A new political party needed?

[St_Francis]

Pope John Paul II insisted that priests not serve in political office. as a result Fr. John Drinan (D-Mass.) did not to run for reelection.

I wouldn’t vote for or financially support a Catholic party. the Church has a long and mostly ill history of playing politics.

F/

A reader could be confused by your post into thinking that a Catholic party would entail having priests being politicians, and this is not the case. A Catholic party would be one which promotes and works for Catholic ideals.

I would vote for a party which proposes to outlaw or mitigate immoral activities which negatively affect society, and which works as a referee towards fair business practices and which will work towards decentralization of power.

Marriage should be strengthened: I think enough people are sufficiently aware of the bad effects of no-fault divorce to begin to institute reform in that area. Unfortunately, I do not think we will ever be able to put the contraception genie back in the bottle… but maybe we cochld ban the Pill as it seems to be getting into the water systerm and hurting frogs, fish, and even human beings.

I would vote for a party which works towards redcing govenrment dependency while at the same time remembering that we do need to help those in real need, and which will gradually move the federal government out of the welfare system altogether. The more locally focused the responsibility is, the more local governments will take responsibility for policies which actually help people in need rather than help politicians and businesses in a way which hurts people in need.

The federal government should be restricted to dealing with interstate situations and this should be much more strictly defined. The fact that wheat is an interstate commodity should not allow the government to regulate a farmer’s own use of wheat he himself has grown.

And I do not think we should have a Catholic political party. As the Jesuits of Civita Catolica pointed out: 1. some issues have no Catholic position (put in a new road, that sort of thing); and 2. then truly Catholic positions would be held to political strategizing, like delaying action until after the election, etc.

These Jesuits suggested something more along the lines of a Tea Party, a group of concerned Catholics which would put pressure on *all *political parties to do the right thing.

 

[Fairwinds]

A reader could be confused by your post into thinking that a Catholic party would entail having priests being politicians, and this is not the case. A Catholic party would be one which promotes and works for Catholic ideals.

I would vote for a party which proposes to outlaw or mitigate immoral activities which negatively affect society, and which works as a referee towards fair business practices and which will work towards decentralization of power.

Marriage should be strengthened: I think enough people are sufficiently aware of the bad effects of no-fault divorce to begin to institute reform in that area. Unfortunately, I do not think we will ever be able to put the contraception genie back in the bottle… but maybe we cochld ban the Pill as it seems to be getting into the water systerm and hurting frogs, fish, and even human beings.

I would vote for a party which works towards redcing govenrment dependency while at the same time remembering that we do need to help those in real need, and which will gradually move the federal government out of the welfare system altogether. The more locally focused the responsibility is, the more local governments will take responsibility for policies which actually help people in need rather than help politicians and businesses in a way which hurts people in need.

The federal government should be restricted to dealing with interstate situations and this should be much more strictly defined. The fact that wheat is an interstate commodity should not allow the government to regulate a farmer’s own use of wheat he himself has grown.

And I do not think we should have a Catholic political party. As the Jesuits of Civita Catolica pointed out: 1. some issues have no Catholic position (put in a new road, that sort of thing); and 2. then truly Catholic positions would be held to political strategizing, like delaying action until after the election, etc.

These Jesuits suggested something more along the lines of a Tea Party, a group of concerned Catholics which would put pressure on *all *political parties to do the right thing.

given that there is no Catholic Party here, its impossible to tell what the promoters might want. however, the Vatican’s hostility to priests serving as US congressman is a bellwether that promoters of a US Catholic Party should heed for its attitude towards the Party itself.

supporters of a tea party advocacy group, if suitably distanced from the Church, makes more sense.

except that you’ve proposed some social issues that I, as another reasonable Catholic, disagree with. the party’s platform can’t be so watered down that stands for more platitudes than hard positions on nonnegotiable issues, perhaps it should limit itself to those issues only.

F/

 

[polytropos]

But what I propose is different. Peace. Voluntary Poverty. Prosperity on the condition of conversion from sin. That is, I believe, what God is offering the world, and the Catholic Party can incarnate that ideal, if it can find a truly Catholic candidate.

This has been something I have thought a lot about recently. I am really worried about the world’s capacity to sustain human life. The issue, I think, is that technological progress cannot continue forever; I doubt that we will, for instance, create cars that are orders of magnitude more efficient than what we have now before we use up our fuel reserves. We need some antidote to our consumerism, because everyone in the world cannot live like the average American does. Temperance ought to be a guiding virtue in the way people live their lives.

