Sir Choice-alot
"LifeSiteNews called the Knights of Malta office in Washington, where it was confirmed that Terry McAuliffe has indeed submitted an application to the Knights of Malta, which is currently under review. A director told LifeSiteNews that the Knights have no control over whom submits an application, but do make the decision whether a candidate fulfills all the requirements to join their ranks.
"According to the Knights own website, McAuliffe fails to be a candidate to their order by their own requirements since an applicant must be 'in good standing with the church'; an impossible situation on account of McAuliffe's pro-abortion views. A candidate also must have 'a record of service to the Catholic Church and to Catholic-related causes by lending professional expertise or 'hands-on' volunteer service to the poor,' a record which is tarnished by McAuliffe lending his expertise to push the anti-life agenda of the Democratic National Committee.
"Currently, the fault lies not with the Knights of Malta,
but with McAullife's two sponsors and pastor, who 'to avoid possible embarrassment'
have the responsibility
to make sure that the applicant satisfies the criteria for admission..."
[Via
Kathy
Shaidle]
Well just maybe the Knights of Malta will refuse him membership, though you do wonder what would have happened if the story had not been picked up after McAuliffe mentioned it on Hugh Hewitt show.
Though maybe he could join some organization of knights who support abortion - like considering the methods of abortion - Knights of the Ground Table.
Dale Price posts:
The Knights have a membership requirement mandating a year of formation:
Every candidate must attend the Day of Formation in Washington and over the following twelve months will be required to attend at least two of the Association's spiritual activities and participate as a volunteer at two of the Association's personal service projects.
Since it is almost certainly a fait accompli that he will become a member (btw, notice how much jack it takes to get in?), how about assigning him to work in a crisis pregnancy center? That, and a couple of mea culpas for screwing over Democrats for Life and his cavalier attitude toward life issues and we might be getting somewhere.
Known as 
Unfortunately, "in good standing with the Church" may mean nothing more than "hasn't been personally excommunicated by his bishop."
The Knights of Columbus (far less "jack" than the K of M) have the same problem. To be a K of C, you have to be "a practical Catholic." While it's conceded that "practical" means "practicing," rather than Machiavellian, nonetheless, the Knights claim no magisterial authority for themselves, and therefore leave it to the bishops to excommunicate or not.
So, has the Bishop of Albany, or the Archbishop of New York, excommunicated Mario Cuomo? No? Then he can be a Knight....
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I have read most of of the blogs across the blogoshere regarding the Knights of Malta and Terry McAuliffe fracas with quite some interest over the last few days and a few things have come to mind.
Invitations/applications are not equivalent to membership in any private organization, be that a union, country club, or membership society. And each of these has a right, as a private organization to proceed with its application process as it sees fit. Of course it is understandable that a religious institution will, for both spiritual and human reasons, be is held to higher standards whether Catholic, Buddhist, Unitarian or Muslim.
In these last few days I have noted that many people of good faith, and blogs that want to print a good story, have neglected to make the fine distinction between being invited to join an organization and "being honored with membership."
Both sides - that offending (Mr. McAuliffe) and those offended (many if not all bloggers) seem to operate on presumptions. Mr. McAuliffe presumed to drop the name of a prominent Catholic organization he was not yet a part of to strategically win tacit approval of his good Catholic standing; and, good-hearted Catholics have presumed that the Knights of Malta are an organization whose charity stops at the sick and the poor and whose discernment is somehow suspect and corrupt. The Order of Malta has a 900+ year tradition of serving the Church and has been tested by many crises as challenging as this, I daresay. As an organization with this history perhaps it has earned the benefit of our trust in its wisdom to review the application submitted without our second-guessing, prompting, chiding, or sarcasm.
We Catholics are a Resurrection people and so we know that sin has been conquered but its effects are still with us and so must be fought. Still, we should be happy. We have won! And if we are to fight, we mayn't like our enemies but we are called to love them no matter whom we perceive them to be.
The blogosphere, (from which I get ALL my news...) is reporting that the application has been withdrawn.
(Save the liturgy, save the world...)