What really makes me angry is that there are all of this body and muscular strength building equipment in prisons. So the whole time these people are in jail, they are getting bigger and stronger, so that when they get out, they will be able to do more intimidation and damage. This definitely seems totally wrong!!!
No, just the opposite. It is saying that he removes his feelings of rage from his decisions. And that is how he is able to follow what Jesus says about our enemies.
Eloquently stated. Thank you.
And I also agree all of these issues are life issues
You make a very good point, and I am in total agreement with you. It is too important to stick too much into it. It takes away the importance of abortion and euthanasia.
I consider such a position very, very cafeteria. Very selective, unlike Cardinal Bernadin’s position. War by definition is deadly and aims for at least some deaths if not thousands and millions of deaths, including deaths of innocent babies and children below the age of reason. Capital punishment is death. Starvation leads to death – especially so for the most innocent, since they need to be fed most often & are, like the elderly, the most fragile. Poverty often shortens one’s life span, or encourages desperate actions (such as crime), which target one for death by violence due to high-risk activity and/or apprehension and incarceration. Dirty drinking water carries fatal disease, making especially vulnerable innocent (young) inhabitants of the poorest nations with less access to preventative & curative medicine.
You forgot embryonic stem cell research and human cloning. I don’t think you can support these and be pro-life. Other than that, good post.
Cafeteria??? I’m glad that you’ve expanded your answer. Your earlier reply implied something far less complete. i.m.o. Many people, just as devoted to life issues (or perhaps more so?) as one- or two-issue supporters,believe that life is for God’s to take away, not the state to take away. They also know, based on unalterable realities, that the practicality of physical life, and the dignities of daily life, depend on the upholding of human dignity for those already born – those not confined to the womb or those near the grave. For people who limit their passion to the abortion issue, it may be very inconvenient to acknowledge how thorough our commitment to life must be, in the teaching of Jesus, but neither Jesus nor true proponents of Life would limit such support to the extreme chronological ends of the spectrum.
You make a very grave error when you call my friend a “cafeteria” Catholic. She is quite faithful to the Church.
This “seamless garment” idea is not part of Church teaching. Despite many claims, it does not represent the unchanging teachings of the Catholic Church but rather a modernist approach to theology and is an attempt to change certain moral teaching that are part of the deposit of faith.
You have both misrepresented me and misinterpreted me, not to mention insulted me gravely. It is actually you who owe me an apology, not I who owe anyone on this thread an apology. In no way were my posts radical, leftist, or anything else you claim. Cardinal Bernardin is one of the holiest men of the modern era: beyond reproach. Like JP2 who met with his would-be assassin, the Cardinal met personally, with utmost mercy & compassion, with his accuser, who falsified the account of sexual abuse for the sake of material profit. Cardinal Bernardin is hardly a raving radical, but someone who heard the Word profoundly and adopted it obediently. He is a model for those who would follow the words of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew. At no time in his career has Cardinal Bernardin represented “inauthentic” Catholic teaching.
You are making the serious mistake of putting war and poverty on the same level as abortion. Can you honestly say that clean drinking water is just as important an issue as abortion? You are confusing life issues with works of mercy. This sort of thinking is commonly used by Democrats to downplay life issues and is the very reason abortion is still legal.
You, also, do not need to lump me into your favorite opposition with a phrase “this sort of thinking.” I am saying that the issue of innocence, and the issues of life and death, extend beyond the womb. I am saying that those who selectively prefer only certain life issues to others are not ones whose moral values and religious observance I can respect nearly as much as I respect those whose respect for life is authentically thorough. (Knowing, as I said, that an impoverished 5-year-old child is as captive and as innocent, if presented with bacteria-laden drinking water, as an embryo.)