The Catholic League supports Nebraska Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz for threatening to excommunicate Catholics in his diocese who join organizations that directly contradict the teachings of the Catholic Church. Bishop Bruskewitz has given Catholics until April 15 to quit their membership in certain organizations lest they risk excommunication.
William Donohue offered these words of support today:
“Bishop Bruskewitz is to be commended for enforcing the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. For too long, organized dissenting Catholics have maintained a legitimacy with the public that they do not command within the ranks of the faithful. Now Bishop Bruskewitz has called their hand and has exposed their duplicity.
“In his magisterial encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II has said that ‘Dissent, in the form of carefully orchestrated protests and polemics carried on in the media, is opposed to ecclesial communication and to a correct understanding of the hierarchical constitution of the people of God. Opposition to the teachings of the Church’s pastors cannot be seen as a legitimate expression either of Christian freedom or the diversity of the Spirit’s gifts.’
“The Catholic League believes it makes little sense for any organization to allow its members the opportunity to undermine its operations by taking public stands against its policies. Why the Catholic Church should be held to a different standard is absurd. Any Catholic who joins groups like Catholics for a Free Choice or Planned Parenthood–both of which have a track record of openly attacking the Catholic Church–calls into question his allegiance to the Church. It is high time they be forced to choose which master they will serve.
“There is a stark difference between those Catholics who privately struggle with certain Church teachings and those who organize to sow the seeds of discontent. Those who make a public spectacle of their disaffection from the Church are insisting on a tolerance from the Church that they do not show for the Church itself, and that is why they are entitled to little sympathy.”
The Catholic League is the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization. It defends individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation and discrimination.
