Any way we can more some of the focus onto OTHER social issues?

[flameburns623]

I get the point. Abortion and the assault on traditional family life are non-negotiable social issues. We need to work as Christians and as Catholics to oppose abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriages. We need to educate fellow Christians and fellow-Catholics who do not stand together with the Church against these evils. We need to boldly confront politicians, community leaders, and opinion-makers with the evils of these issues. All of this, I concede.

However–we now have a political climate which–while it will not always be friendly to our (name removed by moderator)ut on abortion and same-sex marriage, WILL support other elements of Catholic social teaching. Justice for the poor and for workers, peace issues, opposition to the unjust application of death penalty, etcetera, are things we have in common with those who now have much of the momentum. Can we not work together with the current powers-that-be on these issues? Can we not get Catholic media to give, if not “equal time” at least a fair portion of the time dedicated to social issues to talk more about these other social issues and how we as Catholics can use these next four years constructively in making progress on these other issues? Can we not ask the priests and hierarchy in America to help us organize and work towards progress on these other issues?

Again, I stress that I am not asking that we abandon the fights against abortion or same-sex marriage. Just asking for us to look at how we can change our focus slightly to work in areas of social and economic justice where we can very well have some influence in, as a way perhaps of raising our currrency and credibility in the bigger issues of abortion and same-sex marriage.

 

[Island_Oak]

However–we now have a political climate which–while it will not always be friendly to our (name removed by moderator)ut on abortion and same-sex marriage, WILL support other elements of Catholic social teaching. Justice for the poor and for workers, peace issues, opposition to the unjust application of death penalty, etcetera, are things we have in common with those who now have much of the momentum. Can we not work together with the current powers-that-be on these issues? Can we not get Catholic media to give, if not “equal time” at least a fair portion of the time dedicated to social issues to talk more about these other social issues and how we as Catholics can use these next four years constructively in making progress on these other issues? Can we not ask the priests and hierarchy in America to help us organize and work towards progress on these other issues?

Unless we do, not only do we risk becoming marginalized to the point of irrelevance, but our own members will abandon adherence to Church leadership as woefully out of step–as some 54% of the Catholic voters did just a week ago.

There IS more than one issue challenging Catholics, the public, government and our country at this point in history. We simply don’t have the luxury of standing by with arms crossed over our chests stubbornly ignoring efforts to address the real struggles of people who are very much here and trying to find balance in the real world.

 

[puzzleannie]

you do realize that if the poor, including their children, have no constitutionally protected right to live, neither do they have any right to benefits of any social justice policies and programs the government might propose, no matter how worthy and no matter how well they fulfill Catholic social justice teaching.

 

[flameburns623]

you do realize that if the poor, including their children, have no constitutionally protected right to live, neither do they have any right to benefits of any social justice policies and programs the government might propose, no matter how worthy and no matter how well they fulfill Catholic social justice teaching.

Annie:

Read my post:

I GET IT.

This isn’t an either/or proposition. It is a both/and.

OF COURSE we need to address abortion. (And, of course, there is less general agreement among Catholics as to what sort of things address economic justice, war, the death penalty, etcetera). But right now I can’t think of a single program I have heard on EWTN over the past several months (years?) which does anything except harp on abortion and SSM. Let’s not degenerate into a single-issue or even a dual-issue electorate when our Church has so many things to say on other issues. That’s all I’m asking

 

[forrester]

Set aside the issue of the wonton and unjust destruction of life for convenience? I hope not. Where does the US lack when speaking of justice for the poor and workers, by the way? There are multitudes of government and charitable organizations that care for the poor and workers in the US have little to complain about in general.

 

[feargalmac]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but “social justice” on the liberal left is not in accord with Catholic social teaching. They may seem to be on the surface but underneath the liberal left is working constantly to undermine not only the right to life, but family life as well (by the way thats:- Mother, Father and children). Another aspect of the liberal left is their nepotism. Just look at who is on the board of a non-profit hospital for example.

Beware the devil in sheep’s clothing

By the way I couldn’t vote in your election.

 

[flameburns623]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but “social justice” on the liberal left is not in accord with Catholic social teaching. They may seem to be on the surface but underneath the liberal left is working constantly to undermine not only the right to life, but family life as well (by the way that’s:- Mother, Father and children). Another aspect of the liberal left is their nepotism. Just look at who is on the board of a non-profit hospital for example.

