Are Traditional Catholics (TLM) politically conservative?

[Diana_Catherine]

To me pro-life should not end at birth, it sould continue for the person’s whole natural life, which means no killing of elderly people.

I think pro-life should include medical care, and food, good food. Catholic charity just can’t afford my meds, just one of which costs $350 a month. I paid taxes for all my working days, and not to line pol’s pockets either no matter the party.

PVT charity just won’t get the job done. In the great deppresion that was all that existed and people starved.

I am very traditional, but there is no TLM anywhere in my diocese.

I totally agree with you. Pro-life should be for every single person. As is said, “from the womb to the tomb.”

I also understand what you mean about the cost of medication. I fill in as a nurse in a doctors office, only part time so I don’t hear a lot, but I have heard many people tell me how hard it is to pay for their medication or someone just doesn’t take it because they can’t afford it. I find it very heartbreaking. Even senior housing and retirement villages, I have found in my family, take extreme advantage of the elderly. There might be senior discounts in restaurants but that is the only place seniors get a break today.

I don’t know what the answer is but I know it isn’t the government. The thing also about the prolife issue is everyone has a right to life but some are more vulnerable than others and that is why we must first vote against abortion but, I agree, we must consider those who need help financially also.

We are already seeing how the government is putting great demands on the Catholic church and closing so many clinics, whose to say or know what or who will be next.

In our area, we do have a Catholic charity organization that does pay for peoples medications but it gets limited by the drug manufacturers and government.

I wish I knew the answer. I know it is so very, very hard for people to pay for their medication today. Maybe that is why it is so very important to know the candidates, what they stand for and vote.

Blessings.

 

[Diana_Catherine]

I truly don’t think anyone was being disrespectful by using abbreviations that are in popular use. I grew up Democrat, and we all called ourselves Democrats, and I checked out several party websites, and the term Democrat was used as often, in fact more often, than Democratic.

As for the Catholic party–I don’t think it’s likely. There have been other attempts through the years at forming political parties based on religion, and they generally fall apart. (e.g., the Moral Majority, which I realize was a more of a PAC than a party).

My personal opinion about this is that we have what we have–two parties. We can choose to stay out of politics and vote for no one, and IMO, this simply gives evil more power. I realize that no candidates are 100% “right”, especially for Traditional Catholics who are looking for a very specific agenda, at least according to this thread. But the Catholic Church makes it clear that when no candidate is 100% Catholic, we must try to choose the lesser of two evils. We cannot vote for a pro-abortion candidate, but we can certainly vote for a pro-life candidate who is more likely to support any legislation that reduces abortion in the U.S. and around the world. Pro-life organizations like Right To Life publish voting records–please check these out and you will see in black and white whether or not the candidate you are examining has matched their vote to their promises.

I also want to say a few words to those who believe that the Republicans have done nothing to stop abortion in this country, and I realize that this is OT in my own thread, but I hope that it will be allowed because of the importance of the pro-life issues! I am frankly surprised and saddened to read that many Traditionalist Catholics disdain to vote and feel that the political parties don’t matter. I hope that’s just a few Traditionalist Catholics–the ones I know personally DO vote and DO get involved in politics, and are incredibly intelligent about what’s going on politically.

Please, please, check out National Right To Life. This political lobby organization publishes voting records of the candidates. Many MANY little laws are enacted every week by Congress at the federal level, and also at the state and local levels. Yes, none of these are the “Big One,” the Ultimate Law that will make all abortion illegal in the U.S. That isn’t likely to happen, especially in this current climate of conflict between politicians in the U.S., and with the Culture of Death more rapidly becoming the norm among the people.

But everyday and every week, little laws come up for debate and are voted on, and these little laws have an impact on how easy it is to obtain an abortion in YOUR neighborhood, or in other countries being aided by the United States. Many times these “little laws” do not get publicized at all. Often they are about mundane things like zoning laws, protest laws, inspection laws (which is what closed the abortion clinic in OUR city down forever!), etc.

It is so important that these laws get passed! Every baby’s and every parent’s life is important!

