It may not be the Church Police but…

the US Bishops are becoming rather more vigilant than in the past. Who’d have thought that we would ever see the day when the US Bishops Conference Doctrinal Committee actually issued a condemnation of a “Catholic” theologians erroneous assertions about Catholic doctrine? Yet that is just what has happened over Marquette University professor Daniel Maguire’s pamphlets on contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage. According to this Zenit report, in these pamphlets Professor Maguire has stated that “there is no authentic Church teaching that is binding on all members of the Catholic Church,” and that neither pro-choice or pro-life “is more Catholic than the other.”

Well, a pretty binding and Catholic response has come from the Bishops, who declared that

despite his claims to authority as a Catholic theologian, the views of Professor Maguire on contraception, abortion, and same-sex ‘marriage’ are not those of the Catholic Church and indeed are contrary to the Church’s faith.”

It seems that the patience of the Church with dissenters is wearing thin in places.

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One Response to It may not be the Church Police but…

  1. Arabella-m says:

    David,

    In 2000 the USA bishops issued a similar statement re. the organisation ‘Catholics For a Free Choice’.

    In part their statement read:

    “For a number of years, a group calling itself Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) has been publicly supporting abortion while claiming it speaks as an authentic Catholic voice. [……]CFFC is not a Catholic organization, does not speak for the Catholic Church, and in fact promotes positions contrary to the teaching of the Church as articulated by the Holy See and the NCCB”.
    See: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2000/00-123.htm

    I believe Daniel C Maguire had some connection to this organisation founded by Frances Kissling in the 1980s. Kissling had, in the 1970s, directed one of the first family planning clinics to provide legal abortions in the United States.

    This organisation’s name crops up in Australia from time to time – e.g. CFFC was listed under ‘Catholic Reform Movements’ (or something to that effect) in the now defunct ‘On-line Catholics’ e-journal.

    Arabella

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