Beware the devil in sheep’s clothing

By the way I couldn’t vote in your election.

Think “Pax Christi” or “Catholic Worker’s Movement”. Think “Rerum Novarum” or “Laboren Exercens”. Think “Justicia in Mundo”. Think “Pacem in Terris”. And numerous other documents, readily available online or elsewhere.

Catholic social teachings are also not an unqualified endorsement of laissez-faire capitalism, trickle-down economics, or economic libertarianism. I am a conservative, by the way, who typically votes straight-line Republican unless some clear over-riding reason informs my conscience otherwise.

However: I am not the sort of conservative who automatically opposed every increase in the minimum wage; automatically rejects any efforts by employees to organize for a more fair portion of the profits of their companies; automatically assumes that a Christian has no other obligation to the poor, elderly, homeless, or hungry, etcetera, beyond a few coins in the poor-box; who assume that every aggressive military adventure that an administration chooses to embark upon is automatically a “just war”; who assumes that every criminal sitting on Death Row deserves anything he or she is going to get, or that even if they do deserve it, that considerations of mercy should have no say or influence in the matter.

I concede that there are forms of liberation theology, for example, that have been rightly and duly criticised by the Magisterium.

I have already concede that there are in fact a wider array of disagreements among Catholics about how, specifically, social injustices can best be addressed.

However, the Church has been quite clear, for example, in opposing many of the wars that have occurred in recent years, has issued appeals to the United States and elsewhere for mercy towards convicted persons scheduled for execution, and so forth.

The problem I have is that the most widely-disseminated mediums for discussion of Catholicism in all of it’s aspects are the radio and television broadcasts of Ave Maria Radio, EWTN, and so forth. These media, rightly, have spent much of the election period focusing on abortion and same-sex marriage. I don’t question that those were major issues in the election, ones which overshadowed many other issues.

What I am asking, now that the election is over and it is clear that the political landscape has shifted in some ways–is that we not only continue our efforts to educate and organize on behalf of the unborn and for traditional marriage, but that we also look at, discuss, ponder, and build around issues where Catholic teaching will likely have more traction and impact in the incoming Congress and Presidential Administration.

 

[JimG]

We can work on other social issues all we want. But unless we stop the generational genocide of abortion and the demographic suicide of widespread contraception, there will be no society left to save. The downward demographic spiral of abortion and contraception is already leading us into economic depression.

Barring an unprecedented baby boom, we have probably alread passsed the tipping point. See the abortion toll, from the author of “The Abortion Bomb: America’s Demographic Disaster.”
The fight against abortion is not just about saving millions of babies a year.
It is about national survival.

But–any nation intent on suicide, usually gets its wish.

 

[flameburns623]

We can work on other social issues all we want. But unless we stop the generational genocide of abortion and the demographic suicide of widespread contraception, there will be no society left to save. The downward demographic spiral of abortion and contraception is already leading us into economic depression.

Barring an unprecedented baby boom, we have probably alread passsed the tipping point. See the abortion toll, from the author of “The Abortion Bomb: America’s Demographic Disaster.”
The fight against abortion is not just about saving millions of babies a year.
It is about national survival.

But–any nation intent on suicide, usually gets its wish.

Still approaching this as an either/or proposition rather than as a both/and proposition.

 

[JimG]

Still approaching this as an either/or proposition rather than as a both/and proposition.

I am approaching on a both/and basis. I think that if we continue our current course, we will get both more abortion and economic decline, (plus war to boot.)

 

[Andruschak]

Probably not in these forums, and especially not with the POLITICS:2008 forum in action.:nope:

I tried, got a 2 week suspension. It cannot be done. The anti-abortionists are more or less in control of the agenda, and anything that smacks of moderation or compromise will be stomped on with spiked boots. :sad_yes: Just live with it.

Try to find some other way to help the world. As a recovered alcoholic with 24 years sobriety, much of my activity is devoted to helping new alcoholics in AA.

 

[feargalmac]

Think “Pax Christi” or “Catholic Worker’s Movement”. Think “Rerum Novarum” or “Laboren Exercens”. Think “Justicia in Mundo”. Think “Pacem in Terris”. And numerous other documents, readily available online or elsewhere.