Generally speaking, the Republicans vote PRO-LIFE on these “little laws.” There are exceptions, and we have to be very careful to recognize that there ARE pro-life Democrats who consistently vote pro-life; this is true especially in the state of Louisiana, where Catholicism is practiced almost universally. But for the most part, the Democrats have a very sorry record on the “little laws,” and vote almost exclusively pro-abortion.

During the last Presidential election, National Right To Life published a very interesting article about the pro-life advances that had occurred under eight years of President Bush. It was quite impressive. Obviously abortion is still the law of the land. But under President Bush, many many roadblocks were put up to make it a lot harder for a woman to seek an abortion (e.g., parental notification laws, ultrasound laws, etc.). Those who say that he did nothing to stop abortion are, pardon my frankness, IGNORANT. But that ignorance can be corrected by some research and study. I challenge those who make the claim that Republicans do nothing to please do that research and study, and stop being ignorant.

Under President Obama’s watch, abortion is easier to obtain, not only for Americans, but for women in the countries aided by the U.S. He and the First Lady have created a climate of abortion tolerance among the citizens, and this is making it harder for pro-life politicians at the federal, state, and local levels to gain popular support for their pro-life votes. Often, these politicians vote pro-life anyway, and pay the price when they lose their elections due to media criticism that resonates among a pro-abortion populace.

Please, please don’t scoff at these “little laws” and claim that they don’t matter. Yes, they DO! They often make a big impact locally. At any rate, the Lord Jesus does not scoff at little acts of charity, but actually said that anyone who gives a cup of water in His Name will receive a reward. We can’t just sit back and do nothing and wait for the glorious day when someday, abortion will no longer be legal in the U.S. Instead, we need to be busy in the little things, and that means voting for candidates that WILL vote pro-life on most if not all of these pieces of legislation.

I wanted to say this is a very good post and these are all very good points. I wanted to ad a link to a video I saw today. Maybe some have already seen it.

cc2w.org/

youtube.com/watch?v=D9vQt6IXXaM&feature=player_embedded

 

[Usige]

Here’s the problem-when the government is doing charity, a miniscule portion of each tax dollar actually makes it to the needy, while most of the dollar goes to pay for the bureaucracy involved. Someone has to create the forms used to file the taxes, someone has to receive the forms and the checks, someone has to take the phone calls about the forms, someone has to do the accounting of all the taxes received, someone has to review all the eligibility applications from needy people and organizations, someone has to investigate all the applications, someone has to actually write the check to the needy person or organization–etc. etc.–I haven’t even begun to list everyone involved! There also has to be a maintainance staff to keep the building where all this happens in good shape, and someone to landscape the little bit of land outside of the building–the list goes on and on!

So you can see why by the time the tax dollar actually gets to the needy people, they get about a half a cent.

I am fully aware of the inefficiencies of bureaucracies and it’s why I said that they are not the best ones to provide those services. Since it’s essentially coerced “giving” the government draws form a huge pool via the tax base, so despite their inefficiencies they are still providing services.

The issue is that in an increasingly secular society there are many that would not turn to a religious organization for help. I have seen people sleeping on the street not 2 blocks from a Catholic shelter. When I asked if they were full they said some people just won’t “put up” with “certain people” (i.e. Christians of any stripe). So even if they could offer them food, shelter, or medications they would not accept help from them. Should those people have no where to turn because they are distrustful of the Church?

I completely agree that it would be great if charity was coordinated, but that coordination leads to bureaucracy. The reason most Catholic Charities are interdependent is specifically so the can focus on their local community without a huge national organization. Now if you had to coordinate say housing, food, medical care, etc someone would need to run it. The larger it got the more people you would need there by sucking resources away from those that needed it the most. Private charities would likely do a better job, but could they have the breadth of reach and specialized knowledge to handle helping people with multiple issues without being overwhelmed?

