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Seeker1961
Guest
Sadly, nobody asked me when they drew up all these plans.
It would solve SO many problems to expand the federal employee system, I cannot figure out why someone that has a little more influence hasn’t proposed it.
Archbishop Chaput sees election days as ‘tough times’ for Catholics
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It would solve SO many problems to expand the federal employee system, I cannot figure out why someone that has a little more influence hasn’t proposed it.
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Chris-WA
Guest
It’s going to be difficult to improve things in our country if we don’t first improve them within our own Church. Here is the problem with the Catholic vote—it’s not “Catholic”— it’s secular.
50% of Catholics voted for Obama, 49% for Romney. But it’s the numbers behind that statistic that really matter. The real statistic that matters is that regular church-going Catholics voted for Romney by a wide margin, and Catholics that don’t regularly attend Church voted by even a wider margin for Obama. In other words, Catholics who practice their faith voted for Romney, and Catholics who don’t practice their faith voted for Obama by large margins.
So the real problem is what we’ve known all along–far too many Catholics don’t practice their faith. They may be baptized, but they are non-religious, non-practicing, uncatechized secularists. I saw a statistic that roughly only 30% of Catholics in the U.S. attend weekly mass. And that my friends is the depressing bottom line of why the elections went the way they did
The American bishops made a good effort during this election season to put out a unified message to Catholics about these issues. The problem is that 70% of Catholics never heard any of it. It’s up to the priests in the pulpit to carry the message to the flock, which sadly many do not. But even more so it’s up to the believing and practicing Catholic laity, those Catholics who are well-catechized and doing their best to live the faith—it’s up to them to spread the faith again, starting with non-practicing Catholics in their families, at work, or among their friends and neighbors.
If we don’t get Catholics back in the pews and help them to rediscover their faith (or discover it for the first time), there is little hope for the causes of religious freedom, pro-life, the sanctity of marriage, and so on.
By the way, the 70% for the most part are not here on this website, so they are not going to get this message unless the 30% does a much better job of taking it to them one on one. And that’s how we fix this problem.
50% of Catholics voted for Obama, 49% for Romney. But it’s the numbers behind that statistic that really matter. The real statistic that matters is that regular church-going Catholics voted for Romney by a wide margin, and Catholics that don’t regularly attend Church voted by even a wider margin for Obama. In other words, Catholics who practice their faith voted for Romney, and Catholics who don’t practice their faith voted for Obama by large margins.
So the real problem is what we’ve known all along–far too many Catholics don’t practice their faith. They may be baptized, but they are non-religious, non-practicing, uncatechized secularists. I saw a statistic that roughly only 30% of Catholics in the U.S. attend weekly mass. And that my friends is the depressing bottom line of why the elections went the way they did
The American bishops made a good effort during this election season to put out a unified message to Catholics about these issues. The problem is that 70% of Catholics never heard any of it. It’s up to the priests in the pulpit to carry the message to the flock, which sadly many do not. But even more so it’s up to the believing and practicing Catholic laity, those Catholics who are well-catechized and doing their best to live the faith—it’s up to them to spread the faith again, starting with non-practicing Catholics in their families, at work, or among their friends and neighbors.
If we don’t get Catholics back in the pews and help them to rediscover their faith (or discover it for the first time), there is little hope for the causes of religious freedom, pro-life, the sanctity of marriage, and so on.
By the way, the 70% for the most part are not here on this website, so they are not going to get this message unless the 30% does a much better job of taking it to them one on one. And that’s how we fix this problem.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
Good article!
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Anna_Scott
Guest
According to the article, Protestants are to blame for the “malaise of today’s culture towards truth, community, and virtue.”
----But the “root of the crisis” is found in the Catholic Church, because the "Protestant reformation grew out of dismay at the failure of Church prelates to live out their faith, creating an intolerable gap between Christian preaching and practice.”
That’s an interesting assessment.
