limbs and bits and pieces? How does one swallow having the 2nd Amendment changed without being ratified by 2/3 of the states? Paul Erlick wrote the Population Bomb. Now, he and Anne Erlick wrote Children Destroy Civilization. These are indeed very serious charges against the most vulnerable persons on the face of the earth, created equal and endowed by God with unalienable rights. Denying unalienable rights to one person denies unalienable rights to all persons.

@Zeke: The dogma of the Immaculate Conception tells us that the soul is present from the very first moment of existence for every human being. The human being is composed of body and soul and begins his life because of his soul. God creates the soul and endows the human soul with unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, Happiness, intellect, free will, sovereign personhood and sanctifying grace. Man procreates the body. The procreated human body is being aborted. The breath of God in man, his human soul, is scraped from the womb. When the soul leaves the body, death occurs. If the soul is violently torn from the body, it is called capital one homicide.
The newly begotten sovereign person, a morally and legally innocent human being, constitutes our sovereign nation from the very first moment of his existence and is the standard of Justice for the state.  Abortion cannot be legalized or codified because crimes cannot be legalized. This innocent person becomes a citizen at birth. But as a man created equal, is put to death for the crimes and sins of his parents. DNA proves that the child is an individual person. His personality grows from his personhood. And yes, sins are visited onto the tenth generation.

@Zeke: God creates the soul and endows the human soul with unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, Happiness, intellect, free will, sovereign personhood and sanctifying grace. If the soul is violently torn from the body, it is called capital one homicide.  Abortion cannot be legalized or codified because crimes cannot be legalized. This innocent person is put to death for the crimes and sins of his parents. DNA proves that the child is an individual person.

Mary, I hear your pain, and know you are since. However, shrieking at others who don’t share your notion of God is a proven losing strategy. Peace.

If you people would put half the effort you put in anti-choice causes into banning assault weapons, we would have reasonable gun control in this country.
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In your ideal world, there would be no contraception, no sex outside marriage, no homosexuality and no abortions. It would be perfectly legal to buy an assault weapon and 100-round magazines to mow down school children for population control.
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Go figure.

Fran: Normal people do not accuse others of violent crimes without proof for a court of law. As far as the “right to choose” to murder another sovereign person in the womb, one would have to prove that he is guilty of capital one homicide to be executed for the sins of his parents. Roe denied the man and father the ownership of his offspring in a court of law. How do you excuse denying to every man his seed?
Zeke: Nirvana is not my choice for peace, but if it please you to hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil, then stop using my name and calling my posts shrieking. There is only one Supreme Sovereign Being as two preempt each other. The atheist denies his human soul and places himself at a detriment and inflicts his detriment on the whole of creation. Our U.S. Constitution states: “or prohibit the free exercise thereof.”

So you will fight to prevent women getting abortions, but you won’t fight to prevent mass murderers from obtaining assault weapons to kill 100+ people in a church, school, shopping mall, theater, etc.
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I don’t recall the father of Roe’s child claiming any ownership of his offspring. He didn’t care much for his seed after he squirted it into her, and he didn’t want the role of fatherhood.

I will fight to prevent the will of God to be aborted, Divine Providence to be ignored. You see no connection between 55,000,000 sovereign persons being slain in the womb and a psycho wanting the same power over life and death that the abortionist has?
One man’s callousness and crime ought not distress the whole of mankind. The Supreme Court refused to find truth for every man. P.S. Those men who lust and do not love are not men, they are demons.

“If you people would put half the effort you put in anti-choice causes into banning assault weapons”
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Fran probably has no sense of self-irony about using the term anti-choice and then turning around and calling for a ban on “assault weapons.”

//I will fight to prevent the will of God to be aborted, Divine Providence to be ignored. You see no connection between 55,000,000 sovereign persons being slain in the womb and a psycho wanting the same power over life and death that the abortionist has?
One man’s callousness and crime ought not distress the whole of mankind. The Supreme Court refused to find truth for every man. P.S. Those men who lust and do not love are not men, they are demons.\\
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So you must be God—how else would you know God’s will? Is that how you know how many abortions have been done? 
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Are you female? You seem more concerned about “seed” than most men do.

