Kennedy Denied Communion
By Rachel Stockton
Just as his uncle’s Catholic faith made headlines fifty years ago, Patrick Kennedy’s Catholicism and its influence on his politics is currently making news; albeit for vastly different reasons.
JFK’s dedication to his faith (he was the first Roman Catholic president) made some uneasy; there were those who feared an unhealthy alliance between Kennedy and the Pope would ensue if he was elected. Patrick Kennedy’s apparent lack thereof, at least when it comes to abortion, is causing tension and has catapulted him into the headlines.
In a phone interview Saturday, Kennedy told reporters that Roman Catholic bishop Tom Tobin has refused to allow to him to receive communion. He also said that Bishop Tobin has instructed other priests in the state to refuse Kennedy the sacrament. A spokesperson for Tobin, however, claims that he issued no such mandate to other priests in the diocese.
The Catholic Church has unequivocally held on to its opposition on abortion; while many Catholics now practice birth control, abortion is viewed as murder, and an attempt to circumvent the will of God.
Holy Communion in the Catholic Church is one of the holy sacraments. Practicing Roman Catholics believe in extreme unction; in other words, that the wine and unleavened bread are transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ - a belief that in itself, is somewhat controversial.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation
Extreme unction refers to a completely different sacrament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_unction
This is exactly why I left the church, and religion in general. Good people just don't behave like this.
PS: What is the connection to this story and the website FOOD CONSUMER, anyway?
Bread & Wine!
Whether you agree with it or not, they are entitled to take a position just as we all are; and to conduct the affairs of their Church as they see fit.
Apparently it's Kennedy himself making a public issue of it, I believe because it will promote his name and perhaps gain support for his own agenda. Seems a bit 'off' to me. A PR war isn't how I'd suggest anyone ought to settle any conflict with their church. Suggests he's no more a Catholic at heart than I am...
As for Bishop Tobin's actions, I invite everyone to read his open letter to Kennedy to get a fuller, more accurate view of the issue. (http://www.thericatholic.com/opinion/detail.html?sub_id=2632) This is not a political issue -- though there is no proof in the world that would lead certain people to believe otherwise. It is an issue of Kennedy's deliberate, public and obstinate act of choosing to not accept Catholic belief YET still wanting to go through the "motions" of being Catholic. If you don't believe in Catholic teaching, you're not Catholic - which seems to be a fair, logical conclusion. It's not a club that he automatically gets membership to because he has the last name of Kennedy.
WOW!!!! This tit for tat strategy came from a religion organization. Now I understand why people are abandon the church everyday.
1376ce-- The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."206
1377ce- The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.207
2)I was in private Catholic school from grades 1-12, and during 1 year of my University career. 3 years of my University career were Comparative Religions/Religious philosophy.
In the Roman Catholic Church- the eucharist & wine are literally, not symbolically, transformed into the body & blood of Christ after the priest says the magic words and makes the appropriate magical gestures. There have been various philosophical loopholes created so that one is not engaging in cannibalism.
If you're Catholic, and you believe communion is symbolic, then you need to join one of the various other flavors of Christianity, as this is a real sticking point and was one of the aspects of the Catholic/Protestant split.
Doesn't matter to me, but I'm sure some poor souls were exiled or tortured or cleansed of their mis-understanding on the rack or by fire at the stake. Orthodoxies take this stuff seriously... you can't control a population properly unless they believe in the gig, and act accordingly, 100% of the way.
Look to the current middle-east, and the sunni/shi'ite split (and the attempts of one group to exterminate the other one on a fairly regular basis)- it's over what would seem to most people to be fairly minor quibbles. (like the whole communion thing seems to be a fairly minor quibble, but it's been very hotly debated topic thats altered the river of history)
Problem is the church can't ban everyone so they just pick the high profile "hot button" issues. The Catholic base is conservatives, and conservatives love the death penalty. So the church tiptoes around that one and instead focuses on abortion. Keeps the dollars flowing in so they can pay off all the child abuse lawsuits.
Did you know that most Catholics have never read the bible but rely on their priests to do so for them?
That's one of the reasons so many little boys and priests were (are still?) left alone for long periods.