Anna
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JaMc
Guest
One of those “Blue Dog Democrats” who lost in 2010 was in my District - Walt Minnick. He was a “fiscal conservative” (to a degree), but he was definitely NOT pro-life. He only broke with his party on economic issues. He was only elected in the first place because he had a weak opponent (Google “Bill Sali,” and you’ll see why…), and lost because he had a more mainstream challenger (“Meet the Press” regular Raul Labrador) in what is ordinarily a solidly Republican district.
If this race was any representation of others in the country, life issues had nothing to do with the result.
In any event, with all the discussions such as these, I’m surprised this group I created on here, forums.catholic-questions.org/forumdisplay.php?f=440, hasn’t really taken off yet.
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livingwordunity
Guest
But the Democrats who control the party have made abortion and sodomy their sacred cow issues so that these two issues are now the twin pillars of the Democrat platform. But there are other intrinsic evils aggressively pushed by them such as euthanasia and human cloning which will gain more attention later. So basically the Democrat party is about promoting a culture of death. The Democrat party would need a complete blood transfusion to change course.
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ProVobis
Guest
I lived in Hyde’s district where a more pro-life candidate ran against Republican Roskam in 2010. But because he ran as a Democrat, the pro-life forces managed to ignore him, if not downright smear him anyway. He managed to get 35%, though, with only $16,000.
Maybe not all the “bluedog” Democrats were pro-life, whatever your definition of pro-life is, but I counted 64 Democrats voting for the Stupak Amendment, most probably at their political risk. I doubt if you’d have more than 5 in the current House.
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SuperLuigi
Guest
Well, the issue with that is democrats also have to vote for party leadership. If you had a pro-life, pro-marriage democrat vs a pro-life, pro-marriage republican, but the choice for speaker of the house was Nancy Pelosi vs John Boehner, how would that affect your decision?
Remember, Pelosi and Reid strong-armed deals in the house and senate to pass the AHA and that did include democrats from conservative areas.
When you vote, you have to consider more than just issues and it’s high time that these Catholic voter guides got with the program on that!
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SuperLuigi
Guest
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by “pro-life”. Of the the top of my head, blue-dog Collin Peterson in MN-7 had headed up anti-abortion legislation, but he also voted for it to be okay to end Terry Schiavo’s life. He’s also refused to help repeal ObamaCare calling such an effort a “waste of time” and one of his websites said it would look to implement it “fairly”.
Looking at the aging, spread out demographic he represents, that will be easier said than done, but he’s also well set for retirement any moment’s notice.
Those 64 democrats who voted in favor of the amendment were probably from conservative districts who knew that their seats were already on the line in most if not all those cases. It’s hard to say how much was political and how principle for sure, but seeing Stupak in the House and Nelson and Landrieu in the Senate sell out were not good signs.
Both Stupak and Nelson retired knowing full well they were done and had zero chance of re-election and I would be surprised if Mary Landreiu doesn’t retire.
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SuperLuigi
Guest
That’s an interesting take, but if you really boil it down, the fact that Church leaders sin does not give cause for other Church members to do so. Scandal is certainly underrated, but a reformation?According to the article, Protestants are to blame for the “malaise of today’s culture towards truth, community, and virtue.”
----But the “root of the crisis” is found in the Catholic Church, because the "Protestant reformation grew out of dismay at the failure of Church prelates to live out their faith, creating an intolerable gap between Christian preaching and practice.”
That’s an interesting assessment.
Anna
I don’t buy that the motives were noble. In fact, Luther didn’t want a reformation or war, he wanted change, and to some measure that change was justified.
What happened instead was the Protestants -founded new religious denominations on selfish principles that cut corners and made life easier.
The straight and narrow has always been the path of Christ, and now 500 some odd years later, the Protestants are falling apart left and right over issues like so-called “gay marriage” because it’s not exactly stated in the New Testament.
uch::ehh:Meanwhile, their youth, already shrinking due to low birthrates and dysfunctional families, is breaking atheist or non-demon or Catholic and some of their leaders are clueless as to why.
