At some later time, the temporary head of the dioceses apparently changed the official position of the dioceses. That is a separate issue. At the time of the reporting the official position was total support for the priest.

Too bad that you don’t like it, but you don’t get to change the framing at will. You didn’t address my post as written, you tried to re-write it. You do this often, and it is really annoying. I realise that the fact that I prefer a level of civility in comments means that I have to ignore a lot, but it doesn’t mean I’m not aware of it. I spent years analyzing Soviet propaganda and am fully aware of all of the devices. I spent years in Mensa user groups and mailing lists, so I’ve watch the pros go at it. I try to avoid that sort of thing these days, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know it’s happening.

And of course a website published by an official Church organization would never, ever, ever spin things to make the Church look better. After all, in this instance, that would be lying, and lying is a sin.

Perhaps McClatchy is waiting until it finds independent confirmation. I know I would.

Back when I was in the newspaper business, that was called “research,” and it was the sort of thing that was expected if you were going to write a story. It isn’t the loss of civility that worries me–it’s the apparent unwillingness (in some cases, inability) to admit that there might be another side to the story and to seek it out. Small wonder a substantial portion of the electorate is convinced our president-elect is a Muslim who isn’t really an American citizen.

Our side, on the other hand, is supposed to be better at this.

As a confirmed bachelor by temperament [I have issues with my temper] I really resent having marriage and women’s health issues on my ballot. It is none of my business or concern, but I am being forced to deal with it. I don’t care who people marry, or if they marry. I don’t care if people want, or don’t want children. Those are decisions of the individuals involved, not mine and not the government’s.

What was that bit I read in Bible studies once as a kid… some strange word… Ummm… love? Something like that… Dunno, haven’t heard it for ages.

“Death is too good for them!” 😉

I wonder if the church lawyers read of the incident in 1988 at the main clinic of Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas (a computer client of mine), the one in which all of us had to work through the smell of butyric acid tossed through the window the night before… Dog knows what it did to the patients, most of whom were there for anything but an abortion. Or if those same lawyers thought a few months later about the Operation Rescue folks who collapsed their bodies on top of nonviolent clinic defenders… one local newspaper reporter, known to be anti-choice, joined in the assault (and I’m not using that word casually) by leading his camera crew straight through the clinic defenders’ line. Where were those bastions of legality and morality then?

Sorry; they get no sympathy from me. If they want to feel noble about what they do, let them feel noble despite all the women who die for lack of basic reproductive health care as a result of the disruption of ordinary clinic activities not related to abortion.

Truth be told both issues are a matter of inherent rights. The government needs to get out of peoples lives and stop interfering in personal decisions about sex and medicine. People get to choose their religion and can leave if they don’t want to follow the rules, but those rules shouldn’t be imposed on society in general.

It is possible that the attorneys for the Church read the IRS code and noted that what was said violated the part about advocacy for an individual candidate. Who knows, and, really, at this point who cares what religions do to their believers?

One can talk endlessly about whether this priest’s action represents official church policy or not. Or one can admit what many American Catholics refuse to admit: that individual Catholics’ views on abortion are highly variable in America, and often extend all the way to unapologetic political action, if not obstruction of the entrances of Planned Parenthood clinics, or worse… sometimes by church leaders. JFG that, too.

Why don’t people at KOS provide links instead of requiring people to use a search engine to verify what they are saying?

I provided the link to the story I was commenting on when I wrote it which reflects what I was saying and the conclusions I drew. Those conclusions are consistent with the statements coming from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the actions of individual bishops in this country since the 1980s.