James 3:1 says that not many of us should be teachers because we who teach will be judged more strictly. Teaching the word of God to the people of God is a huge responsibility and should be approached with an intense awareness of this responsibility and the constant need for assistance from the Holy Spirit to rightly divide the word.
The activity of theologians and priests described by Anne Hendershott in this article is chilling in light of James 3:1. check this out.
In some cases, church leaders actually started providing “cover” for Catholic pro-choice politicians who wanted to vote in favor of abortion rights. At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., on a hot summer day in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers and allies were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a “clear conscience.”
The former Jesuit priest Albert Jonsen, emeritus professor of ethics at the University of Washington, recalls the meeting in his book “The Birth of Bioethics” (Oxford, 2003). He writes about how he joined with the Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick and Charles Curran, to enable the Kennedy family to redefine support for abortion.
Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that “distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue.” It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians “might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order.”
Father Milhaven later recalled the Hyannisport meeting during a 1984 breakfast briefing of Catholics for a Free Choice: “The theologians worked for a day and a half among ourselves at a nearby hotel. In the evening we answered questions from the Kennedys and the Shrivers. Though the theologians disagreed on many a point, they all concurred on certain basics . . . and that was that a Catholic politician could in good conscience vote in favor of abortion.”
hat tip to Al Mohler who has similar thoughts about this event. Dr. Mohler concludes:
There are important lessons here, to be sure. One lesson must be this: There will be theologians who seem ever ready to find a way to subvert the teachings of their church, even as they seek to remain in its employ and trust. The second lesson is like unto the first: There will ever be politicians who are looking for political cover, and will gladly receive this cover from those willing to subvert their church’s teaching. These lessons are by no means limited to the Roman Catholic Church.