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ishii
Guest
That is an excellent point that I don’t think “pro-life” Democrat catholics understand. Their party is joined at the hip with NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Their leader voted to keep infanticide legal while a state senator - the most pro-abortion president in American history. A party like this will never seriously entertain a different view on this issue anytime soon and it makes no sense to vote for them - even for a “pro-life” Democrat like Stupak, imo. When you vote for a Democrat, you are also voting for the leadership - Pelosi, Reid, et al. And they are pro-abortion.
Ishii
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Anna_Scott
Guest
According to the article, Protestants are to blame for the “malaise of today’s culture towards truth, community, and virtue.”
----But the “root of the crisis” is found in the Catholic Church, because the "Protestant reformation grew out of dismay at the failure of Church prelates to live out their faith, creating an intolerable gap between Christian preaching and practice.”
That’s an interesting assessment.
Anna
SuperLuigi,That’s an interesting take, but if you really boil it down, the fact that Church leaders sin does not give cause for other Church members to do so. Scandal is certainly underrated, but a reformation?
I don’t buy that the motives were noble. In fact, Luther didn’t want a reformation or war, he wanted change, and to some measure that change was justified.
What happened instead was the Protestants -founded new religious denominations on selfish principles that cut corners and made life easier.
The straight and narrow has always been the path of Christ, and now 500 some odd years later, the Protestants are falling apart left and right over issues like so-called “gay marriage” because it’s not exactly stated in the New Testament.
Meanwhile, their youth, already shrinking due to low birthrates and dysfunctional families, is breaking atheist or non-demon or Catholic and some of their leaders are clueless as to why.
You are arguing with the wrong person. My post contained Archbishop Charles J. Chaput’s words, not mine.
Anna
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ProVobis
Guest
Then it appears to have become somewhat of a circular argument. Pro-life forces won’t support pro-life Democrats simply because they are Democrats. And Democrats won’t support any pro-life agenda because they can only get contributions from orgs like Planned Parenthood.
I’d like to see a situation where the Democrats agree to defund PP or give up on any abortion mandates in exchange for a tax increase on the rich. Maybe that’s on the table, maybe it’s not, but it might expose some of the Republicans for what their real ideology is. It’s easy for a Republican to campaign saying he’s pro-life (by his definition) but when there is a price to pay for it, one isn’t quite sure.
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Jeanne_S
Guest
Why hasn’t this been presented as an option?
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Mickey
Guest
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ishii
Guest
No, ProVobis, you’re wrong. Pro-life forces won’t support “pro-life” Democrats because they are at best weak and ineffective and at worst phony. And in the end a vote for any Democrat is strengthening the hand of pro-abortion forces like Pelosi, Boxer, et al. The burden is on the Democrats. If Democrat Catholics (or enough of them) started voting pro-life instead of voting based on long standing partisan reasons then the Democrat party would have to change its stance or join the ranks of the Whigs. You call into question the Republicans’ committment to pro-life views but how often is an Republican excoriated for being pro-life by the press and by Democrat opponents? The answer is all the time. If you don’t believe me, ask Dino Rossi, or any other Republican candidate who was targeted by the abortion lobby - NARAL, PP etc, so that the Democrat could win. Given this reality it is hard to believe that serious Catholics could support any Democrat.
Ishii
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CatholicGuy22
Guest
Freedom to push religion on other people?
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JMJSHJ
Guest
Just because you can’t get birth control from your employer on the health coverage doesn’t make you a Catholic.
If they want birth control they can go to Wal-Mart and pay $10 a month.
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rorydaman
Guest
Sodomy is a pillar of the Democrat platform? Hmmm, do you have any clips of democrats talking about sodomy?
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JMJSHJ
Guest
They support Gay Marriage.
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