Communion as a political weapon?

I read two or three stories today about the Catholic church and it's over-reaching use of communion as a political weapon. Stunning. Because some Catholic leaders believe that if someone is supporting abortion and gay marriage (or any other thing that goes against the teaching of the Church), they should not receive communion. And the news media is calling this a political weapon...

NOT that my little corner of the blog world is going to change any of the tolerant left minds that have gone on the attack about this BUT I thought I would explain just exactly what it is about the Catholic faith that I LOVE, and at the same time try and explain how the mainstream media is very VERY wrong.

I love the Catholic Church because you always know where you stand. PERIOD. There are no wishy washy, rules or laws. The church has been pretty much what it is from the beginning. I don't mean to say that there have never been any wrongdoers in the leadership of the church that took some wrong actions, but the Church herself at it's foundation has not changed. And the rules are fairly simple.

As far as gay marriage, the Church does not 'hate' gays, nor do they tell them they are not welcome, in fact they very much welcome them. The church does tell gays that being sexual with another man or woman is not morally correct and that they should abstain from intimate behavior.

As far as abortion, it is murder and therefore against church teachings, so if you support gay marriage, and abortion you are acting against the moral code of the church. And since we are taught that communion is something we take with reverence and after confessing any mortal sin or to abstain if we are in a state of continual sin, then it makes perfect sense for the Church to ask members to abstain, or even refuse communion to those people.

It is not a political weapon, it is an act of faith and spiritual guidance and IF you are a member of any church you will get spiritual guidance from your leaders. THAT is what they are there for.

The political weapon comes in when a member of a congregation comes in, proclaims to be a follower of your faith, and then calls you a bigot when you expect them to REALLY FOLLOW.

Hint: If you are a member of a church and you disagree with one or more of the main teachings of said church it is your job to either A: bend to the faith of your church. or B: LEAVE! You see religion is not supposed to bend to you... the bible never said God was made in mans image, but that MAN was MADE in GOD'S image.

My church, My faith, My leaders - I love them all because I know just where I stand with them. I will never EVER be able to say the same about our political leaders.

 

A beautiful statue of Our Lord out front of our church. 

Maybe I'm not quite as right-wing as I thought...

What a way to start out my blog that focuses on Politics, by  admitting that I might not actually be as far to the right as even *I* thought I was. However, it is a good starting place, because if you follow me further here you will see that I am a conservative, Catholic, passionately political, outspoken American citizen.

A story came out in the last few days that has exploded into postings by religious and conservative bloggers that has taken me a bit by surprise.
Here is the link to where it all started: The Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS)


Well it didn't all start there. It started with an Army Reserve Unit putting a statement in a training slide that equated Catholics and Evangelicals as "extremists" right up there with Hamas etc.

I posted a link telling the story on my Facebook, after reading what was going on, with no commentary. Within a few hours and into the next couple of days there were a lot of such stories by bloggers and news agencies (mostly conservative) with titles such as "Defense Department classifies Catholics, evangelicals as extremists".

Now don't get me wrong, the fact that this statement was in any document associated with the military is disturbing, but let's not get too overboard with this shall we? Saying that a statement on ONE Army Reserve Unit slide is equal to the DOD putting that in official materials is like suggesting that because a few priests have molested children, that the Vatican approves of and perpetuates this behavior.