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05/11/2004: "Making a choice"
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, one of New Jersey's leading politicians has decided to leave his life-long church in order to uphold the sacrament of abortion:
New Jersey's State Senate Majority leader has decided to leave the Roman Catholic church after 57 years, citing church demands that politicians vote in accordance with Catholic doctrine.
Sen. Bernard Kenny, D-Hudson, told his pastor Saturday that would no longer be a member of the church.
"If every faith starts trying to impose their rules on elected officials, democracy is going to be factionalized along religious lines," Kenny told The Philadelphia Inquirer for Sunday's editions.
This isn't a matter of "trying to impose...rules on elected officials." It's a matter of the Church asking its members to live up to their baptismal vows in their public as well as private lives. As Kenny well knows, politicians bring their personal (often religiously influenced) moral views to be bear on all kinds of public questions, from racial discrimination to environmental protection to human rights advocacy. Many politicians, on both left and right, can be almost insufferably moralistic about public policy alternatives. What he really means by this statement is that, when forced to choose between upholding the teachings of his faith and the abortion absolutism of his constituents, he chooses his constituents every time. He's clearly a man who has his priorities in order.
Kenny, who supports abortion rights and stem-cell research, said his church leaders told him he would be offered Communion one more time, "but that then he would tell me not to come again."
"I will look for other options to express my faith and will probably join another Christian church," Kenny told The Inquirer.
Since there isn't any other church in which one can practice the Roman Catholic faith except the RCC, I'm not sure what Kenny means by "my faith." But one thing I think we can say for sure: he believes in abortion rights more than he believes in the moral teaching of his erstwhile Chief Pastor, the Vicar of Christ.
