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Swiss_Guy
Guest
True, but that kind of leads into why I’m for Catholicism as a state religion.
Whatever, different topic. 
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Whatever, different topic.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
it may be worth mentioning that most government transfer payments come from the “income from work” segment of the national income.
As taxes for governmental transfer payments increase, the ability of individuals to make their own transfer payments to family, to neighbors, to the Church, to charity, decreases.
The “government welfare is charity” belief, which has been widely accepted by many Catholics really needs to be set aside. If one simply looks at the reality of government transfer payments, one would know it’s a lie. Government programs are really not aimed at the truly poor and helpless. They are used to buy votes from the middle class.
The current administration is probably the worst in decades in that regard. Lots of middle class welfare, absolutely nothing for those in poverty who cannot help themselves. There are even some programs that have hurt the poorest.
It really is time for Churchmen to abandon what I think of as “Liberation Theology Lite”; the American version of Liberation Theology, and it could and ought to, start with the USCCB. It is not charity at all.
As taxes for governmental transfer payments increase, the ability of individuals to make their own transfer payments to family, to neighbors, to the Church, to charity, decreases.
The “government welfare is charity” belief, which has been widely accepted by many Catholics really needs to be set aside. If one simply looks at the reality of government transfer payments, one would know it’s a lie. Government programs are really not aimed at the truly poor and helpless. They are used to buy votes from the middle class.
The current administration is probably the worst in decades in that regard. Lots of middle class welfare, absolutely nothing for those in poverty who cannot help themselves. There are even some programs that have hurt the poorest.
It really is time for Churchmen to abandon what I think of as “Liberation Theology Lite”; the American version of Liberation Theology, and it could and ought to, start with the USCCB. It is not charity at all.
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FaithBuild18
Guest
Is this promise made somewhere in scripture?
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TheRealJuliane
Guest
I have read that large segments of both political parties were behind the legal right to abortion, but for different reasons. The focus at that time was on women’s rights, and the Democrat Party wanted to make sure poor women had the same rights as wealthier (presumably Republican) women did. There was no solid or vocal pro-life community, and The Pill had been in legal use for what, over a decade? So the focus on sex without reproduction was equated to women being free to live their own lives, free to work, free of the encumbrances of children. I’m sure people like Randall Terry were anti abortion from the beginning, but I’m also pretty sure that a lot of Catholics were at least unconcerned about the issue.
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iloveangels
Guest
Correct. The USCCB has believed that they can get works of mercy done using the federal government. But when we rely on others to do our work for us, then the agenda is not ours. Those are not works of mercy but something else.
The federal government does not perform works of mercy. The federal government manages power, which is what governments do. If it happens that they send out money, it’s only to bolster their power, and to distribute money for its own ends which include keeping strife at a low enough level that they stay in power. If that wasn’t the case, they’d stop doing it in a minute and use the money for their own purposes.
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iloveangels
Guest
The paradox here is that the people pushing this were male. It is generally understood by men that it’s in the interest of men not to support children. And indeed, when a woman gets an abortion it’s often her boyfriend or her father that drives her to the clinic and convinces her to do it. This is a man’s issue really.
Think about the words “birth control.” When a man can tell you that you have to “control” your own body, then you know you are a slave to him.
The Church is protecting the legitimate rights of women here. Women have the right to raise the children they conceive, and what’s more, in order to be moral and decent, the fathers of those children must support them. Children who are conceived have the right to live. That’s the cost of sexual activity for men, whether they like it or not.
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iloveangels
Guest
Matthew 16:18
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
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TheRealJuliane
Guest
At the time, it really was seen as an issue of more freedom for women. Unfortunately the end result has been a disaster for women. If there were men pushing the issue, women were fully complicit, not understanding that they had just destroyed what God created - men’s need for family, for protecting that family, in the name of “freedom.”
I was a sophomore in high school when Roe came down from the SCOTUS. I remember all the marches, the rallies, the celebration after the decision came down. My sister had her abortion either in the same year or the year after that.