If it were not for this society’s disrespect for human life and constant exposure to sex, objectification of persons and violence in the media; that maniac would have never have picked a rifle and killed 20 children and 6 adults. A sick society means those on the fringe are sicker.  No one ever took a revolver into a school in the last 150 years and killed 6-12-18 children.. While there should be restrictions on magazines, it certainly, certainly, wasn’t “the gun”.

Dr. David Freud—I am an atheist and I rape and murder as many people as I want. No one has arrested me yet.
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I’m sure you buy many of the products that use sex to sell. Have you stopped your subscriptions to porn yet?

P.S—Lanza did not kill those kids and people by hitting them with porn magazines.

@Rex King “Lanza did not kill those kids and people by hitting them with porn magazines.” Lanza killed those people because Lanza was never given the TRUTH. It is the duty of the state to serve the truth, “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity…” The Premable to our Constitutiion. The Blessings of Liberty are endowed by our Creator, the Supreme Sovereign Being, banned from the public square, the public school, the public venue. Pornography, the lie about human sexuality has indeed filled the vacuum, soon to be followed by the lie about marriage, the fake husband, the fake wife, the fake mother, the fake faither. Violent films, the like of which produce cruelty to man and beast. Tearing babies from their mother’s wombs tops the list of cruely and evil, except maybe leaving the child who becomes citizen at birth to die in a cold, dirty, broom closet. People may not share the love of God with one another because the atheist has imposed, inflicted his denial of the Supreme Sovereign Being using his God-given free will and unalienable civil rights to denude American citizens of our freedom to acknowledge our Creator and share our freedom in kind. Where does an infant child of the court go for TRUTH?
@Paul: “So you must be God” You will love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, your whole mind, your whole strength, and your neighbor as yourself…or you will be a blasphemer.

@RexKing: “I am an atheist.” “I AM” is God’s name. For an atheist to say: “I AM am atheist” the atheist uses God’s name.

Mary De Voe:
I already read your troll-logic. It’s no uses discussing anything relevant with you. I was answering David.
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Your answer to Paul in amazingly illogical and stupid. Maybe you should take you medication.

“... You will love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, your whole mind, your whole strength, and your neighbor as yourself…or you will be a blasphemer.”
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So. I’m a blasphemer. No problem.

Rex King: You proved my point about atheists imposing and inflicting their detriment on people

Mary De Voe—You’re not making any sense. you shouldn’t drink alcohol when your on psychiatric medicine! Are you still drooling on your keyboard?

Belated reply:  I am in favor of a strong stand by the Bishops.  I just know how things will play out.

Paul, Rx: God is existence. Man comes into being because God is being. If you did not exist this post would be unnecessary. You are the finest example and proof that God exists and loves you even in your blasphemy.
Dave P. These souls have already self-excommunicated themselves. Sebelius may not receive the Holy Eucharist. Their work condemns them. Pius XII could not publicly condemn Hitler, yet he worked behind the scenes for the good of the Church.

For Catholics, unborn are divine only when it’s convenient:
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/23/catholic-hospital-argues-_n_2534383.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
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I dare you to read this.

To Mary from Paul,
Thank you so much for bringing that to our attention.It’s hard to judge from a newspaper article or two but there have certainly been Catholic healthcare groups that fall quite short of Catholic teaching in their practises.Ditto for Catholic politicians.

Kathleen: Yours is a fine answer.

My point—calling yourself a Catholic doesn’t mean anything. They are just as good and evil as anyone else, and have no right to tell others what to do, or to claim they are being oppressed by same sex marriage, contraception, medically necessary abortions, or clergy getting punished for child abuse like any other citizen.
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“Blasphemy” is not a crime.