Archbishop Chaput Oct. 17 ENDOW keynote address

Click here for the link to the text of a speech Archbishop Chaput gave tonight at the ENDOW national conference dinner in Denver.

As stated in his speech, he is giving these remarks "as an author and private citizen" and not officialy for the Archdiocese of Denver.

Archbishop Chaput booksigning

Just got this from the Colorado Catholic Conference... for our readers in the northern end of our diocese (and anyone else interested in making the drive):

"On Thursday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m., Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput will hold a signing for his new book, "Render Unto Caesar," at Border’s Bookstore at the Park Meadows Mall located at 8401 Park Meadows Center Dr., in Lone Tree. This book is a wonderful and insightful resource for all Catholics who seek to bring their Catholic beliefs to the public square."

Click here for an interesting Q&A with Archbishop Chaput on his book.

Bishops respond to Nancy Pelosi

Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput may not have been invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention, but he is determined to be heard.

On Monday he, along with Denver Auxiliary Bishop James D. Conley, issued a statement in response to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statements regarding Catholicism on "Meet the Press" Sunday. You may recall that Rep. Pelosi (D-Calif.) stated that the defining when human life begins "shouldn't have an impact on a woman's right to choose." This was after she identified herself as an "ardent, practicing Catholic."

In a tract titled "On the Separation of Sense and State: A Clarification for the People of the Church of Northern Colorado," the bishops remarked that "Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grivously evil."

Read the full statement.

UPDATE: Philadelphia Cardinal Joseph Rigali, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Committee for Pro-Life Activities; and Bridgeport (Conn.) Bishop William E. Lori, chairman of the USCCB's Committee on Doctrine, quickly followed suit with a joint statement titled that condemed Pelosi's statements.

"In the course of a 'Meet the Press' interview on abortion and other public issues on August 24, 2008, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church against abortion," Cardinal Rigali and Bishop Lori wrote, illustrating their point with the history of the Catholic Church's teaching and canon law regarding abortion.

As of this writing, the statement is on the home page on the USCCB Web site

Archbishop Chaput on separation of church and state

Archbishop Chaput had a strong column in First Things yesterday, saying that recent legislation proposed in Colorado that is supposed to be aimed at having the church play by state rules if it accepts church money is really a far more hostile attack on the church in general.

This is something that I've noticed too over the last three years in witnessing some of the hearings on legislation that affects the church. It seems that the aim is not just to separate church and state, but to bury churches. At the heart of this, I'm starting to believe more and more, is a desire among some in power for an atheistic society. Archbishop Chaput goes so far as to say that, even though statistics say there are more Catholics in the world than any other faith, that the Catholic view is rapidly losing weight in the public arena.

The lesson here for American Catholics is this: For more than forty years, we’ve worked to integrate, accommodate, and assimilate to American society in the belief that a truly diverse public square would have room for authentically Catholic life and faith. We need to revisit that assumption. It turns out that nobody gets anything for free. If we want to influence, or even have room to breathe in the American environment of coming generations, we’ll need to work for it and fight for it—always in a spirit of justice and charity, but also vigorously and without apology. Anyone who still has an easy confidence about the Catholic “place” in American life had better wake up.

We need to fight, indeed, and that means knowing our faith so we can defend it.

Voting: 'Proportionate Reasons'

In 2004, then-Cardinal Ratzinger sent a memo to Cardinal McCarrick regarding a question about when Communion should be denied to a politician who is intentionally ignoring key teachings of the Catholic Church. In a now-famous postscript to the main text of the letter, Cardinal Ratzinger addressed the culpability of the faithful who vote for pro-abortion candidates:

A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.

On Nov. 12 at the USCCB fall meeting, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput was asked for his interpretation of the key phrase "proportionate reasons" by John Allen, National Catholic Reporter's Vatican reporter (thanks to Amy Welborn's blog for highlighting this).

As you know, I have written a book [on faith and politics], and in it I write that it means a reason we could confidently explain to the Lord Jesus and the victims of abortion when we meet them at the end of our lives, and we will meet them. I think there are legitimate reasons you could vote in favor of someone who wouldn’t be where the church is on abortion, but it would have to be a reason that you could confidently explain to Jesus and the victims of abortion when you meet them at the Judgment. That’s the only criterion. It can’t be that we favor a particular party, or that we’re hostile to the war, or so on.

This is a very interesting interpretation of that phrase. Do you agree with him?

[NOTE: Archbishop Chaput's book is coming out just in time for the Democratic National Convention and should cause quite a stir. We'll give details on the release date when we hear of them.]