02/23/2006

Catholic Bishop Vasa Declares Pro-Choice Catholics Adhere to Right-to-Murder Heresy

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 23 -- Bishop Robert F. Vasa has warned the faithful that politicians or voters openly maintaining the right-to-choose abortion commit heresy against the Fifth Commandment’s dogmatic prohibition against murder, a position unequivocally endorsed by Marc Balestrieri, JCL, a canon lawyer and the president of De Fide, founded in 2004 to combat the right-to-murder heresy.

“Bishop Vasa is to be praised for his clear, courageous, and firm defense of the integrity of the Fifth Commandment and the most innocent of human life,” commented Balestrieri. “It is the solemn duty of a Bishop to fully disclose the exact gravity of ‘choice’ to his flock.”

In an article penned for the Catholic Sentinel, the Bishop of the Diocese of Baker, Oregon, wrote, “There is a point at which passive ‘tolerance’ allows misleading teachings to be spread and propagated, thus confusing or even misleading the faithful about the truths of the Church . . . There is a very strong word, which still exists in our Church, which most of us are too ‘gentle’ to use. The word is ‘heresy’.”

Balestrieri applauded Vasa for his courage in addressing the hot-button issue of whether being “pro-choice” as a politician or voter constitutes heresy. Vasa, after first raising the question, and then proceeding through analysis, rules in the affirmative: “Those who maintain that any and all decisions about the disposition of pre-born human beings are exclusively the right of the mother or the parents, at least implicitly, reject the clear and consistent teaching of the Church...If that [pro- choice] candidate receives the vote precisely because he maintains that he has no duty to protect or defend innocent human life in the womb, then a vote cast for him is a type of declaration that the teaching of the Church, indeed the validity of the Fifth Commandment itself, is rejected.”

“Rejection of the Fifth Commandment was precisely cited in a doctrinal note of 1998 by Benedict XVI, prior to his election as Pope, as constituting a heresy according to Can. 751 of the Code of Canon Law. Bishop Vasa’s conclusion is a lucid and much needed public defense of the integrity of the Faith,” commented Balestrieri.

Bishop Vasa's strong words are spoken in the wake of a recent heresy trial adjudicated last month in the Diocese of San Bernardino, and, according to Balestrieri, “lend further weight to canonical action now advancing against several prominent U.S. politicians.” [See http://www.defide.com/press.html ]

DE FIDE, a California non-profit, specializes in the use of Canon Law to combat heresy and grave crimes within the Church. Since 2004, it aims to stop the terrible scandal of officials misusing their public office to promote the life and soul threatening Right-to- Murder Heresy all the while claiming affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church. To learn more, visit www.defide.com