I never understand politicians like her, or Pelosi and Biden, who are Catholic, go to Mass, receive Communion, even meet with the Pope, yet they disagree with nearly EVERY major moral teaching of the Catholic Church?

Why be part of a religion that you completely disagree with? Why not be Episcopalian, or some other Christian sect that you agree with morally? It makes no sense.

And the Catholic Church has been very firm on the abortion issue since the beginning, and it will NEVER ease the restrictions. See the Didache.

bring it on

Do you believe that reproductive issues (and gay marriage) amount to "EVERY major moral teaching of the Catholic Church?"

I would imagine it's because it is ver hard to get elected for an office without being part of a major Christian relgion. Especially in a religious state like Kansas which still has many people who want Genesis taught alongside evolution, like the Bible is some sort of science paper.

Plus there are a lot of people who follow religion because they believe in God, they like having a communtiy of worship but they are not un-thinking sheeple who decide they don't agree with every tenent of their religion and disagree with their leaders. You aren't supposed to use Birth control either, but many Catholics do anyway.

There are many things in the Bible no Christian follows any longer.

I wonder what Kathleen will do, I wonder if she ever wanted to run for President. If I wanted to be President I'd stay governor and pass on a cabinet position.

there was this little event, that you apparently haven't heard of, called the Reformation.

It was a couple of years ago.

Since then, people haven't been ruled by an infallible Pope. No, not even Catholics.

To illustrate: Think the Iraq war was a bloody, stupid, and criminal idea? No? Well, then: "why are you still a Catholic?"

It is obvious that whoever Obama picked to be head of HHS was going to be pro-choice. Of course, the radical right will oppose a pro-choice candidate. Let the anti-abortionists whine all they want. Obama is pro-choice, so his HHS secretary is going to be por-choice.

I kind of thought one of the tenets of Catholicism was believing in the infallibility of the Pope (in theory at least, even if most Catholics don't hold to that in practice.) It's possible to belong to a "main line" religion (Episcopalianism was mentioned, but there are others) and still have none of the hangups about birth control that Catholicism does. So, as a politician, wouldn't it be better politically to be a "good" whatever-alternative-denomination-you-are, as opposed to coming across as a "lapsed" Catholic?

I guess I should have said "every major moral teaching of recent contention".

Regardless, these are things that WILL NEVER BE CHANGED in the Catholic Church. The Church claims infallibility regarding moral teaching, so it is not possible to go back on these.

I just don't understand why one would want to be part of a religious organization that states you are in a state of mortal sin by disagreeing with these issues, thus your soul is destined for Hell.

If you disagree with these issues, fine, but if you think the Church is wrong on these issues, wouldn't you question how "right" they are on OTHER issues? You think the Catholic Church is the "true" Church, but you think its wrong on so many MAJOR moral issues of today?

Why not just be an Episcopalian? They're basically the same, they are just more lenient on these controversial issues.

Because she has this thing called freedom of conscience.

I guess you missed it, but she said that she herself is opposed to abortion. But she doesn't think that means that she or anyone else gets to impose their religious views on the people of her state. Maybe she, unlike a good deal of her church's leadership, knows that outlawing abortion doesn't actually decrease its incidence, but only jeopardizes the lives and health of vulnerable women.

I might make an educated guess that the Catholic faith holds a great deal of meaning for her, for her personal relationship to God and the spiritual rituals of her life, and she doesn't feel that she can abandon it, even if she disagrees with the positions of some of its authority figures. It's an act called prophetic disobedience, which has a long and respected history (see also St. Francis of Assisi), in which one demonstrates one's moral objection to certain positions while still affirming one's intent to be faithful to the true spirit of the faith.

I've never liked that term. Doctors who also perform abortions are generally called gynecologists, right? Or how about "women's health providers"? Any other ideas?

Of course she is against abortion, nearly no one, except maybe Peter Singer would say they are FOR abortion.

But what she IS doing is helping others to commit what the Church deems a MORTAL SIN. In the Church, this is akin to "aiding and abetting" and is also considered a mortal sin.

She has been instructed by the Archbishop she is no longer to recieve Communion since she is in a state of mortal sin. She knows she is directly violating Church doctrine.

She believes she is right, and the Church is wrong? Then WHY still be part of the Church?

I would just like to point out that if your principle were more broadly expanded, such that anyone who did not strictly adhere to the tenets of their professed faith was committing an act of self expulsion, there would only be a few dozen or so Christians left on the planet. I'm not picking on Christians, this is more or less true for every religion.

As for the notion of "papal infallibility", I think the Medici popes did a pretty good job discrediting that.

I don't think that phrase means what you think it means. I'm willing to bet the same goes for "immaculate conception."

I was born and raised a Catholic (and then became an agnostic, but that's a different story) in the biggest Catholic country in the world -- Brazil. This doesn't mean that most Brazilians really believe in papal infallibility or are against the use of birth control; in fact, even though abortion is illegal in Brazil (except in very specific cases), there is quite a loby to legalize it, and there's growing support for them -- among Catholics (hell, pretty much everybody is a Catholic there, even, however funny that may sound, those who converted to some evangelical protestant denomination: many of them don't stop going to Catholic mass just because of that silly conversion thing...).

Protestants in America, because they're majoritary, are seen as more varied in terms of religous beliefs and their expression; Catholics, being minoritary, tend to be more conservative and less varied with respect to theirs. In Brazil, it's the other way round: Catholics will use the pill much more frequently than the Brazilian Protestants (who will tend to be more conservative or Baptist-like).

Why not be a Protestant or an Episcopalian? Because everybody around you is a Catholic, and they're already doing things like birth control anyway. Why bother?

Things are different in America--but even there I can imagine a person who is nominally Catholic but prefers to keep his/her own opinion about specific topics.