Catholic social teachings are also not an unqualified endorsement of laissez-faire capitalism, trickle-down economics, or economic libertarianism. I am a conservative, by the way, who typically votes straight-line Republican unless some clear over-riding reason informs my conscience otherwise.

However: I am not the sort of conservative who automatically opposed every increase in the minimum wage; automatically rejects any efforts by employees to organize for a more fair portion of the profits of their companies; automatically assumes that a Christian has no other obligation to the poor, elderly, homeless, or hungry, etcetera, beyond a few coins in the poor-box; who assume that every aggressive military adventure that an administration chooses to embark upon is automatically a “just war”; who assumes that every criminal sitting on Death Row deserves anything he or she is going to get, or that even if they do deserve it, that considerations of mercy should have no say or influence in the matter.

O.K. You got me there. I do think though that the Pro-Life fight is the major battle that from which will come real social justice. If society values life from conception to natural death, justice will follow.

As for having influence on a liberal administration, I don’t know the situation in the U.S., but here any sign of compromise is seen by the left as a weakness to be exploited.

 

[flameburns623]

Probably not in these forums, and especially not with the POLITICS:2008 forum in action.:nope:

I tried, got a 2 week suspension. It cannot be done. The anti-abortionists are more or less in control of the agenda, and anything that smacks of moderation or compromise will be stomped on with spiked boots. :sad_yes: Just live with it.

Try to find some other way to help the world. As a recovered alcoholic with 24 years sobriety, much of my activity is devoted to helping new alcoholics in AA.

There seems to be some sort of unwritten law which demands that those in the CC who want to be advocates for the poor must be renegade Lesbian nuns who call themselves “bishop”; while those who uphold pro-Life principles carry their protest signs while stepping over the legs of the homeless people laying in the gutter.

It seems to me to be possible to do a little of both. Putting the emphasis where it needs to be of course: five millions dead of abortion versus 500,000 dead of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (someone else’s figures, some other thread), do suggest a need to recognize proportionalities of evil. However, worldwide, far more people do die of neglect, starvation, disease, etcetera than of abortions. Even in this country, quality of life is probably greatly diminished for more people due to social inequities and injustices than the number of abortions performed in this country.

I’m not citing any hard figures here–'twould require a lot of effort to define ‘quality of life’ or to measure the degree to which social injustice diminishes it. If the number of people adversely affected by poverty worldwide (to point to only one of the areas which Catholic social teaching addresses) are at least roughly equal to the number of babies killed by abortion annually–then one would expect that some degree of parity would be made in addressing both issues. At least over time.

While conservatives were in the White House and dominated the Congress and the Senate, it made sense to press the abortion issue, one which the party on the right is more likely to act upon. Now that progressives are largely in the dominant position, it seems to me sensible to shift focus to other issues within the arsenal of Catholic social teaching which the left will be more likely to accept (name removed by moderator)ut about and act upon.

All the while recognizing that we cannot abandon one element of Catholic social teaching entirely to pursue another exclusively.

feargalmac:

As for having influence on a liberal administration, I don’t know the situation in the U.S., but here any sign of compromise is seen by the left as a weakness to be exploited.

Somewhere in Scripture there is mention of how in weakness we are made strong.

 

[reggieM]

I get the point. Abortion and the assault on traditional family life are non-negotiable social issues. We need to work as Christians and as Catholics to oppose abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriages. We need to educate fellow Christians and fellow-Catholics who do not stand together with the Church against these evils. We need to boldly confront politicians, community leaders, and opinion-makers with the evils of these issues. All of this, I concede.

I guess it depends on what you mean by “we”.

Perhaps it’s best to exchange that for “I”.

Therefore, **you **will “work as Catholics to oppose abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriages”, **you ** will educate fellow Catholics (54% of them at least) who do not stand against these evils, **you **will boldly confront politicians, community leaders, and opinion makers, you will keep vigil in front of abortion clinics to save children scheduled for death, you will organize fundraisers to support homes for unwed mothers … etc.

Then, with the remaining many hours you’ll have each week, **you **will address all of the other social issues that you can think of.

Of course, you can appeal for others to join you in your efforts. Then there will be a “we” to talk about.

