Vatican Official: Democrats Becoming Party of Death

Reuters Blog ran a story October 1 that said former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, leader of the Vatican's highest court, "...told the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire that the U.S. Democratic Party risked 'transforming itself definitively into a party of death for its decisions on bioethical issues.'" The title of the blog entry was "Vatican Official attacks U.S. Democrats as 'Party of Death.'"

Burke currently serves as the prefect of the Vatican's Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, a post he was appointed to in June. He reportedly told the paper that Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Democratic vice presidential nominee and Delaware Senator Joe Biden misrepresented the teachings of the Catholic church on the subject of abortion. Pelosi has been Speaker since January 2007. Mr. Biden has been in the Senate for more than three decades.

Burke is quoted in the report as saying that both Biden and Pelosi "...while presenting themselves as good Catholics, have presented Church doctrine on abortion in a false and tendentious way." It is unusual for the church to single out individuals in this manner.

Reuters Blog notes that U.S. bishops were not happy with Nancy Pelosi when she said during a television interview that "...the Church itself had long debated when human life begins." The report says Biden "...is a practicing Catholic who also supports abortion rights and analysts have said he could help woo wavering Catholics into Obama's fold."

In criticizing Democrats in the United States, Reuters reports, "Burke said pro-life Democrats were 'rare' and that it saddened him that the party that helped 'our immigrant parents and grandparents' prosper in America had changed so much over the years."

Reuters notes that Burke also criticized former presidential nominee and Democratic Senator John Kerry in 2004, suggesting he "...should be denied communion because of his views on abortion." Of course, it turned into a media spectacle, as noted by Reuters, which says in the report that some bishops stated they would not administer communion to Kerry and reporters went to churches attended by Kerry to see if they would follow through.

The Reuters Blog report also says that Pope Benedict XVI wrote in 2004, when he as a Cardinal, that bishops in the United States must refuse communion to Catholic politicians that had expressed support for abortion rights. The letter was never sent, something Reuters says Burke regrets.