A consultant to the Vatican has said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has incurred the penalty of excommunication from the Catholic Church.
The consultant made his statement in a highly unusual letter to Marc Balestrieri, a Los Angeles canon lawyer who formally sued John Kerry in ecclesiastical court for heresy.
Balestrieri, who launched his case earlier this year by filing a heresy complaint in Kerry's home archdiocese of Boston, told EWTN's "World Over" program on Friday that he had received an unusual, indirect communication from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the pro-abortion stance.
That communication provides a basis, he said, to declare that any Catholic politician who says he is "personally opposed to abortion, but supports a woman's right to choose," incurs automatic excommunication.
Note-se que, no ínicio do ano, o Arcebispo de Boston, Sean O'Malley, havia declarado: "These politicians should know that if they're not voting correctly on these life issues that they shouldn't dare come to communion". O Arcebispo de Boston afirmou ainda que o alcance da questão não se limitava aos políticos, abrangendo também os eleitores católicos: "is not only politicians but those (Catholics) who vote for them."
