Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[OrangeFluffyCat]

A Los Angeles-based Canon Law expert announced on Friday he has received a boost from the Vatican in his case for heresy against the Democratic candidate because of his support of the right to abortion.

Marc Balestrieri, who filed the formal case against Kerry in July, says he has received a written response prompted by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, affirming that Catholic politicians who persist in supporting the right to abortion are "automatically excommunicated."

According to Balestrieri, the response says "if a Catholic publicly and obstinately supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the Church teaches officially against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy envisioned by Can. 751 of the Code. Provided that the presumptions of knowledge of the law and penalty (Can. 15, § 2) and imputability (Can. 1321, § 3) are not rebutted in the external forum, one is automatically excommunicated according to Can. 1364, § 1."

Balestrieri calls the response "significant" because it "represents the first time in modern history since Roe v. Wade in 1973 that such a clear reply is given to the Catholic faithful."

The Canon Law expert has filed similar "denunciations and complaints" against four other pro-abortion Catholic politicians: Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, and former New York governor Mario Cuomo. The four have been chosen, he says, because of their "consistent, extensive, and public pro-abortion records."

The Response states that any Catholic who denies or doubts the two main conclusions, after knowing of their existence, commits Heresy. The Response holds that the dogmatic force of the two propositions is "manifest," a term not lightly used by any theologian. This means that one is dealing here not with a matter of a theologian's personal opinion, but with two core non-negotiable Articles of Faith. The Response, therefore, is "official" and binding in that it simply restates infallible teachings of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, already stated unequivocally by Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the CDF, and Tarcisio Bertone, then secretary of the CDF, in their own commentaries to the Professio Fidei of 1998. Hence the Response's rapid and forceful content.

The Response goes even further in specifying that any baptized Catholic who publicly states, "I'm personally opposed, but I support a woman's right to choose," is in fact presumed by Canon Law to be guilty of heresy, with the burden of proving that he is not shifted to the violating politician. A Catholic who publicly professes the right to choose heresy is automatically excommunicated, not by any declaration of the Church per se, but by the acts committed by the individual, and thus being in a state of mortal sin is ineligible to receive any of the Sacraments of the Church, including reception of the Eucharist, marriage, absolution from sin, and even Christian burial until the error is recanted and excommunication is lifted.

The often cited "Cuomo" defense, "I am personally opposed but I support the right to choose" has now been cut in half: A pro-choice Catholic politician who says that he is "personally opposed" to the ACT of abortion itself still commits Heresy by publicly supporting the civil RIGHT to choose abortion.

http://www.defide.com/news.html
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Sharon faces rising threats from far right

Israeli opposition to the prime minister's Gaza withdrawal plan raises safety concerns.

JERUSALEM - Amid escalating far-right rhetoric branding him a Nazi collaborator and a traitor for his Gaza withdrawal plan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was asked in the Knesset last week if he wears a flak jacket under his shirt to protect him from assassination.

"No," the heavyset premier replied. "They don't come in my size."

But many politicians and analysts believe the possibility of another assassination is no joke. They say that killing an Israeli prime minister - or a spectacular act of anti-Arab violence by extremist elements - could derail the planned withdrawal of about 8,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, and that incendiary far-right pronouncements, including invocations of the Holocaust and plans to place a ritual curse on Mr. Sharon, are paving the way for such acts.

Tensions ratcheted up further on Sunday when talks between Sharon and settler leaders ended amid mutual recriminations after Sharon rejected their demand for a referendum on the withdrawal plan. The settler leaders warn of a possible civil war if there is no referendum. A handful of far-right demonstrators picketed the meeting, holding signs that read "Sharon is a traitor" and "Don't meet with traitors."

"In a divided society words can kill," says Amnon Rubinstein, a minister in Yitzhak Rabin's Cabinet when Mr. Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by a right-wing extremist opposed to his ceding land to the Palestinians. Mr. Rubinstein says the current climate "definitely" resembles that which prevailed prior to Mr. Rabin's killing. "The Prime Minister is being accused of being a traitor and this may trigger another assassination attempt."

