Authority, Part II

Unlike the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is available online, the United Methodist's Book of Discipline needs to be purchased, and I don't have the money to buy it.  However, I do know of one interesting item that it discusses: abortion.  I don't really know the exact place but the Book says that abortion is not an easy decision, and should be approached with much counsel and prayer.  This essentially means that if you want to kill your kid, talk to your pastor about, pray about, then your good.  This actually contrasts the consistent teaching of Christianity.

Now, abortion has only been a societal issue since the late 60s, when procedures became safer (which is why the Supreme Court legalized it...even "back-alley abortions" were considered extremely safe).  Prior to that, abortion was taboo, and it had been since Theophorus I made Catholicism the state religion of the Roman Empire.  During the Greek and Roman eras, it was common for non-Christians and non-Jews to take measures to ensure their unborn children weren't born, thus aborting them.  Christians condemned this practice, as is seen in the 1st Century work the Didache.  Christians always and everywhere condemned abortion, from the Didache, to Augustine, to Jerome, to Aquinas, all the way to the 20th Century. 

Sometime after Roe v. Wade, the UMC made the change that removed the sinful nature of abortion, despite the constant teaching that abortion is evil. Using what I said previously, it is easy to see why.  Rather than use the example of almost 2000 years of Christian teaching, or have their bishops exercise the authority given to bishops by the apostles, the UMC relied on the feelings of their congregation to settle the issue.  What did the Catholic Church do?  First of all, the Church never put the matter up for a vote, because of the reliance of the Church on Tradition.  The Tradition is clear: abortion is always and everywhere evil.  That didn't stop some Catholics from weaseling their way into moral mo-mans-land and supporting abortion rights (like the Kennedys, Pelosis, Bob Casey, Jrs and Bidens of the world).  Because of that, certain bishops exercised their God-given authority to pronounce that such support excommunicated said Catholic from the Church.  In addition, the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of the Apostle Peter (to whom the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven were bestowed, and upon which Christ's Church was built), declared in Evangelium vitae that all acts of willful abortion were intrinsically evil.  That settled it.  Essentially, every Catholic who believes otherwise (like Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and others) is a heretic, then.