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iloveangels
Guest
Correct. Participation in government programs is not Christian charity.
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iloveangels
Guest
That’s because the culture says that women can’t rely on their boyfriends/husbands/fathers for financial security when they become pregnant, and this is also pushed by men. This is a violation of traditional western views however, as well as traditional eastern views while we’re at it. This is really a man’s issue.
Yes, and I’ll bet she had the abortion because she didn’t see how she would support the child alone, or she thought she had to make money with a job in the future to support herself and the child, or she thought she didn’t want to marry the man who pushed her into having sex with him, or her father was raising hell with her. Or some combination of these factors.
Not that women are innocent here, but it’s plainly not in a woman’s interest to get coerced into sex, get pregnant, get an abortion, and then suffer over it. Rather it is in their interest to fall in love, get married, have the children they conceive and then live in peace with their families.
As a sidelight, I don’t know how many people in here actually remember the 60s. Remember Twiggy, who was all the rage? She was so thin she looked like little boy. She had no breasts. I have read that she was amenorrheic, meaning she had no menses. Being as thin as she was can cause that. The 60s were a very reductive period in history, and masculinity was the tone of the times. Women make a mistake to think that was about them. It was not. It was about an ideal, which was futuristic and masculine in tone with femininity in its thrall. Remember all those funny movie clips with the beautiful Russian scientist who takes down her hair and collapses in front of the hero of the movie. Yeah, that.
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JoanREDirector
Guest
Your question left me speechless … momentarily. I’m not sure where you’re coming from. Sola scriptura? OK, scripture it is.
John 14:15:16 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever.”
Please, however, read the verse in its context. Continue on to verse 31.
Acts 2 14:21
Again, please read all of chapter 2 for the context.
Matthew 16 18 "And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.
Again, please read this verse in context.
CCC 797 The Church understands that the Holy Spirit Will never desert us. God is always faithful. We may sin but He is always faithful.
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iloveangels
Guest
There’s nothing wrong with using Scripture, as long as it’s taken in context. And this use of Matthew 16:18 is. That’s WHY it’s in the CCC. This verse has always been understood this way. The footnote should give the Scripture location, in fact.
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Sailor_Kenshin
Guest
Excellent points. I remember Twiggy, and I remember wanting to be like her.
It wasn’t until decades later than I began to fit the puzzle together.
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iloveangels
Guest
I can honestly say that I didn’t want to be like her. I thought she looked like the most miserable instance of a female I’d ever seen. Now, you have to know that I was raised in an old-fashioned family of girls and I like being a girl. I was a mouthy feminine little tomboy in no hurry to grow up, and a little girl with a mind of her own. I ended up in science. And I don’t take my hair down for anyone but my husband because he’s a gentleman and can behave himself around me, or I’ll know the reason why! That’s real “girl power.”
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iloveangels
Guest
I started to get my head around femininity and also religion when I gave birth. For me that was a very clarifying experience, maybe because it was so basic and primal. The doctors insisted that it was medical and it plainly wasn’t and never has been. I was one of the first in this local area to actually use the Lamaze method, as originally written, way back in the 70s.
As one more indication of the medicalization of reproduction, Lamaze has now been co-opted by the medical establishment, and it’s not what it should be at all. Now about 1/3 of pregnancies (that survive abortion) in the US deliver by Caesarian section, which is the highest figure in history. Nearly all women are once again heavily medicated and monitored to separate them from the experience of birth. That’s a travesty and most of these procedures are totally unnecessary. Historically speaking, the proportion of surgical intervention ought to be less than 5%. Where has common sense gone? How do people think that the human race has gone on all these centuries without surgical births???
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stevegravy
Guest
It is gone by way of greed, tort law, lawyers, and idiot jurisprudent rational.
