PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Incoming Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput doesn’t want the Roman Catholic church to lose members.
But he says it’s not the place for so-called “cafeteria Catholics” who don’t accept all of its teachings.
Chaput has condemned the University of Notre Dame for bestowing an award on President Obama, who supports abortion rights, and thinks Catholic politicians with the same beliefs should not take Holy Communion.
“If they don’t believe what the church teaches, they’re not really Catholic,” Chaput told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday, two days before his installation at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.
While His Excellency is speaking of Catholic politicians, there is really nothing that would distinguish them from other cafeteria Catholics. Willful rejection of Church teaching destroys one’s communion with the Church, regardless of whether one is or is not a public figure.
Full story here.
Tags: Orthodoxy at Work
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Good for him! I like this man! A man of God! Not afraid to speak the truth! He will be hated for it, too. I’m sure he knows that, but loves truth more than self. Archbishop Chaput is a REAL man, IMO, and a REAL Catholic!
I have been criticized here on this forum, by fellow commenters, for saying certain Catholics “aren’t Catholic”. I was just speaking from my heart – so much here at the DoR just does not seem Catholic to me. I apologized when I offended people, since yes, these folks are baptized and call themselves Catholic, yet, the truth is, I still have the nagging feeling or conviction when I see the actions of certain DoR preists, pastoral administrators, and yes, even our Bishop – that they really AREN’T CATHOLIC – though this is the first time I have ever expressed wondering if our Bishop is Catholic. Its just what I honestly feel; what I’ve honestly wondered.
It seems to me as if they, and I’ll dare say even our bishop, only have outer trimmings of “Catholic”, as in a costume, as in going through their lives like actors in a stage production of being Catholic, but in their heart, they are NOT Catholic at all, and so what is in their heart shows in their actions.
I guess, yes, technically they are Catholic. Clark and such DoR leaders are ordained, and we know ordinations are real and efficacious. As are baptisms. But there is always free will. Ordaining a person is not going to make them love God. By love God I mean to obey Him – since that’s how God defines love of Him.
I guess a like-question would be to ask: Was Judas, in his last days, when he was lying, stealing, plotting betrayal – was he an Apostle of Jesus? Or not? He was seen with Jesus, walking with the twelve, so publicly, he was…
Anyway, it is for me validating that Archbishop Chaput would be so politically-incorrect as to say a self-proclaimed, sacramental Catholic may in fact NOT be Catholic.