www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Sean Hannity called a 'bad Catholic'

Dear Michael,

In reference to the above, if an apointee to the bench ever clarified his position as a truly conservertive one, there would be no chance of him acquiring the position. He would be 'borked' by the Democrats, as the expression has now become. It refers to what was done to Judge Bork by Congress. So, the apointee would have to be assumed to be conservatice, without any definite proof.


Did Hannity say specifically that it was not a sin, or rather than that it should not be imposed on those who do not accept it as a sin?

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Dear Spdundas,

I want to make an anology here. We can say that the root of a murderer is a mischievous child. Should we then equate mischievous children as murderers and condemn them as such?

I would also like to say, if the priest on TV called Hannity a heretic, does that mean only the few people in this world that fully accept artificial birth control as being equivalent to abortion, are not heretics? Are we now labelling everyone heretics for each and everything they do, regardless if it is their religious belief? In that sense, since our very pride makes us all sinners, should we assume then that almost all Christians are heretics, and that only the very few who do not practice birth control are not heretics? Certainly something's amiss here.

That priest, by taking such an intolerant black and white position, lowered the prestige of the Catholic Church, and that must have been highly painful to Hannity...who surely loves his Church.

God Bless,

Zenovia

How did Father show the Church to be in a bad and intolerant light?

Simply put, he confronted a person who mistakenly believes himself to be a Catholic in accord with the Church's Teachings. Not only that, but this dissenter is a public medium who leads people astray by giving them the impression that his personal views are the views of the Church.

I think Father did a heroic thing, and certainly acted very charitably towards Mr. Hannity. It would be cowardly and dishonest for a priest of the Church to allow Hannity's blasphemies to continue unconfronted, as they are perilous to not only his own soul, but to the souls of all those who have to sit and hear what he posits as Catholic truth.

The bottom line is that a priest of the Church not only has a RIGHT but a *RESPONSIBILITY* to inform the faithful of the actual positions of the Church, and to chastise those who lead others astray by claiming to be good and faithful Catholics, while in reality they have no regard for the precepts of the Church.

We can hope that out of Mr. Hannity's embarrassment and correction comes a change of heart, or at least will mark the end of his espousal of anti-Catholic views under the guise of being a believer in the Church's Magisterium.

I do not see why a good and holy priest like Father Euteneuer is being libeled here. He did NOTHING wrong. It's a sad day when a priest is spoken of in such blatant disrespectul ways simply because he tries to uphold the Teaching of the Church.

I don't mean to be confrontational, and I understand, Zenovia, that as a member of the Greek Orthodox Church your views on contraception will not correspond exactly with those of the Catholic Church, but at least let us judge our priests by our own rules and Teachings rather than non-Catholic ones!

Logos - Alexis

Personally, I do not like the "bad" Catholic/ "good" Catholic label.

Okay, so I don't engage in or promote the immoral practices at issue, but that doesn't make me "good." Far from it. Very far from it. I have plenty on my "bad" ledger to worry about and sometimes I think we focus way to much on certain sins to the exclusion of others.

When you write up someone else as "bad" Catholic no matter who you are, then I think it is always good to look in the mirror first. Few of us walking on this earth can claim to be oozing "goodness" from our pores. It is as when Jesus told the crowd "let he is without sin cast the first stone." I figure that if you look in the mirror and see "good" smiling back, then you need to look a little harder. So, personally, I don't think what the good Father wrote was all *that* helpful and it probably proved to underscore more divisions between those labeled as "good" and "bad" Catholics without really educating either "camp."

I do want the "bad" Catholics to think twice when they bite into their chicken sandwiches on Fridays, even if they haven't quite figured out the whole intent + action legality of sin. That thinking twice means they still give half a care about being Catholic. So maybe they really are more likely to be in a mindset to think about their opinions more in light of what their faith teaches. But you aren't going to get them to think about it with public stoning.

Zenovia,

I personally don't really care too much what Mr. Hannity's views are. It was his treatment of a priest on national television that I find distasteful and his use of cheap shots against the Roman Catholic Church. I don't agree 100% with how the RCC handles the issue of contraception, but if I were a Roman Catholic, I wouldn't brag about it on the radio and t.v. and then expect not to get any flack for it.

Joe

While I do agree with Annie about labeling people good or bad, that's rather beside the point. The point was someone needed to call this PUBLIC FIGURE out, and thank goodness a holy priest felt it was time to do so.

Anyway, if Mr. Hannity were at all literate in theology, he would know that it's not a sin to eat meat on Friday if you have forgotten that abstention was called for on that day. Sin has to be willed and known to be sin: Mr. Hannity seems to have enjoyed drawing attention to himself by apologizing for a sin he didn't commit. Ironically, he doesn't apologize for the sins he DOES commit. Perhaps he should apologize for none of his sins on air if he can't even distinguish between what is and isn't sin. That's not so much to ask.