One quick response to Cliff Andrade's comment about the Eucharest. The Catholic Church does, in fact, teach that the consecrated host IS the body and blood of Christ. Likewise the "wine" is the body and blood of Christ. It's not symbolic. It's real. The difficulty is that it seems counterintuitive to us human beings. And that is where faith is required of us. It's tough to believe, but we're asked to believe it anyway. We might, intellectually not "get it" but we're still asked to accept it. As a matter of faith.
Scotty: do you know that practicing Catholics hear three readings from the Bible each Sunday? And that, over the course of a three-year liturgical cycle, hear the entirety of the Gospels? Didn't think so...
steve smith says "Why in hell do we give 2 cents what the biggest abusers of children in the history of the world say or do?"
SS: do you realize that it's not "2 cents" but "2 percent" that you're railing against? That's right--Catholic priests who have abused children amount to 2 percent of the population of Catholic priests... that's the same percentage of all sexual abusers of children, across all groups! In other words, this isn't a *Catholic* dynamic, it's a *contemporary* dynamic, and simply one to which the Catholic Church isn't immune, as it's made up of people, just like the rest of society!
You mean the country founded on "the law of nature and nature's God"? Hmmm. I'm sure that would come as a shock to the likes of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
I'd say it's less than any countable points on the Weight Watchers scale, but might throw your Atkins off a bit if you're in a hard core induction phase.
Ener-G has some wafers that are hypo-allergenic, made with methylcellulose that are probably lower in carbs than standard wafers. Though remember- just because it's says 0 carbs/fat for ONE serving on the label due to labeling laws allowing the manufacturer to round down, doesn't mean you should eat the whole box in one sitting.
Avoid the chocolate-dipped if on low-carb... unless the cocoa is very dark:
http://blagotube.onehourparkingshow.com/?p=61
mmmmm... chocolate dipped Savior. It's almost devils food ;)
Indeed as the excerpt below clearly states, the fastest-growing churches continue to be the Roman Catholic Church, the Assemblies of God and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ("the Mormans"). Though the last one mentioned is arguable not actually Christian, these three churches are generally considered to be of the "socially conservative" variety, whilst the churches which continue to lose members (up to 10% between 1995 and 2005!) are those that are generally considered to be socially liberal (i.e., support gar marriage, women priests and bishops, etc.).
Despite the desperate claims that the established, traditional and orthodox churches are "on the wrong side of history", it is in fact the "Christian" churches which cater to the wishy-washy, fadish, "modernist" and "progressive," "bein'-good-means-feelin'-good" viewpoints which appear to be heading straight for the history books. And the reasons are clear: "modernists" and "progressives" also tend to be pretty self-absorbed, capricious, superficial, and believe in moral relativism. It is above all the latter trait which is so devastating to any society or social organization. No group or society which adheres to such an extreme brand of moral relativism ever endures.
"The Catholic Church remained the largest Christian church in the U.S. in 2005 with a reported membership of 69,135,254, or nearly 42 percent of all Christian church membership.
With an increase of 1.94 percent over its previous year's total, the Catholic Church was also among the fastest-growing of the nation's 25 largest churches, followed closely by the Assemblies of God, which recorded 1.86 percent growth, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with 1.63 percent growth.
In 2004 the Catholic Church came in third behind the other two in rate of growth. Because of annual fluctuations, a better indicator of trends is membership change over a longer period, such as a decade.
Between the 1997 and 2007 yearbooks, the recorded change in Catholic population was from 60.3 million to 69.1 million, or an increase of 15 percent. The Assemblies of God recorded growth of nearly 19 percent in that decade, and the Latter-day Saints grew by nearly 21 percent.
Six mainline Protestant bodies among the 25 largest churches showed losses in membership in 2005. The United Church of Christ was down 3.28 percent; the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2.84 percent; American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., 1.97 percent; Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 1.62 percent; Episcopal Church, 1.59 percent; and United Methodist Church, 1.36 percent.
Three of these, the Episcopalians, Presbyterians and United Church of Christ, lost more than 10 percent of their membership between 1995 and 2005."
read more at: http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=23906
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