One final thought before I head to bed. I’m dubious about the belief that cutting taxes will be more than made up by charitable contributions. In my personal experience many people either disregard the needy or severely underestimate the amount of support many people need. Lets assume that 1/200th (i.e. 1/2 of a cent on each dollar) of my medicare contributions went to charity that equals something like $12 dollars. I know many conservatives that make 6 figure incomes that begrudge dropping five dollars in the pot for the salvation army. Why? because they are convinced that people should pull themselves up by their boot straps. So how are we to convince these people to drop 20 - 30 dollars to cover what they would have paid into medicare? Most people I know that make good money are more likely to contribute to animal shelters, “the arts”, etc. before they would consider giving money to a homeless person.

It is for these reasons that I think the government must still provide a safety net (I personally think the net is too big right now ).

 

[Cat]

I am fully aware of the inefficiencies of bureaucracies and it’s why I said that they are not the best ones to provide those services. Since it’s essentially coerced “giving” the government draws form a huge pool via the tax base, so despite their inefficiencies they are still providing services.

The issue is that in an increasingly secular society there are many that would not turn to a religious organization for help. I have seen people sleeping on the street not 2 blocks from a Catholic shelter. When I asked if they were full they said some people just won’t “put up” with “certain people” (i.e. Christians of any stripe). So even if they could offer them food, shelter, or medications they would not accept help from them. Should those people have no where to turn because they are distrustful of the Church?

I completely agree that it would be great if charity was coordinated, but that coordination leads to bureaucracy. The reason most Catholic Charities are interdependent is specifically so the can focus on their local community without a huge national organization. Now if you had to coordinate say housing, food, medical care, etc someone would need to run it. The larger it got the more people you would need there by sucking resources away from those that needed it the most. Private charities would likely do a better job, but could they have the breadth of reach and specialized knowledge to handle helping people with multiple issues without being overwhelmed?

One final thought before I head to bed. I’m dubious about the belief that cutting taxes will be more than made up by charitable contributions. In my personal experience many people either disregard the needy or severely underestimate the amount of support many people need. Lets assume that 1/200th (i.e. 1/2 of a cent on each dollar) of my medicare contributions went to charity that equals something like $12 dollars. I know many conservatives that make 6 figure incomes that begrudge dropping five dollars in the pot for the salvation army. Why? because they are convinced that people should pull themselves up by their boot straps. So how are we to convince these people to drop 20 - 30 dollars to cover what they would have paid into medicare? Most people I know that make good money are more likely to contribute to animal shelters, “the arts”, etc. before they would consider giving money to a homeless person.

It is for these reasons that I think the government must still provide a safety net (I personally think the net is too big right now ).

I have no problem with a government “safety net.” My opinion is that the local government, not the federal government, should supply that safety net. Each city, each state is aware of their own unique situation, much more so than the federal government.

There are plenty of non-religious charities in any community. We have a large food pantry that is totally secular, along with many religious pantries. The Salvation Army is essentially secular these days, at least when it comes to charity. The Red Cross is secular. Boys/Girls Clubs are secular, and they help poor children. Our Park District is secular, and they have a program in place that enables needy children to participate in ANY Park District activity free of charge, including all the summer camps, the sports, the arts, and of course, this includes FIGURE SKATING!

And thank the LORD that the wealthy give to “the arts!” POOR people enjoy the arts, too, you know! This is the way it should work–whatever arts are supported by the public, including the wealthy public should thrive, whereas those arts that no one cares to pay for should diminish. This is another thing that the government has messed up–they support the arts–why?! They often tend to support controversial arts, or arts that only a few souls enjoy–why?! The government has no business being involved in any art support–this should be done entirely by the people directly in their own communities.

IAs for animals, again, the poor enjoy animals, too! Many of the poor have cats and dogs, and many of them are able to afford these animals because of various charitable organizations that help them to care for their pets. I suppose for a poor family, a pet is a luxury that they shouldn’t have, but c’mon–children do well to have a pet, and so do the elderly, and if they are able to care for a pet, a mentally-ill person or an addicted person can really be helped by having a pet as a companion.

It all comes back to LOCAL charities rather than giving our money to Washington D.C. and letting them dole it back to us, minus a lot of expenses to support their bureaucracy.