Logos - Alexis

Alexis, I agree with you. And btw, Mr. Hannity is not entirely pro-life on abortion. He favors the presiden't position that exceptions should be made for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.

I have heard this mentioned several times, but here is one biographical entry:

http://www.geocities.com/thrawn03/hannity.html

His position is buried in that piece.

I wouldn't normally spend so much time discussing something like this. But, I do think that it is important in light of the 2008 elections. There is already a push by many conservatives to get Guliani nominated as the Republican candidate for president. I've read some articles suggesting that many evangelicals and some Catholics are thinking of supporting Guliani in spite of his pro-choice position on abortion, because "he would be good for the country." I think it is important to mention all of this because if Sean Hannity were a liberal or a Democrat, then hardly anyone would be defending him. But I see this all the time, where some neo-con talking head comes out with a position that is antithetical to Christianity and Christians let it slide because the person is their favorite media spin doctor or a true patriot or .....

I think that this coming election should be interesting. I think it will be a true test of how serious republicans are about abortion. Will conservatives vote for Guliani or if he gets the nomination, will they break away and form a new party with a prolife candidate? What will the talking heads, like Mr. Hannity, do who claim to be "values voters?"

Joe

I really don't think it is good to "call people out." Sean Hannity's words speak for him. I really don't base my opinions upon what people in media say and Hannity is more of an entertainer like most of the talking heads on TV. He's fluff. (About the only person in the entertainment industry I take at all seriously is Bono.)

Really, the people who have to see the truth to the pro-life position are the women making the "choice" to abort.

If you check out the YouTube Rudy Guliani clip that surfaced again today, you'll get more than a little nervous. I don't want my tax dollars to pay for someone's abortion - apparently Rudy does (or did). I'm a Republican, but I vote against those who would promote abortion and who are not really open to hearing from the pro-life side of the debate. I guess I'd be writing someone in in 2008, considering the "choices" we might get. Rudy or Hillary. Gee whiz.

Joe and Annie,

For what it's worth, at a traditional Catholic forum of which I'm a member, out of tens of posts on a thread about Giuliani being pro-abortion, I haven't seen a single poster defend him. They all realize that his positions on this (and some other things) are truly antitheical, as Joe puts it, to Christian values.

There are Republicans (and some Democrats!) out there who are MUCH more stringent when it comes to defending Christan values on things like abortion than is Giuliani, and if I were Republican I'd spend time trying to back them.

Logos - Alexis

Dear Joe,

I consider myself a Christian, and I can't find anything antithetical to Christianity and Christians in what Hannity said. Actually, in comparison to most of the people I know, (and they consider themselves Christian), Hannity would be considered a religious fundamentalist.


I do hope that Guiliani does not get the nomination. Frankly I don't think he will. The Evangelical movement within the Republican party is too strong, and if by the slightest possibility he was to be nominated, he would not be elected.

God Bless,

Zenovia

I think Hannity identifies as a 'Republican-American' first, and a Catholic second, hence his reluctance to see why Catholicism doesn't agree with him. People who are 'Democratic-Americans' first also fall to the same sin of defending their favorite politician and presenting an apologia of any statement they make, even when it is CLEARLY contradictory to the teachings of the Church.

I don't understand why Father John, who occasionally works for FOX, feels the need to say anything about this matter, especially slanting Fr. E negatively; since Father John had plenty of opportunity to confront Sean and apparently didn't. I wonder if Fr. John even called Fr. E, to see if Fr. E has spoken to Sean in private first - from the article it seems he didn't.

FYI,

I recently heard that Father Eutenueuer did try to contact Sean Hannity several times privately and received no response. I'm looking to see if there is any documentary proof of this. I was doing a search and found that not so long ago, EWTN had done an interview with Mr. Hannity that was a "Sean Hannity praisefest". Mr. Hannity's heterodox views on contraception and abortion have been known publicly for a long time. So, apparently, this isn't some tirade that a priest went on but likely, Father's public letter was the last step in a process that included multiple attempts to speak with Sean privately about the issue.

Joe

Yes Joe,
I also heard the same on Relevant Radio. They interviewed Father and he confirmed that he DID try to contact Sean privately and Sean didn't respond. He then asked Father to come on his show to talk about it publicly. Father took him up on the offer.

Sounds like to me that Sean wanted to prove something to his viewers. Exactly what he wanted to prove, I don't know.

Joe

Joe and Everyone,

Here is the interview [relevantradio.streamguys.us] from Relevant Radio, the Fr. Euteneuer interview in at the end of hour 2.

Fr. E's interview continued to The beginning of Hour 3 [relevantradio.streamguys.us].

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