Gov. Cuomo, Cardinal Dolan Spar Over New York Abortion Law Amid Bishops’ Calls For Excommunication

[Ash Wednesday]

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/01/29/governor-cuomo-cardinal-dolan-feud-reproductive-health-act-abortion/

For those in the know, the Reproductive Health Act was signed in New York which allows a baby to be aborted at any time, even up to birth, for any reason. The Governor that signed this is a nominal Catholic and sent out a tweet praising One World Trade Center being lit up pink to celebrate it.

Some are calling for his excommunication. Cardinal Dolan feels that this would be a weapon. 

Personally I support a harder stance and feel that the church should have had a harder line for decades now.

Excommunication: medicine or weapon?

[Jack4]

I neither support the law nor endorse abortion in any way for any reason nor think canonical penalties shouldn't be applied. That said, it's not so easy and straightforward to make the case that Cuomo should be excommunicated. 

[truthfinder]

It’s both; it’s a scalpel. 

[Jack4]

23 minutes ago, Jack4 said:

I neither support the law nor endorse abortion in any way for any reason nor think canonical penalties shouldn't be applied. That said, it's not so easy and straightforward to make the case that Cuomo should be excommunicated. 

I refer to Dr Ed Peters' blog In the Light of the Law:

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/from-msgr-popes-lips-to-the-bishops-ears/

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/30/on-excommunicating-andrew-cuomo-for-heresy/

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/25/canon-915s-moment-has-arrived/

Quote

Those who think that Andrew Cuomo should be excommunicated for signing New York’s appalling abortion law need no invitation to make their case for that canonical sanction in accord with the canon law. 

 

[little2add]

Incredibly, not only did Governor Cuomo sign possibly the most disgusting pro-abortion bill in the 46 years since Roe v. Wade, he also celebrated it by ordering One World Trade Center’s spire to be lit pink. 

 apparently, “progressive values” must mean valuing the right to kill an unborn baby over valuing the life of that baby.

The RHA not only allows an unborn baby to be killed at any time for any reason, it decriminalizes any killing of an unborn baby through abortion or otherwise. It also gets rid of the legal protection afforded a baby who is born alive after an abortion.

[little2add]

On Jan 22, 1973, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, struck down the Texas law banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure nationwide. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry Blackmun, the court declared that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment. (unlimited, only during the first trimester)

The court divided pregnancy into three trimesters and declared that the choice to end a pregnancy only in the first trimester was solely up to the woman.

·     Terminating a  pregnancy only in the first trimester was solely up to the woman 

·     In the second trimester, the government could regulate abortion, although not ban it, in order to protect the mother’s health.

·     In the third trimester, the state could prohibit abortion to protect a fetus that could survive on its own outside the womb, except when a woman’s health was in danger.

On January 22, 2019, the New York State governor fundamentally altered the Supreme Court, decision by changing the ruling to end any and all protection of the fetus during the second and third trimester.

He spoke to crowds both Monday and Tuesday, stating that the Catholic religion’s “pro-life” stance was repugnant to “everything we (New York State) are and what we believe” and called upon those gathered to push back and rebel against all that is sacred ...

New York governor Andrew Cuomo also signed an executive order on Monday, ensuring that contraceptives are free under all insurance plans  in the state, in direct violation of The First Amendment (Amendment I) freedom of religion.

Edited January 30, 2019 by little2add

[Jack4]

Quote

 

This month marks the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which effectively legalized abortion on demand. It also marks another annual March for Life, this year on January 18.  It’s a time to look back and look ahead. The abortion struggle of the past four decades teaches a very useful lesson. Evil talks a lot about “tolerance” when it’s weak. When evil is strong, real tolerance gets pushed out the door. And the reason is simple. Evil cannot bear the counter-witness of truth. It will not coexist peacefully with goodness, because evil insists on being seen as right, and worshiped as being right. Therefore, the good must be made to seem hateful and wrong.

The very existence of people, in the March for Life and elsewhere, who refuse to accept evil and who seek to act virtuously burns the conscience of those who don’t. And so, quite logically, people who march and lobby and speak out to defend the unborn child will be — and are — reviled by leaders and media and abortion activists that turn the right to kill an unborn child into a shrine to personal choice.

Seventy years ago, abortion was a crime against humanity. Four decades ago, abortion supporters talked about the tragedy of abortion and the need to make it safe and rare. Those days are long gone. Now abortion is not just a “right,” but a right that claims positive dignity, the license to demonize its opponents and the precedence to interfere with constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. We no longer tolerate abortion. We venerate it as a totem.

 

http://archphila.org/archbishop-chaputs-weekly-column-marching-for-life-2019/

[Andrea Maio]

Excommunication is fitting and appropriate, in my opinion. 

[little2add]

39 minutes ago, Andrea Maio said:

Excommunication is fitting and appropriate, in my opinion. 

I don’t think the NY governor would really care much if he was.  He devorced his wife  of 15 years anf 3 children for a younger woman.   

