Is Boehner Still Allowed To Take Communion? Does He Care?

Right-wingers in the U.S. and international Catholic hierarchy have done all they could over the years to discomfort pro-Choice Democratic politicians. Remember the hue and cry from the wingers when John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi took communion in 2008 from Ratzinger?

Four years ago, when questions arose over whether then-presidential candidate Kerry should receive the sacrament, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote that it could be withheld in certain circumstances, such as “obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.” One example of such sin, he said, “was consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws.”

Suddenly the shoe is on the other foot. Prominent American Catholic scholars are accusing John Boehner of violating Jesus Christ's most basic teachings by aggressively pushing the Republican Party agenda targeting the poor and disadvantaged. They're not happy about Boehner giving the commencement address today at the Catholic University of America.

More than 75 professors at Catholic University and other prominent Catholic colleges have written a pointed letter to Mr. Boehner saying that the Republican-supported budget he shepherded through the House will hurt the poor, the elderly and the vulnerable, and that he therefore has failed to uphold basic Catholic moral teachings.

“Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the church’s most ancient moral teachings,” the letter says. “From the apostles to the present, the magisterium of the church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.”

The letter writers criticize Mr. Boehner’s support for a budget that cut financing for Medicare, Medicaid and the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program, while granting tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations. They call such policies “anti-life,” a particularly biting reference because the phrase is usually applied to politicians and others who support the right to abortion.

...The choice of graduation speakers at Catholic universities has grown more fraught in recent years. The bishops advised that Catholic universities should not honor Catholics who had publicly disagreed with church teachings. But the resulting controversies so far have mostly been about more liberal-leaning Catholics who have taken positions in favor of access to abortion or gay rights, in opposition to the church.

When Mr. Obama, who is not Catholic, was invited to receive an honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame in 2009, there was an outcry from politically conservative Catholics because of his support for abortion rights. A few bishops said the university should withdraw the invitation, but the university administration held firm. Protesters showed up to picket.

A spokesman for Catholic University, Victor Nakas, said that the decision to invite Mr. Boehner and give him an honorary degree was made by the university’s president, John Garvey, and approved by its trustees, which includes prominent bishops and cardinals.
As for the issues the professors raised in their letter, Mr. Nakas said, “There are diverse viewpoints on these questions not only within our university but also within the Catholic community.”

Stephen F. Schneck, one of the professors who drafted the letter, says he wanted to stake out a different approach. Mr. Schneck, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies, at Catholic University, noted that the letter did not ask the university to revoke the invitation.

“We are going out of our way to say, ‘Welcome to the Catholic University,’ ” Mr. Schneck said, “ ‘but we don’t agree with you.’”

The professors point out that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also recently issued a letter expressing concerns about budget cuts in programs that aid the poor.

The letter to Mr. Boehner is signed by professors at Xavier University, from which Mr. Boehner graduated, and the University of Dayton, both in Mr. Boehner’s home state of Ohio, as well as at universities like Fordham, Marquette, Notre Dame and Santa Clara.

As we've pointed out before, Paul Ryan's budget/cause, is not just in variance to the teachings of Jesus, it is clearly and explicitly inspired by Jesus-hater Ayn Rand, whose ideas, Ryan has admitted, are what interested him in getting involved with politics.