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iloveangels
Guest
There are a bunch of reasons for it.
a) Doctors get paid more for surgical births.
b) Doctors are afraid of getting sued and so they jump in and try to manage the whole thing.
c) Some younger doctors have not seen many natural births that take any time and think anything longer than an hour or two from the start of labor til birth is a reason to use surgical birth. They don’t understand &/or trust the process.
d) Some doctors like their work to be convenient–all in the daytime and on weekdays.
e) Many young women expect that all reproductive events should be medical because they’re used to the pill and abortion.
f) Many young women don’t believe that it makes a difference (ignorance) or care enough about their children to put in any effort over this. A surprising number of young women approach childbearing like I approach going to the dog pound to get a dog.
g) Most people have never seen an animal give birth and don’t know how it really works, ie just plain ignorance. This is exactly the same kind of ignorance you see when people don’t know where meat comes from.
h) People are willing to pay for something that they don’t need because, after all, we’re still a rich country.
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stevegravy
Guest
All that too.There are a bunch of reasons for it.
a) Doctors get paid more for surgical births.
b) Doctors are afraid of getting sued and so they jump in and try to manage the whole thing.
c) Some younger doctors have not seen many natural births that take any time and think anything longer than an hour or two from the start of labor til birth is a reason to use surgical birth. They don’t understand &/or trust the process.
d) Some doctors like their work to be convenient–all in the daytime and on weekdays.
e) Many young women expect that all reproductive events should be medical because they’re used to the pill and abortion.
f) Many young women don’t believe that it makes a difference (ignorance) or care enough about their children to put in any effort over this. A surprising number of young women approach childbearing like I approach going to the dog pound to get a dog.
g) Most people have never seen an animal give birth and don’t know how it really works, ie just plain ignorance. This is exactly the same kind of ignorance you see when people don’t know where meat comes from.
h) People are willing to pay for something that they don’t need because, after all, we’re still a rich country.
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KSU
Guest
There is absolutely nothing in any of the above quotes from scripture that means the Church in America can’t be wiped out some day. Ask the survivors of the old USSR. Ask the North Koreans. Ask the Roman Catholics in China, Saudi Arabia, etc. All Christ promised was that He would not let His Church be wiped out in the world as a whole.
What besides the HHS contraceptive mandate is attracting the time and attention of our bishops today? This is:
catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=896
What besides the HHS contraceptive mandate is attracting the time and attention of our bishops today? This is:
catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=896
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jenkiedad
Guest
The commentary on catholicculture.org reinforces the position taken in the original post to this thread. See further comment on the same topic from Paul Rahe:
ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Church-Flatulent
Some quotes from the more recent article:
“But, of course, under the leadership of Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, who became President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) in 1974, the hierarchy chose to soft-pedal the issue, treating abortion as one among a number of issues, such as the death penalty and the public provision of healthcare, that Catholics should take into consideration when voting in local, state, and national elections. Nowhere did the bishops expressly say that outlawing abortion was no more important than providing healthcare and eliminating the death penalty, but by treating these issues all as part of a “seamless web,” Bernardin and his supporters implied as much.”
“Moreover, thanks to the efforts of Bernardin and those of his adherents whom he installed as his successors atop the NCCB in later years, Catholic politicians came to realize that they could with impunity publically repudiate the teaching of the Church to which they professed to belong and propagate the notion that pregnant women had a right to kill their children as yet unborn. Mario Cuomo was the pioneer. He tested the waters, encountered criticism, and came away politically unscathed. Before long, virtually every Catholic who held elective office as a member of the Democratic Party occupied the ground that he had cleared. No one was excommunicated for taking this stand. Next to no one was publically reprimanded, and the faithful were never once told that they could not in good conscience vote for pro-abortion candidates. In the meantime, thanks to the silence of a host of clergymen who gave only lip service (if even that) to the notion that abortion is murder, more than forty million unborn Americans were deprived of their lives. It would not be too much to say that those who remained silent in the face of this have blood on their hands.”
Actually, the article ends on a positive note. The elevation of Cardinal Dolan to head the USCCB gives the prospect that a leader that has backbone will start to make some changes. However, the article in the quote above from catholicculture.org would lead one to the opinion that Cardinal Dolan will have a hard time slowing down the cumbersome ship that is the USCCB, much less turning it around.
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