But Sharon says he remains steadfast in his pursuit of withdrawal despite mounting opposition. Monday, as fighting continued in Gaza killing at least five Palestinian militants, he said he would not back away from removing settlements.

The Yesha council, the leadership group representing the 220,000 settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, says it shuns incitement, believes only in peaceful protest, and opposes the labeling of Sharon as a traitor.

"We disagree with Sharon's policy, but he's the prime minister, we respect him and he's given his life to the well-being of the country," says Josh Hasten, a spokesman for the council.

But some influential rabbis are now saying divine law - as they interpret it - takes precedence over government decisions. A former chief rabbi, Avraham Shapira, last week called on soldiers and police to refuse to participate in evacuating settlers, likening doing so to "desecrating the Sabbath and eating unkosher food." Sixty other rabbis have also called on soldiers not to participate in an evacuation.

The antiwithdrawal campaign has turned personal. Protesters have hoisted pictures of Sharon with the label: "the dictator." It is a reference to, among other things, his shunning of the results of an April Likud party referendum that came out against withdrawal.

Last month, a self-styled rabbi from the Psagot settlement, Yosef Dayan, said on television he is ready to place a ritual curse, the pulsa denura, on Sharon, the same curse he and others placed on Rabin before his assassination. "There are people who wish Sharon dead ... I am one of them. Can't I wish?" he said.

But the pronouncement that sent shockwaves through the political system was by a West Bank settler, Nadia Matar, the head of the Women in Green, a far-right group. She compared Yonatan Bassi, a religious Jew who heads the government's disengagement administration responsible for evacuating settlers, to Jews who are perceived as collaborators with the Nazis for helping to arrange the deportation of Jewish communities to the death camps. She termed Mr. Bassi "a modern version of the Judenrat (Jewish council) - in fact a much worse version" since he acts voluntarily while the Judenrat was coerced.

She said a letter Mr. Bassi reportedly prepared for the settlers was similar to a letter sent by the Judenrat to Berlin Jews in 1942. "The 1942 document ended with an emotional plea to the Berlin Jewish leadership to behave calmly and thus ease the process of deportation," she said.

Left-wing leaders warned that her remarks pave the way for violence. They urged that Ms. Matar be indicted for incitement. The Yad Vashem state Holocaust memorial institution has issued a call for refraining from using expressions and concepts taken from the Holocaust in the public debate.

In an interview, Matar, who was questioned by police over the comment, not only stood by her remarks, but broadened them to include Sharon. "Ariel Sharon and Bassi are on the same level," she says. "By playing into the hands of the Arab enemy, Sharon and Bassi are much worse than the Judenrat."

Avshalom Vilan, a left-wing legislator, says: "The moment people are compared to Nazis it becomes a license to kill them. If a limit is not set, we will arrive at another political assassination."

Uri Elitzur, editor of a settler journal, says that the allegations of incitement and comparisons to the Rabin assassination constitute "an effort to silence legitimate opposition.... If you disagree with someone, write an article against their view, don't shut them up," Mr. Elitzur says. "Rabin died because his bodyguards did not secure him properly, not because of incitement." He says that Matar's statements are "foolishness" but adds, "she has the right to express herself even if I don't like what she says."

But Yoni Fighel, senior researcher at the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism in Herzliya, says Israel needs to move immediately to protect itself with tougher laws and tougher enforcement against Israelis like Matar. Far-right stickers, videoclips, and pronouncements "are fueling a saturated atmosphere in which the smallest event can cause an explosion," he says. "There is a system of far-right incitement that is creating the conditions for violent activity. We are just one stage away from this happening."

Matar says Sharon and Bassi are the ones planning to engage in violence. "It is their plan of using soldiers to uproot Jews, to destroy homes and synagogues, that's where the violence is, where the crime is." she says.