{"id":1483,"date":"2004-07-29T12:05:33","date_gmt":"2004-07-29T16:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/07\/29\/john-kerry-and-my-bfs-catholic-past"},"modified":"2004-07-29T12:05:33","modified_gmt":"2004-07-29T16:05:33","slug":"john-kerry-and-my-bfs-catholic-pastor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/07\/29\/john-kerry-and-my-bfs-catholic-pastor\/","title":{"rendered":"John Kerry (and my BF’s) Catholic pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Boston.com<\/a>‘s front page right now, or to this specific link<\/a>, and see a story on John Ardis, pastor of John and Teresa’s parish on Beacon Hill.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake: The Rev. John B. Ardis, the Catholic priest whom
\nSenator John F. Kerry has chosen to give the benediction at tonight’s
\nclosing session of the convention, opposes abortion.<\/p>\n

\nBut he also opposes capital punishment, the war in Iraq, and public policies he views as unjust toward the poor or hungry.<\/p>\n

\nAlthough several Catholic cardinals have declined to speak at
\nDemocratic conventions because of the party’s support for abortion
\nrights, Ardis, the director of the Paulist Center of Boston, will speak
\ntonight without reservation, noting that neither the Republicans nor
\nthe Democrats are fully in step with Catholic teachings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Exactly. If the rageful Christian Right focused on any issue besides
\nabortion, virtually all national politicians would be sorely lacking.<\/p>\n

\n

\nSpeaking at the convention is not Ardis’s first bold move. In April,
\njust before Easter, Ardis said he would welcome Kerry to Communion,
\ndespite declarations by some bishops that they would deny Kerry the
\nsacrament because of his support for abortion rights. Ardis instead
\ncited the position of other bishops, including O’Malley, that
\nindividual Catholics should examine their consciences to decide whether
\nto seek Communion.<\/p>\n

\n“We will not deny Communion to anyone who presents themselves in a respectful manner,” Ardis said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Not the whole story.  The day before Easter, when the controversy
\nwas at its highest, the Paulist Center received a call from the
\narchdiocese, instructing them to not deny the Eucharist to Kerry. 
\nI’m sure that the archdiocese would deny this if you were to ask them,
\nbut they made it very specific that Kerry be able to receive the
\nEucharist if he presented himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Go to Boston.com‘s front page right now, or to this specific link, and see a story on John Ardis, pastor of John and Teresa’s parish on Beacon Hill. Make no mistake: The Rev. John B. Ardis, the Catholic priest whom Senator John F. Kerry has chosen to give the benediction at tonight’s closing session of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[661],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deeencee"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-nV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}