Cardinal Pell Threatens Politicians: Vote Against Cloning, Or Else
Unfortunately, current Catholic leaders seem determined to reinvigorate those fears and justify age-old prejudices. More and more bishops, cardinals, priests, and other clerics are attempting to use their religious authority to sway political candidates and political leaders to vote in ways consistent with Catholic theology. The effect is to deny that there is such a thing as a secular state independent of the control or doctrines of ecclesiastical authorities.
Cardinal Pell refused to say today whether Catholic MPs, who include Premier Morris Iemma, would be excommunicated from the church if they voted in favour of the legislation. The church would deal with that issue if it arose, he said.
"Cloning is not quite the same as abortion and the legislation for such a thing as cloning is different from actually performing cloning," Cardinal Pell told reporters. "But it is a serious moral matter and Catholic politicians who vote for this legislation must realise that their voting has consequences for their place in the life of the church."
Source: The Australian
From a Catholic perspective, these are not idle threats: Cardinal George Pell could prevent Catholic politicians in Australia from participating in all of the normal communal activities that help define what it means to be Catholic in the first place. Even if he doesn't excommunicate them, he could make it very difficult to remain a Catholic in any substantive manner.
Catholic MPs would need to seriously think about taking Holy Communion, the key sacrament, Dr Pell said, and "were certainly doing the wrong thing". ...Dr Pell said no Catholic politician in good conscience could support any legislation that gave scientists "open slather for unethical research", which he claimed included the mixing of genetic material from three or more "parents", the fertilisation of immature eggs from aborted baby girls and creating human and animal hybrids as a test for sperm quality.
"These possibilities are quite grotesque and I'd be very surprised if they had approval throughout the population," he said. "To create a human embryo for the express purpose of using it and destroying, that's the way we treat lab rats. It's totally inappropriate for human beings. It's a perverse new direction in human experimentation. I don't think Catholic politicians, Christian politicians or pro-life politicians who has properly informed their conscience should vote for these changes."
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
Cardinal George Pell threatening Catholic politicians with "consequences" for not voting the way he tells them reminds me of mafia hoodlums entering a neighborhood grocery store and threatening the owner with "consequences" if he doesn't make his monthly protection payment. "Hey, this is an awfully nice democracy you have here... it would be such a shame if something were to 'accidentally' happen to it..."
Even if all Catholics agreed that Vatican-mandated dogma should constitute the basis for civil laws, which they don't, there are plenty of non-Catholics in countries like Australian who definitely don't believe this. There is absolutely no good reason why non-Catholics should have to abide by laws created on the basis of Catholic theology — and they certainly shouldn't have their prospects for health care and being able to live full, healthy lives because of laws based on Catholic theology.
If Catholic leaders have secular, nonreligious arguments for the laws they favor, then they are of course more than welcome to articulate them. They are also free to explain to Catholics what religious reasons they may have against certain laws. What they cannot do, however, is issue threats to Catholics who choose to enact civil laws on the basis of secular rather than religious arguments. If Cardinal George Pell were an American, I would argue that this might constitute a reason to revoke his church's tax exempt status. I don't know what sort of responses are available to Australians but I hope they explore all their options.
Comments
This is another thing I never understood abt religion. If I believed in God, I would probably worry abt what God thinks, but, why would I be concerned abt what the pope thinks? Or any other religious figure for that matter? For me, they would all be irrelevant.
Ron- For the most part I agree with you. However, many religious people believe their leaders somehow have a direct line to god’s mind so to them what these people say will obviously have a great effect on them and their lives. Sadly, this effect is rarely ever constrained to their lives on a strict basis and eventually begins to affect non- believers.
There is potentially scope to withdraw the Catholic church’s tax exempt status based on this but it will never happen as both sides of poilitics have supported Pell’s right to make these statements. Contrasting this to the outcry on statements made by Australia’s leading Islamic critic and you see the hyprocisy in the treatment of Christian religions.
There have recently been circumstances in Australia where secular aid groups have lost there charitable status and government funding for engaging in ‘political’ activities (criticising government policies within the areas they work) and yet there’s never any serious discussion about applying the same yardstick to churches.
I meant leading Islamic ‘CLERIC’, not ‘critic’.
“To create a human embryo for the express purpose of using it and destroying, that’s the way we treat lab rats. It’s totally inappropriate for human beings. It’s a perverse new direction in human experimentation.”
Yeah that’s a sick thing to do. We should strive to be more like Yahweh who would never artificially create a human being just so that he could use it and destroy it… except for Jesus, of course.
Australia is basically a secular country. Any publicity the Catholic Church gets is out proportion to it’s influence. It is not even the largest religious group.
What annoys me about them is not just their desire to force their principles on every else but their dishonesty. According to them condoms have minute pores big enough to allow HIV virus through in spite of denials by the people who make them. Nobody is talking about cloning humans or creating animal/ human hybrids. As far as I know nobody wants to create a fetus for experimentation. What is suggested is that a fertilised egg might be allowed to reproduce to a small number of cell divisions still hardly a human being. The reason for their opposition is that they consider a fertilised egg has a soul which makes it human with a link to God. Therefore destroying it is destroying God given life.
In New Zealand I watched a television interview with several people including a Catholic priest on euthanasia. The priest spoke only about the possibility of people being coerced into giving up their lives or disguised murder or the assisted death of people who are suffering from depression. We all agree with that. What he didn’t say was his real objection was to the belief that only God creates life and only God can destroy it no matter how bad that life is and how much suffering the person is enduring.
I tried to take this up with a Church spokesman but there are rarely any contacts given for discussion or objection. I did contact the local Church’s PR representative but they did not acknowledge anything I said. Getting my email address I got material back inviting me to receive their propaganda material.