- Joined
- May 17, 2005
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interesting
QUID
QUID
pro QUOfter Bush visited the Vatican in June 2004, complaining that "not all the American bishops are with me," Ratzinger sent a letter to U.S. bishops, ordering them to refuse communion to "a Catholic politician … consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" – a thinly-veiled reference to John Kerry. Ratzinger added that any person even voting for this Catholic politician “would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion." Probably no surprise, then, that Bush increased his margin among Catholics by 6% from 2000 to 2004.
In 2005, Ratzinger was named as a defendant in a U.S. lawsuit suit accusing him of conspiring to cover up the sexual abuse of minors. At the center of the controversy was a May 2001 confidential letter he had sent Catholic bishops across the world ordering them to keep evidence of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy secret until 10 years after the child had reached adult status.