 

[CesarAugustus]

I don’t actually know any traditional Catholics. Well, there are two friends-of-friends who I think might be, but I’m not sure. At any rate, I don’t know them well enough to know their politics. So I’ll limit my remarks to general observations about the political duties of all Catholics, regardless of their affiliations.

I certainly think “paleoconservatism” more fully captures the political duties of Catholics, but I don’t think that really gets at it.

First, we need to get the idea out of our heads that a man can be a good Catholic and a good liberal. He cannot. Liberalism is simply the spirit of the French Revolution, and we all know how the Revolution viewed and treated the Church.

Our political duties are obvious. We must obey and respect legitimate authority. We must oppose the wanton and needless destruction of human life, either in war or in abortion. We must see the promotion of the common good and the welfare of the polity as superordinate to individual desires (i.e., we must not endorse radical individualism). We must recognize absolute truth, objective moral goodness, and duty; we must exercise piety; we must exercise modesty; we must recognize that Catholicism has implications for the organization of our social life; etc. Whatever these things are, they are clearly not liberal.

But clearly, what we euphemistically call “conservatism” is not substantially better. In practice it is a muted form of liberalism – and philosophically it is, in fact, a muted form of liberalism (which is why we often call modern conservatism, with its ties to libertarianism, “classical liberalism”). The most principled “conservatives” still tend to be anti-Catholic in theory and practice, still tend to endorse secularism, are often in thrall to and ignorant of the evils of capitalism, in thrall to a bogus conception of “rights,” usually quite aggressive and militarist, feckless about serious matters like abortion and gay “marriage,” etc. So whatever modern “conservatism” is, it’s not much better.

My attitude is this. I believe the social order needs to represent the transcendental order. I mean “represent” literally – it needs to re-present it to us and to our senses in a way that is intelligible. The entire modern order does not do this. “Democracy” does not represent a natural order of being that is hierarchical, determine, authoritative, and unfree by nature, which is exactly what the order of being is. It does not represent adequately the nature of our duties as men. What it does do is inculcate in us the false belief that the social order is reducible to a mass of free-floating wills moving freely and randomly through space, who must agree to coordinate their movements so as to avoid collision – which stands to reason, given that this is precisely the nominalist view of the world in accordance with which the Founders launched their revolution.

If the order of being is monarchical, authoritative, and duty-based, then the social order ought likewise to be monarchical, authoritative, and duty-based. A properly-minded Catholic, then, ought to be a monarchist. This stands to reason: the Church was historically a friend of kings and the enemy of the Revolutions that overthrew them.

The other perversions common to the modern age, such as the innovative view of “natural rights,” likewise needs to be done away with. In fact, rights-talk and rights-thinking is in my view not very meaningful in Catholicism. This is a point our enemies make all the time, when we point out, for instance, that we have no right to do evil. I think it was Aristotle who pointed out that a man can do good only in one respect but can do evil in many. Clearly, then, it follows that man has no right to do a lot of things. Very often, he has the right to make only one choice. This doesn’t prove that the Church is against “freedom.” It proves that “freedom” is not an intelligible way of understanding the order of being which the Church defends. “Duty” is a better way of understanding. We have the duty to do good and to be good according to our station in life. Those rigidly hierarchical monarchical societies of the past to which we respond with inculcated abhorrence understood this and acted accordingly. Modern society doesn’t. The result is gay “marriage” and the wholesale slaughter of infants in the name of a “woman’s right to choose.”

Very interesting points.

Something like this, is the thinking of various Carlists. A political movement preferred by some Traditionalists over here.

Blessings!