 

[reggieM]

There seems to be some sort of unwritten law which demands that those in the CC who want to be advocates for the poor must be renegade Lesbian nuns who call themselves “bishop”; while those who uphold pro-Life principles carry their protest signs while stepping over the legs of the homeless people laying in the gutter.

I’ll guess that you don’t spend very much time with your fellow Catholics holding signs and praying at vigils in front of abortion clinics. You’ll find more care for the poor in those communities than in any number of progressive think tanks.

It seems to me to be possible to do a little of both. Putting the emphasis where it needs to be of course: five millions dead of abortion versus 500,000 dead of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (someone else’s figures, some other thread), do suggest a need to recognize proportionalities of evil.

You are citing hard figures and your math is not quite right here.
The number is 1.3 million abortions per year for the past 30 years. Since you’re willing to proportionalize-down the social impact of abortion you probably ought to use the right numbers.

When you say that “we” should put more focus on other issues, I guess it depends on what you mean by “we”.

Perhaps it’s best to exchange that for “I”.

Therefore, **you **will “work as Catholics to oppose abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriages”, **you **will “educate fellow Catholics” (54% of them at least) who do not stand against these evils, **you **will boldly confront politicians, community leaders, and opinion makers, **you **will keep vigil in front of abortion clinics to save children scheduled for death, **you **will organize fundraisers to support homes for unwed mothers … etc.

I don’t know if you’d have many hours available for other issues after that.

Of course, you could appeal for others to join you in your efforts. Then there will be a “we” to talk about. But just the mere effort of recruiting support takes more time than most people have.

 

[po18guy]

I get the point. Abortion and the assault on traditional family life are non-negotiable social issues. We need to work as Christians and as Catholics to oppose abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriages. We need to educate fellow Christians and fellow-Catholics who do not stand together with the Church against these evils. We need to boldly confront politicians, community leaders, and opinion-makers with the evils of these issues. All of this, I concede.

However–we now have a political climate which–while it will not always be friendly to our (name removed by moderator)ut on abortion and same-sex marriage, WILL support other elements of Catholic social teaching. Justice for the poor and for workers, peace issues, opposition to the unjust application of death penalty, etcetera, are things we have in common with those who now have much of the momentum. Can we not work together with the current powers-that-be on these issues? Can we not get Catholic media to give, if not “equal time” at least a fair portion of the time dedicated to social issues to talk more about these other social issues and how we as Catholics can use these next four years constructively in making progress on these other issues? Can we not ask the priests and hierarchy in America to help us organize and work towards progress on these other issues?

Again, I stress that I am not asking that we abandon the fights against abortion or same-sex marriage. Just asking for us to look at how we can change our focus slightly to work in areas of social and economic justice where we can very well have some influence in, as a way perhaps of raising our currrency and credibility in the bigger issues of abortion and same-sex marriage.

It almost sounds like you voted for “O”, based on the tone of your post. If not, please excuse my misperception. You also make it sound like the current administration has found the world’s poor and has taken away what little they had. Have you taken any time at all to independently examine the assistance that the current administration has given to the continent of Africa, for instance? Especially in the area of disease eradication and HIV/Aids?

If you participate in popular media, any media, you have been fed biased propaganda by extremely wealthy corporations that have suppressed such news aboout advances that have been made.

Every other “negotiable” social issue you mention has innumerable solutions, from both sides of the political aisle. Each is a matter of prudential judgment. Just because you do not agree with how that aid is sent, so? Beginning 2009, your tax dollars will directly fund more death. Oh, we can avert our gaze and pretend, but babies are still dying. The damage is done and we must now turn to prayer that our new president’s heart is turned from perpetuating the holocaust.

While our tax dollars will continue to be spent helping Americans and the rest of the world, more and more of them will now be directly providing abortions. This was prohibited by President Bush’s executive order. That order WILL now be rescinded, thus freeing up millions to kill more babies in 2009. Some “progress”, huh? Some “change”. By our own selfish and shortsighted choices, we are begging for another 9/11, maybe several.

Candidate “M” would have been my last choice from that side of the aisle. If the unborn could vote, the outcome would have been different.