I don’t see either party moving towards a truly sustainable world. The left places the blame on oil and implicitly assumes that eventually the issue will be resolved with green alternatives. The right honestly avoids the problem as a whole. I think a truly Catholic candidate could acknowledge that “mastering the world” is not necessarily the solution. We might have to settle for living in the world as it is.

 

[St_Francis]

given that there is no Catholic Party here, its impossible to tell what the promoters might want. however, the Vatican’s hostility to priests serving as US congressman is a bellwether that promoters of a US Catholic Party should heed for its attitude towards the Party itself.

The Catholic Church generally doesn’t like priests being politicians, and this goes to the general view that the Church holds about her postion in the world and the position the state holds. The Church’s view of a lay Catholic political party would be a totally different subject.

supporters of a tea party advocacy group, if suitably distanced from the Church, makes more sense.

Yes, I liked the reasoning of the Jesuits.

except that you’ve proposed some social issues that I, as another reasonable Catholic, disagree with. the party’s platform can’t be so watered down that stands for more platitudes than hard positions on nonnegotiable issues, perhaps it should limit itself to those issues only.

F/

That’s the trouble with writing a post instead of a book one’s ideas tend to seem watered down when merely outlined.

(I’d ask what you disagreed with me on, but I think that would be off-topic Maybe elsewhere…)

 

[Love4All]

Love

I propose the Catholic Party.

Could a Catholic party win elections? Would it get financial support from anyone other than Catholics? Would the non-Catholic parties (Protestant majority) gang up on the Catholic party? Would the Catholic Party be a violation of separation of Church and State? Etc.

The answer to your last question is, no.

The others are experimental in nature, and would have to be decided by experiment.

 

[Love4All]

Pope John Paul II insisted that priests not serve in political office.

I’m not talking about clergy holding offices.

 

[Fairwinds]

a Catholic Party would let the IRS revoke the Church’s tax exempt status.

 

[SuperLuigi]

The concern for the poor and social programs of the Democratic Party, and the social teachings of the Republican Party.

Universal Healthcare, traditional marriage, welfare and charity, pro-life laws, and anti-obscene material laws.

Not necessarily what I believe, but what’s listed above is based off of Church doctrine.

First of all, people need to get past this utter stereotypical nonsense that the republicans are all pro-social conservative and that the democrats care about poor people.

What both of these parties and their “ideas” concern are getting votes and winning elections.

That’s why you have the TEA PARTY and #occupy, even if both have made major strategic mistakes in 2012.

The concern for the poor of the democrats has left many of them across the globe worse off because all too many of them care about is trying and feeling good about it, not actual results.

In fact, the democrats have become some of the worst capitalistic cronies since the time of Upton Sinclair.

Universal healthcare is a complete disaster where is has been tried. The government decides who gets what treatment.

As far as pro-life laws go, voters in South Dakota and Mississippi rejected a proposal on that. It may be most effective to allow the states to decide, which would be in accordance with the Constitution and may save the most lives.

With republicans and conservatives, we have a conservative Supreme Court and Roe v Wade, which is strictly unconstitutional, is still here and I have to say that I am disappointed in the recent marriage debate over Prop 8.

For obscene material laws, there’d be a black market and like the pro-life and marriage issue, consolidation of federal power on those issues is something everyone needs to consider because that could be a dangerous concept, and our Founding Fathers realized that.

In short, what we need are politicians who won’t run on emotions or big government, whether its religious or secular.

If anyone on here thinks that big Catholic government will solve problems or that we need as secular of a government as possible, they are sadly mistaken.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I like it. the longer the litmus test, the more likely it is to be a niche party, without any influence.

As one pundit said “All third parties have done is help the major party most in favor of their principles lose”.

 

[JMJ_coder]

We most definitely need a new major political party in this country - and we have needed it for quite some time now. Maybe we could resurrect one of the earlier American parties…maybe the Federalist party! I for one earnestly want to see the Christian Democratic party take strong root on these shores.

