{"id":826,"date":"2004-04-28T11:17:35","date_gmt":"2004-04-28T19:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/04\/28\/mario-cuomo-on-religious-belief-and-public-morality\/"},"modified":"2004-04-28T11:17:35","modified_gmt":"2004-04-28T19:17:35","slug":"mario-cuomo-on-religious-belief-and-public-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=826","title":{"rendered":"Mario Cuomo on "Religious Belief and Public Morality""},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone who has been following the Kerry and the Catholic Church controversy<\/a> should take the time to read this 1984 speech on the subject <\/a>(well, the general subject, not Kerry in particular) by Mario Cuomo, another Catholic politician criticized for his pro-choice votes. Here’s a few snippets:<\/p>\n

In addition to all the weaknesses, dilemmas, and temptations that impede every pilgrim\u2019s progress, the Catholic who holds political office in a pluralistic democracy\u2014who is elected to serve Jews and Muslims, atheists and Protestants, as well as Catholics\u2014bears special responsibility. He or she undertakes to help create conditions under which all <\/i>can live with a maximum of dignity and with a reasonable degree of freedom; where everyone who chooses may hold beliefs different from specifically Catholic ones, sometimes contradictory to them; where the laws protect people\u2019s right to divorce, to use birth control, and even to choose abortion.<\/p>\n

In fact, Catholic public officials take an oath to preserve the Constitution that guarantees his freedom. And they do so gladly. Not because they love what others do with their freedom, but because they realize that in guaranteeing freedom for all, they guarantee our <\/i>right to be Catholics: our right to pray, to use the sacraments, to refuse birth control devices, to reject abortion, not to divorce and remarry if we believe it to be wrong.<\/p>\n

The Catholic public official lives the political truth most Catholics through most of American history have accepted and insisted on: the truth that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful.<\/p>\n

I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or nonbeliever, or as anything else you choose.<\/p><\/div>\n

And more, from later in the speech….<\/p>\n

I accept the church\u2019s teaching on abortion. Must I insist you do? By law? By denying you Medicaid funding? By a constitutional amendment? If so, which one? Would that be the best way to avoid abortions or to prevent them? …<\/p>\n

My church and my conscience require me to believe certain things about divorce, birth control, and abortion. My church does not order me\u2014under pain of sin or expulsion\u2014to pursue my salvific mission according to a precisely defined political plan. …<\/p>\n

I repeat, there is no church teaching that mandates the best political course for making our belief everyone\u2019s rule, for spreading this part of our Catholicism. There is neither an encyclical nor a catechism that spells out a political strategy for achieving legislative goals. …<\/p>\n

The bishops\u2019 pastoral letter, \u201cThe Challenge of Peace,\u201d speaks directly to this point. \u201cWe recognize,\u201d the bishops wrote, \u201cthat the Church\u2019s teaching authority does not carry the same force when it deals with technical solutions involving particular means as it does when it speaks of principles or ends. People may agree in abhorring an injustice, for instance, yet sincerely disagree as to what practical approach will achieve justice. Religious groups are entitled as others to their opinion in such cases, but they should not claim that their opinions are the only ones that people of good will may hold.\u201d …<\/p>\n

Respectfully, and after careful consideration of the position and arguments of the bishops, I have concluded that the approach of a constitutional amendment [to ban abortion] is not the best way for us to seek to deal with abortion.<\/p>\n

I believe that legal interdicting of all abortions by either the federal government or the individual states is not a plausible possibility and, even if it could be obtained, it wouldn\u2019t work. Given present attitudes, it would be Prohibition revisited, legislating what couldn\u2019t be enforced and in the process creating a disrespect for law in general. …<\/p>\n

The hard truth is that abortion isn\u2019t a failure of government. No agency or department of government forces women to have abortions, but abortion goes on.<\/p>\n

Catholics, the statistics show, support the right to abortion in equal proportion to the rest of the population. Despite the teaching in our homes and schools and pulpits, despite the sermons and pleadings of parents and priests and prelates, despite all the effort at defining our opposition to the sin of abortion, collectively we Catholics apparently believe\u2014and perhaps act\u2014little differently from those who don\u2019t share our commitment.<\/p>\n

Are we asking government to make criminal what we believe to be sinful because we ourselves can\u2019t stop committing the sin?<\/p><\/div>\n

Damn, I wish Cuomo had run for president.<\/p>\n

There’s too much good stuff to quote… if you’re interested in the issue and have a bit of time to spare, I recommend reading the whole thing<\/a>. Link via e-skojec.com<\/a>..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone who has been following the Kerry and the Catholic Church controversy should take the time to read this 1984 speech on the subject (well, the general subject, not Kerry in particular) by Mario Cuomo, another Catholic politician criticized for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}