No civilized society buries its own head in the sand while burying its aborted babies in the earth. How long before the Lord calls out “America, where are your babies? Their blood cries out to me from the ground” And our response of “But, we raised the minimum wage!!!” will not spare us.

 

[flameburns623]

I’ll guess that you don’t spend very much time with your fellow Catholics holding signs and praying at vigils in front of abortion clinics. You’ll find more care for the poor in those communities than in any number of progressive think tanks.

You are citing hard figures and your math is not quite right here.
The number is 1.3 million abortions per year for the past 30 years. Since you’re willing to proportionalize-down the social impact of abortion you probably ought to use the right numbers.

When you say that “we” should put more focus on other issues, I guess it depends on what you mean by “we”.

Perhaps it’s best to exchange that for “I”.

Therefore, **you **will “work as Catholics to oppose abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriages”, **you **will “educate fellow Catholics” (54% of them at least) who do not stand against these evils, **you **will boldly confront politicians, community leaders, and opinion makers, **you **will keep vigil in front of abortion clinics to save children scheduled for death, **you **will organize fundraisers to support homes for unwed mothers … etc.

I don’t know if you’d have many hours available for other issues after that.

Of course, you could appeal for others to join you in your efforts. Then there will be a “we” to talk about. But just the mere effort of recruiting support takes more time than most people have.

The figures were general figures, used by someone else in another thread and were there intended to show the contrast in proportionality as I best recollect the thread. That is to say, something like 500,000 people may have died as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the same period of time that five millions of babies were aborted. Hence, even if we assumed that both wars were unjust and immoral wars which Catholics must oppose on principle–nevertheless abortion has been ten times more deadly in the same period of time as these two wars have been prosecuted. Pursue that line of thought however in the other thread. My point in this one is that we are not getting even ten percent as much discussion on these forums or on Catholic airwaves of social issues other than abortion.

I am cognizant that anyone working a full-time job and caring for a family has only a limited number of hours per month to dedicate to any sort of action on behalf of anyone. This thread and my posts were not directed at the individual level of social action, though I might not that one could readily spend a certain amount of one’s available time working on one social issue and then shift to other social issues.

EWTN and these forums exist as educational, inspirational, and motivational venues for Catholics on all aspects of Catholic living and practice. My request was for a greater amount of discussion and teaching, both on these forums and on Catholic airwaves, of other sorts of social issues. Right now, the focus is very narrow and limited and is essentially a distraction IMHO from what are likely to be fruitful avenues of social action which Catholics can best pursue over the next several years. We all hope the period of liberal political dominance will be short-lived, but we can’t be sure of this.

Finally–both aspects of my illustration were satirical hyperbole and not literal. I doubt one finds many 'renegade Lesbian nuns who call themselves Bishop’ at your Catholic soup kitchen, either.

 

[flameburns623]

It almost sounds like you voted for “O”, based on the tone of your post. If not, please excuse my misperception. You also make it sound like the current administration has found the world’s poor and has taken away what little they had. Have you taken any time at all to independently examine the assistance that the current administration has given to the continent of Africa, for instance? Especially in the area of disease eradication and HIV/Aids?

If you participate in popular media, any media, you have been fed biased propaganda by extremely wealthy corporations that have suppressed such news aboout advances that have been made.

Every other “negotiable” social issue you mention has innumerable solutions, from both sides of the political aisle. Each is a matter of prudential judgment. Just because you do not agree with how that aid is sent, so? Beginning 2009, your tax dollars will directly fund more death. Oh, we can avert our gaze and pretend, but babies are still dying. The damage is done and we must now turn to prayer that our new president’s heart is turned from perpetuating the holocaust.

While our tax dollars will continue to be spent helping Americans and the rest of the world, more and more of them will now be directly providing abortions. This was prohibited by President Bush’s executive order. That order WILL now be rescinded, thus freeing up millions to kill more babies in 2009. Some “progress”, huh? Some “change”. By our own selfish and shortsighted choices, we are begging for another 9/11, maybe several.

Candidate “M” would have been my last choice from that side of the aisle. If the unborn could vote, the outcome would have been different.

No civilized society buries its own head in the sand while burying its aborted babies in the earth. How long before the Lord calls out “America, where are your babies? Their blood cries out to me from the ground” And our response of “But, we raised the minimum wage!!!” will not spare us.