 

[MarcoPolo]

The big downside to this is the Media would have even more power to tip the scales…

Not mention their favored politicians faults/actual views while misrepresenting the opposing candidate’s views (I guess not to different from what goes on now)

Yeah, I don’t see too big a difference, except without political parties identified, people who don’t watch political news day in and day out will be forced to vote on person, without having a “party” in mind when they go to the polls.

 

[mary_bobo]

First of all, people need to get past this utter stereotypical nonsense that the republicans are all pro-social conservative and that the democrats care about poor people.

What both of these parties and their “ideas” concern are getting votes and winning elections.

That’s why you have the TEA PARTY and #occupy, even if both have made major strategic mistakes in 2012.

The concern for the poor of the democrats has left many of them across the globe worse off because all too many of them care about is trying and feeling good about it, not actual results.

In fact, the democrats have become some of the worst capitalistic cronies since the time of Upton Sinclair.

Universal healthcare is a complete disaster where is has been tried. The government decides who gets what treatment.

As far as pro-life laws go, voters in South Dakota and Mississippi rejected a proposal on that. It may be most effective to allow the states to decide, which would be in accordance with the Constitution and may save the most lives.

With republicans and conservatives, we have a conservative Supreme Court and Roe v Wade, which is strictly unconstitutional, is still here and I have to say that I am disappointed in the recent marriage debate over Prop 8.

For obscene material laws, there’d be a black market and like the pro-life and marriage issue, consolidation of federal power on those issues is something everyone needs to consider because that could be a dangerous concept, and our Founding Fathers realized that.

In short, what we need are politicians who won’t run on emotions or big government, whether its religious or secular.

If anyone on here thinks that big Catholic government will solve problems or that we need as secular of a government as possible, they are sadly mistaken.

Very thoughtful post.

 

[Fairwinds]

…
(I’d ask what you disagreed with me on, but I think that would be off-topic Maybe elsewhere…)

that’s always the problem. the devil’s in the details. everyone’s in favor of fair business practices but does that mean I can have loss leaders? suffice to say, I’m firmly in favor of Truth, Justice and the American Way, as well as Baseball and Motherhood.

F/

 

[livingwordunity]

We don’t need a new political party. We need to abolish the party system and have zero parties. Everyone running for office should be judged by their own personal merits instead of this voting for your favorite team like it’s some kind of football game joke. And they need to make it a max of four years within a the lifetime of any who serve in political office instead of this insanity of people who got there in the 1960’s and are still there.

 

[brian614]

We don’t need a new political party. We need to abolish the party system and have zero parties. Everyone should be judged by their own personal merits instead of this voting for your favorite team like it’s some kind of football game joke.

No offense but how would this system work exactly?

 

[livingwordunity]

No offense but how would this system work exactly?

I said in my post how it would work. You vote based on the merits of the individual running. It would require people to actually know who they are voting for. That’s how it worked before there were political parties.

 

[brian614]

I said in my post how it would work. You vote based on the merits of the individual running. It would require people to actually know who they are voting for. That’s how it worked before there were political parties.

So you could have thousands of different people running Seems like a way for a truly horrible person to win the public office. Would each citizen have to research thousands of politicians to see you met their criteria? My point was how do you get it down to lets say 10 different choices? Not saying you have a bad idea but I think more thought should go into it. The parties with all of their flaws have a way of narrowing the choices.

 

[CrossofChrist]

The problem with having such a long litmus test list, it’s extremely complicated and expensive to sell, and easy to overthrow. The foundation of society is marriage, and even if gay marriage slips in, we can’t throw out the good - even if it’s not perfect. The natural desire of men and women will win out and the only place we will see perfection is in the saints at the end of their lives. We need to pick one or two basic founding principles of society, and then build on it. Marriage and the protection of life?

I was just saying what my ideal party would be. No need to be so serious.

 

[CrossofChrist]

Universal healthcare is a complete disaster where is has been tried. The government decides who gets what treatment.

Depends how it is implemented. Every one has a right to health care (hence it should be universal), but if you’re talking about a single-payer system like many socialist countries, then you’re right. Subsidiarity is needed.

the Holy See Delegation wishes to call attention to the need for more than financial solutions to the challenges posed by the economic crisis to global efforts aimed at assuring universal access to health care.

 

[JMJ_coder]

That’s how it worked before there were political parties.

And when there were no parties in this country (which only lasted a very short time), the people didn’t exactly have an infinite choice in candidates. Let’s see, the choice of presidential candidates was George Washington or George Washington.