I think of myself as a generally upbeat and optimistic person. I have a genuine love for people in general. I am delighted by people I meet throughout the course of the day, and though I smile at my wife less often than I used to delivering a line once heard several times a day, "People are cool!!!", I don't believe I have lost that delightful spark.

And then life goes out of its way at times to remind me how deep the cynicism can run.

...like when Senator Kerry comes out and perches himself ever so carefully on the fence that divides people of opinion.

I have to admit it. I do not subscribe to a specific organized belief structure. I do believe in God, I just have not succumbed to subscribing to one flavor of organized religion over another. Some of the worst human beings I have ever met were callous religious zealots that seemed to me to treat the ritual and social aspects of religion more like the Golden Calf that they profess to reject. Simultaneously, some of the most wonderful people I have ever met, examples of humanity at its finest, have been deeply devout.

When I see people like Kerry straddle that razor's edge and tell people with a straight face that he believes that life begins at conception but he also believes in a woman's right to choose, my head almost falls off. I feel like some anime caricature with a boggled expression. I just don't get how those violently opposing views can come out of the same mouth. It seems to me that one cannot believe in the same things at the same time! Wouldn't that be... a woman's right to choose to commit murder?

I just don't get it.

For the record, I abhor abortion. I don't know when life begins. I realize that there are a lot of opinions out there. Because of this great divide in opinion, I think that the government has no business legislating the rights to abortion. Conversely, I think that we need to do everything that we can as a society, as a community, to prevent abortion. I find it abhorrent. Until the people of this country say in a fairly singular loud voice, however, that life begins at conception, keep it out of the legislature and let us struggle with it in the community.

...but that is not Senator Kerry's stance. He wants it both ways, and as soon as I hear that kind of moral garbage spewing forth, I want to scream. He's a Roman Catholic? Isn't that one of the most clearly defined branches of Christianity?

I grumble and disgorge discontented static. "People are Cool!!!" is the last thing on my mind.

...then I read stories like this, and my faith in humanity is restored. No, not because the man I am not going to vote for is being punished. Because a group of people said "we believe in this" and then back up their words with deeds. Deeds that will surely bring vitriol forth from many sources.

The attorney says the communication from Cole provides a basis to declare that any Catholic politician who says he is "personally opposed to abortion, but supports a woman's right to choose," incurs automatic excommunication.

Catholic World News reported the letter potentially undercuts the entire debate over denying Communion to politicians who support abortion. An excommunicated Catholic may not receive any of the sacraments of the church, including the Eucharist, marriage and even Christian burial. According to the news service, the type of excommunication outlined in the new information is called latae sententiae, which means that it occurs automatically and does not require a formal pronouncement by any church official.

Hat tip to World Net Daily, Powerline.

I'm sure that the Kerry camp will dredge up some spineless bishop or two to defy the latae sententiae, call it optional and not compulsory or deny that it has merit at all.

Perhaps they will simply ignore it and hope that it will go away.

Even if nothing happens, and despite my suspicions of organized religion, I salute the Reverend Basil Cole, Dominican theologian and consultor to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I salute the Roman Catholic church that he represents here.

You stood by your faith, took a moral stand, and I respect you.

Posted by Michael at October 19, 2004 01:02 AM