The poll is on the left in this article in The Times-Tribune:
What is your reaction to Bishop Joseph Martino's expected resignation?
As early as 2004, he said he would "very, very seriously consider" denying Holy Communion to politicians who have supported abortion rights, then strengthened that promise during the prelude to the 2008 election, when he said he would deny Communion to public officials, including then-vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, "who are Catholic and who persist in public support for abortion and other intrinsic evils."
His most striking interjection into the debate came after his unannounced arrival at a political forum at a Honesdale church in 2008, when he criticized the crowd for discussing a document released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that defined abortion and euthanasia, as well as racism, torture and genocide, as among the most important issues for Catholic voters.
"No social issue has caused the death of 50 million people," he told the audience at St. John's Catholic Church, then added, "This is madness, people."
In several public letters, Bishop Martino criticized the abortion-related voting record of Sen. Bob Casey - a Catholic Democrat from Scranton opposed to abortion rights - whom he accused of "cooperating with ... evil."
He threatened to close St. Peter's Cathedral during Scranton's St. Patrick's Day celebrations if local organizers honored elected officials who support abortion rights; he sought documentation from four local Catholic universities to prove they do not provide or encourage the use of contraceptives; and, at the national bishops' meeting in Baltimore last year, he told fellow bishops they eventually will have to address their collective "reticence to speak to Catholic politicians who are not just reluctant, but stridently anti-life."
2 comments:
I find it interesting that this is playing out around the celebration of the Memorial of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist.
Orthodoxy is also about trade unions though. One problem is his going against the teacher's union while Benedict's encyclical commended the place of unions...
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/07/08/papal-encyclical-workers-rights-to-form-unions-must-be-honored/
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