I live in “O’s” home state and there was zero chance that his opponent would prevail. Therefore I registered a protest vote for the third-party candidate whose party opposes abortion even more strongly than do the Republicans. (There were five political parties or candidates on the ballot as I recollect, but only two of these are ‘conservative’ political parties, only one of which is a “major political party”. A bit of research can figure out which was the other party for which I voted). Had there beeen a narrower margin of difference in my state, “M” would have gotten my vote.

I do believe that the current political administration has largely raped the underclasses in the past four years, and has entered into at least one major military conflict which was unneedful, ill-considered, and possibly an outright unjust war. I also believe there is serious reason to believe that the incoming administration will pursue big-government policies and programs which will be expensive, hurtful to economic growth, and not efficient in addressing social ills.

I do not believe that conservativism necessarily must underwrite or endorse everything that the so-called ‘conservative’ poltical party does. Mike Savage–whose views sometimes dovetail with mine though I am often appalled by his rhetoric–was furious when the Administration fought so hard against an increase in the minimum wage, for instance.

 

[reggieM]

The figures were general figures, used by someone else in another thread and were there intended to show the contrast in proportionality as I best recollect the thread. That is to say, something like 500,000 people may have died as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the same period of time that five millions of babies were aborted. Hence, even if we assumed that both wars were unjust and immoral wars which Catholics must oppose on principle–nevertheless abortion has been ten times more deadly in the same period of time as these two wars have been prosecuted. Pursue that line of thought however in the other thread. My point in this one is that we are not getting even ten percent as much discussion on these forums or on Catholic airwaves of social issues other than abortion.

I didn’t complete the calculation but I think it is necessary.
1.3 million abortions per year times 5.5 years is 7.2 million. So the war casualties are not 10% but rather 6.9%. Given that abortion is directed entirely at innocent non-combatants, one must factor that in as well.

I should point this out also. You’ve used the length of the wars as your arbitrary time period by which to compare the problems. But I see that as a bit of a bias. Why not use a measure of the past 30 years? The number of American war dead would rise (may they be remembered at the end of this Veterans’ day) but the number of abortions would be about 40 million.
That is a more fair comparison because anyone interested in the abortion issue (as we all are here) does not merely go back 6 years to start counting the dead.
The fact that abortions have declined by 100,000 a year is a blessing but that may also mean that 10 times more work is needed to eliminate them entirely (to use a bit more math).

Finally–both aspects of my illustration were satirical hyperbole and not literal. I doubt one finds many 'renegade Lesbian nuns who call themselves Bishop’ at your Catholic soup kitchen, either.

Ok, I didn’t catch that. Thanks. That part is actually closer to the reality of things than you might think though. Having visited several of my own local parishes to try to recruit support for pro-life activities from the Social Justice committees I noticed an extreme disproportionate interest in your “other issues” – from the Brazilian rainforests to increasing the minimum wage to increasing public funding for arts programs. One of our soup kitchens is directed by a man who is a transvestite (or whatever the polite term for that is). The social justice leadership in the Catholic parishes is dominated by feminist women who openly proclaim support for Catholic women who have gotten themselves “ordained”.

Personally, I think CAF and EWTN strike the right balance.

Your call for keeping other social issues in mind is important and appreciated - I was just responding to what seemed like an attack on the pro-life movement (and I’m glad you did not intend it as such).

 

[mapleoak]

Annie:

Read my post:

I GET IT.

This isn’t an either/or proposition. It is a both/and.

OF COURSE we need to address abortion. (And, of course, there is less general agreement among Catholics as to what sort of things address economic justice, war, the death penalty, etcetera). But right now I can’t think of a single program I have heard on EWTN over the past several months (years?) which does anything except harp on abortion and SSM.

Until the slaughter of +/- million innocent babies comes to an end, it will continue to our number one priorty. We haven’t even begun to give it the attention that it deserves.

Let’s not degenerate into a single-issue or even a dual-issue electorate when our Church has so many things to say on other issues. That’s all I’m asking

Let’s start ramping up our efforts and giving abortion the attention it deserves and put an end to it. Then we can worry about the nebolous assertion of a faulty economy that the unborn whom we save will have to endure. At least they will have life to endure it with.