 

[rapunzel77]

I’m a Traditionalist Catholic and my political views have shifted somewhat over time. I consider myself to be an independent with some libertarian leanings. I base all my political beliefs on my Catholic faith so of course when it comes to issues like abortion, euthanasia, cloning/embryonic stem cell research, and “gay” marriage, my mind is totally with the Church. However, I believe that to be totally pro-life, it shouldn’t just end with babies or with old people, it should be all encompassing which means being against torture in any form (including waterboarding), against war and intervention in any country that we feel like, against the death penalty, and I would venture to include rethinking the “drug” war as well. In addition, I do believe that there needs to be some type of safety net for people who are very needy. Private charities are wonderful but they can’t help with everything. My husband just lost his job and he has to go on unemployment. A private charity probably couldn’t handle the amount of unemployed people who need to get help while they look for work. As Catholics we believe that we are a community, that we must help each other. The notion of “pulling yourself up from your boot straps” and American individualism is honestly incompatible with the Catholic faith. So, in my case, I am culturally conservative but I am liberal in other areas so I can’t stand either party and since I can’t stand either one, I will have to just write in someone on the ballot or vote third party.

I believe we are hurting the pro-life cause by only focusing on the so-called pelvic issues (ie. abortion, “gay” marriage, etc) and not also condemning the perpetual wars we are getting ourselves into. Why isn’t there outrage over the kill lists and the drone attacks that are being done in nations that we are not actually at war with?? I haven’t heard ONE peep out of any bishop or other Church leader about this. Are we honestly pro-life? Does that mean we only care about the baby in the womb but if that baby is in another country and perhaps is born in a family that is not Christian then it is ok to bomb them? Or is it ok to protect the baby until he/she is 18 when they could be sent to a war and we cheer them on as “heroes” while they get blown up in another senseless war??

These are issues that I have been struggling with and I have come to the conclusion that the neo-con ideas are poison and have no business in our dear Church. We must love our enemies and do penance for our sins and above all, we must love each other. Completely .

 

[CesarAugustus]

I’m a Traditionalist Catholic and my political views have shifted somewhat over time. I consider myself to be an independent with some libertarian leanings. I base all my political beliefs on my Catholic faith so of course when it comes to issues like abortion, euthanasia, cloning/embryonic stem cell research, and “gay” marriage, my mind is totally with the Church. However, I believe that to be totally pro-life, it shouldn’t just end with babies or with old people, it should be all encompassing which means being against torture in any form (including waterboarding), against war and intervention in any country that we feel like, against the death penalty, and I would venture to include rethinking the “drug” war as well. In addition, I do believe that there needs to be some type of safety net for people who are very needy. Private charities are wonderful but they can’t help with everything. My husband just lost his job and he has to go on unemployment. A private charity probably couldn’t handle the amount of unemployed people who need to get help while they look for work. As Catholics we believe that we are a community, that we must help each other. The notion of “pulling yourself up from your boot straps” and American individualism is honestly incompatible with the Catholic faith. So, in my case, I am culturally conservative but I am liberal in other areas so I can’t stand either party and since I can’t stand either one, I will have to just write in someone on the ballot or vote third party.

I believe we are hurting the pro-life cause by only focusing on the so-called pelvic issues (ie. abortion, “gay” marriage, etc) and not also condemning the perpetual wars we are getting ourselves into. Why isn’t there outrage over the kill lists and the drone attacks that are being done in nations that we are not actually at war with?? I haven’t heard ONE peep out of any bishop or other Church leader about this. Are we honestly pro-life? Does that mean we only care about the baby in the womb but if that baby is in another country and perhaps is born in a family that is not Christian then it is ok to bomb them? Or is it ok to protect the baby until he/she is 18 when they could be sent to a war and we cheer them on as “heroes” while they get blown up in another senseless war??

These are issues that I have been struggling with and I have come to the conclusion that the neo-con ideas are poison and have no business in our dear Church. We must love our enemies and do penance for our sins and above all, we must love each other. Completely .

Well said!

I don’t think these are liberal ideas, since they don’t have their origin with Liberalism and the post-revolutionary establishment.

In fact, various social initiatives like the Monte di Pietà, against usury, and in favour of the poor, were traditional of the pre-revolutionary west.

“Pelvic issues” are easy to support for the neocons, so they use these as means to gain the support of religious people. And yes, Church’s Social Doctrine is more much than that.

Blessings!