His a pig

[Peace]

It seems that for all practical purposes he has excommunicated himself. I would think that dialogue might be more fruitful but I would not be against excommunication if it had the effect of reducing support for the law or helping him to understand his error and correct himself. Ultimately it is up for those with authority excommunicate to decide.

[Jack4]

23 hours ago, Jack4 said:

it's not so easy and straightforward to make the case that Cuomo should be excommunicated

bump

11 hours ago, Peace said:

excommunicated himself

 What?

[truthfinder]

1 hour ago, Jack4 said:

 

 What?

There are a list of offenses which by their action excommunicate the actor

from wikipedia:

Unless the excusing circumstances outlined in canons 1321–1330[5] exist, the Code of Canon Law imposes latae sententiae excommunication on the following:

an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic;[6]

a person who throws away the consecrated Eucharistic species or takes and retains them for a sacrilegious purpose;[7]

a person who uses physical force against the Pope;[8]

a priest who absolves his accomplice in a sin against the commandment against adultery;[9]

a bishop who ordains someone a bishop without a papal mandate, and the person who receives the ordination from him;[10]

a confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal of confession;[11]

a person who procures a completed abortion;[12]

accomplices without whose assistance a violation of a law prescribing latae sententiae excommunication would not have been committed

-----

Many have cited the last two - most opinions I've seen lately say that Cuomo's involvement is too indirect to actually fulfill these.  So others have gone to the top of the list with heresy. (I believe Peters disagrees with latae senteniae excommunications on the whole. Some of these are also reserved sins - meaning to be forgiven, one would essentially need to go through the penitentiary in Rome.)

Even if Cuomo doesn't care, an excommunication or an indict would send a message to the rest of the faithful that you can't be Catholic and pro-abortion.  If anything, the incident is probably the best example of giving scandal: he passed an immoral law, claiming his faith, which could mislead others into sin.

[little2add]

1 hour ago, truthfinder said:

Even if Cuomo doesn't care, an excommunication or an indict would send a message

 I believe it’s very obvious that he doesn’t care  about the threat of excommunication .

The Catholic Church doesn’t need to abandon ( excommunicate) Cuomo, as Cuomo has already abandon the Catholic Church by his words and actions.  

 

Edited January 31, 2019 by little2add

[Jack4]

1 hour ago, truthfinder said:

There are a list of offenses which by their action excommunicate the actor

from wikipedia:

Unless the excusing circumstances outlined in canons 1321–1330[5] exist, the Code of Canon Law imposes latae sententiae excommunication on the following:

an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic;[6]

a person who throws away the consecrated Eucharistic species or takes and retains them for a sacrilegious purpose;[7]

a person who uses physical force against the Pope;[8]

a priest who absolves his accomplice in a sin against the commandment against adultery;[9]

a bishop who ordains someone a bishop without a papal mandate, and the person who receives the ordination from him;[10]

a confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal of confession;[11]

a person who procures a completed abortion;[12]

accomplices without whose assistance a violation of a law prescribing latae sententiae excommunication would not have been committed

-----

Many have cited the last two - most opinions I've seen lately say that Cuomo's involvement is too indirect to actually fulfill these.  So others have gone to the top of the list with heresy. (I believe Peters disagrees with latae senteniae excommunications on the whole. Some of these are also reserved sins - meaning to be forgiven, one would essentially need to go through the penitentiary in Rome.)

Even if Cuomo doesn't care, an excommunication or an indict would send a message to the rest of the faithful that you can't be Catholic and pro-abortion.  If anything, the incident is probably the best example of giving scandal: he passed an immoral law, claiming his faith, which could mislead others into sin.

Quote

 

 the third misconception is this: many people think that, because a given Catholic committed an action for which automatic excommunication is the penalty (for example, heresy, schism, abortion), the penalty was actually incurred in that case. That's not necessarily true, but the reasons behind my claim require us getting into Canons 18, 1323, and 1324, among others, canons that contain a startling list of factors that mitigate or even remove liability for canonical crimes. Now taken individually, these exceptions to penal liability make sense, but when read as a whole, as we have to do, they make it much more difficult to determine whether an automatic excommunication was actually incurred in a specific case. 

So what happens in cases where canon law seems to impose automatic excommunication? Invariably, the discussion in such cases turns to the technicalities of canon law, instead of staying focused on the offensive behavior that gave rise to the discussion. 

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2006/edpeters_excommun_nov06.asp

 

They aren't really "automatic".

 

Dr Peters does think that LS excommunications are not a good idea (though he also knows that it is the law now). 

Dr Peters argues that the canons against abortion don't work against Cuomo.

He also says that "excommunication will make Cuomo a martyr", etc are not good arguments against his excommunication.

Edited January 31, 2019 by Jack4

[KnightofChrist]

An emperor of Rome was excommunicated for signing an order to kill innocent people.

There is not much difference with Cuomo. Dr. Peter's logic does not seem right to me. If being directly involved in the legalization of mass murder cannot lead to an excommunication then what is the point.

Ed Condon, a Canon lawer makes the case that Cuomo can and should be excommunicated.

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/01/excommunicate-cuomo