Oh, Thank God!

It turns out that John Kerry is not a heretic. A conservative Catholic lawyer tried to initiate proceedings against John Kerry to have him declared a heretic and excommunicated based on Kerry being pro-choice. This whole thing had me a little worried. After all, John Kerry is much better Catholic than I am. If he gets bounced from the embrace of Holy Mother Church, then what chance do I have? But, rest assured, the Vatican has weighed in and Kerry is in the clear.

So, if the case is clear that Kerry is not a heretic, in the interest of balance we must ask the obvious question. Is Bush a heretic? Well, I'm afraid that New Donkey has made a very good case that he is:

Although he does not appear to belong to any specific religious congregation, Mr. Bush has publicly identified himself as a "born-again Christian" of the Methodist denomination. He is thus presumptively an adherent of the Protestant Heresy, condemned most notably and definitively by the sixteenth-century Council of Trent. If so, Bush has implicitly embraced an array of subordinate heresies, including:

* Denial of the teaching authority of the Church (the basis, BTW, for questions about Mr. Kerry's views on abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research).
* Bibliolatry (rejection of Church tradition as amplifying and interpreting scriptural authority)
* Symbolism (rejection of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist)
* Sacrilege (rejection of marriage, holy orders, penance, confirmation and extreme unction as valid Sacraments of the Church)
* Dishonoring the Mother of God (rejection of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception, Assumption and Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary)
* Schism (rejection of papal authority and establishment of a separate ecclesiastical structure)

I'm sorry folks but the President is going to hell. I don't think we will tell him this year. Two major shocks in one year in too much for anybody.