05/29/2004: "Misusing the law"

I don't agree with the Catholic bishop of Colorado Springs, but Barry Lynn scores a new high on the selective-outrage meter with this:

A watchdog group asked the IRS on Thursday to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Roman Catholic diocese in Colorado Springs over the bishop's threat to withhold communion from those who disagree with the church.

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said the church should lose its tax-exempt status because it used church resources for political purposes.

Bishop Michael Sheridan wrote in a Catholic newspaper this month that Catholics should not receive communion if they vote for politicians who disagree with the church by backing abortion rights and other topics.

"I believe that Bishop Sheridan, by issuing this document in a church publication in his official capacity as head of a religious organization, may have violated federal tax law and jeopardized the tax-exempt status of the Diocese of Colorado Springs," Lynn said in a letter to the IRS.

Here's a portion of what Bishop Sheridan wrote:

There must be no confusion in these matters. Any Catholic politicians who advocate for abortion, for illicit stem cell research or for any form of euthanasia ipso facto place themselves outside full communion with the Church and so jeopardize their salvation. Any Catholics who vote for candidates who stand for abortion, illicit stem cell research or euthanasia suffer the same fateful consequences. It is for this reason that these Catholics, whether candidates for office or those who would vote for them, may not receive Holy Communion until they have recanted their positions and been reconciled with God and the Church in the Sacrament of Penance....

I think this goes too far from the perspective of Catholic discipline. There are many reasons why voters vote the way they do, and the bishop is seeking to take those complex reasons and distill them down into just one. Imagine the dilemma if a given politician were against abortion but for embryonic stem-cell research. Nevertheless, this is a question for Sheridan's superiors in the Church to deal with, not the IRS.

The Church never directs citizens to vote for any specific candidate. The Church does, however, have the right and the obligation to teach clearly and fully the objective truth about the dignity and rights of the human person. These teachings, in turn, must inform the consciences of voters. "By its intervention in this area, the Church's Magisterium does not wish to exercise political power or eliminate the freedom of opinion of Catholics regarding contingent questions. Instead, it intends�as is its proper function�to instruct and illuminate the consciences of the faithful, particularly those involved in political life, so that their actions may always serve the integral promotion of the human person and the common good."

Here's a question for Rev. Lynn: when was the last time you wrote to the IRS about a liberal church having a political rally for a Democratic politician in its sanctuary, or a liberal church pastor talking up specific candidates from their pulpits, or a liberal denomination or ecumenical organization trying to influence voters?

Replies: 2 Comments

on Saturday, May 29th, Bob said

By this sort of logic, Lynn himself should not have written, much less published, his letter to the IRS. Americans United is not, after all, a religious organization but one which advances a certain position in the political realm.

QED, if a church should lose tax-exempt status for comenting on politics, Lynn's outfit should lose it for commenting on religion.

Odd what people do and don't want done to the First Amendment

on Saturday, May 29th, Bob said

A few additional thoughts.
Lynn's is the sort of logic that would say the '60s - era Southern Christian Leadership Conference could not advocate equal rights and integration because it was, after all, Christian by name; and the issues were political: determined by legislative and judicial processes. In pre-Civil War days, the likes of Henry Ward Beecher could have been silenced because, after all, slavery was covered by the constitutions and laws of the nation and the several states. A shame LBJ and his cronies didn't think of this during the Vietnam War. So much for any criticism of THAT from the pulpit!
Honestly. Though Lynn styles himself "Reverend," he knows he speaks for many seculars, agnostics and atheists whose dislike of religion is partly because it spares us believers from thinking.

Howzat again? Or is the secular side really that much composed of trans-postmodernists who have concluded that thinking requires no resort to logic whatsoever? Strong advocacy is one thing. A hip-shooting, sloppily drawn response to the remarks of a Catholic ecclesiastic writing in a Catholic newspaper intended for a Catholic readership is another.