Philocrites

James Carroll on Kerry's Catholicism.

by Philocrites

Boston Globe columnist James Carroll — author of Constantine's Sword and Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War and fellow worshiper with John Kerry at Boston's Paulist Center — writes in defense of Kerry's Vatican II faith:

In labeling John Kerry "wrong for Catholics," the Republican National Committee is lying about the meaning of Catholic faith, insulting Kerry, and moving the political exploitation of religion to a new low. The Globe's Michael Kranish reported Sunday on the RNC plot to target Kerry's religious unworthiness as a Catholic. Not only do the Republicans distort Kerry's positions on complicated moral questions; they misrepresent the current state of Catholic ethical thought. General outrage is the proper response to this strategy, but Catholics in particular should repudiate it.

Kerry is not a "renegade Catholic," Carroll writes, but "one of that increasingly large number of faithful Catholics who understand that moral theology is not a fixed set of answers given once and for all by an all-knowing hierarchy but an ongoing quest for truths that remain elusive." He explains:

The "truth" is not something we possess but something toward which in humility we are moving. "A pilgrim people" is what Vatican II called the church, with a modesty that was itself refreshing change.

("Kerry's Catholicism," James Carroll, Boston Globe 9.27.04)

Copyright © 2004 by Philocrites | Posted 28 September 2004 at 8:12 AM

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