Sunday, February 22, 2009

Stumping for the Supreme Court, Kmiec Calls the Pope "Intrusive"

Doug Kmiec says Jurists should lack a moral compass to accurately interpret law.


I'd say his latest screed, he's trying to prove as a supreme court jurist, he'd interpret Constitutional religious freedom as legal intrusions:

In his piece Prof. Kmiec implied that the Pope exaggerated or at least did not measure the consequences of his words when he told Nancy Pelosi that "jurists," in addition to legislators, must work "in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

According to Kmiec, such a statement “has the potential, at least theoretically, to empty the U.S. Supreme Court of all five of its Catholic jurists, and perhaps all other Catholics who sit on the bench in the lower federal and state courts.”

The Pepperdine professor suggests the Pope, instead, could take "a different, less intrusive course," by "continuing to observe the difference between a jurist and a legislator."

He'd make one hell of an Ambassador to the Vatican eh?

Archbishop Chaput weighs on Pelosi's eligibility for Communion:

Cavuto also asked Archbishop Chaput if he would deny Holy Communion to Pelosi.

To which, the archbishop responded:

"Well, I’d like to talk to her if she’s coming to church in the Archdiocese of Denver and I’d say to her what I’d say to anyone, if you don’t accept what the Church teaches, you shouldn’t present yourself for Communion, because Communion means you’re in agreement with what the Church teaches, and, as I said to you earlier, that applies to all of us..."

Isn’t she boxed in by Catholic beliefs on the one hand and by a society that is pro-choice? Cavuto queried.

"Well I don’t think it’s a box to defend the truth and to stand up for what you know to be right, even if others in the community disagree with you, and being honest about our moral principles is a sign of maturity, is a sign of being a statesman.

"And I think that politicians are required to be both good Americans and good Catholics at the same time and to be convincing when they present the position of the community on basic human rights," the archbishop replied.

Referring to the issue of abortion, Archbishop Chaput said, "This is a human rights issue, from the point of view of the Church, and not a theological or religious perspective. Our religious perspective supports that, but that’s not the source of our belief about the sacredness of human life."



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