Bishop orders priests to read anti-Obama letter at Sunday sermons

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Ridgerunner said:
How do you know that? I mean, people like that get to be on talk shows, make money writing books, leading prolife groups, traveling to speaking engagements; the World of Sarah Palin, so to speak. And they are precisely engaged in affecting prolife issues, at least.

No, it’s only Romney that Obama supporters doubt. If he was running for sheriff of some county in Arkansas, they wouldn’t doubt him, but since he is running against Obama, well…that’s another story.
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They’re not on a ticket. Let them get on a ticket and we’ll see where it goes from there.

I have problems with Romney, the same as I do Obama. But I think everyone knows that.
 
Mickey said:
There is no legitimate diversity of opinion among Catholics with regard to abortion and euthanasia. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia.

The ‘proportionate reasons’ is an essential qualifier. Hence, if there are only two candidates running for the office of president, senator, representative, governor, and so on, and both are pro-abortion, a Catholic may vote for one of them (1) as long as they do not personally agree (which would be formal cooperation in evil) and (2) they must choose the candidate who is more pro-life or less pro-abortion than his or her opponent.

In other words, Candidate A favors unrestricted abortions on demand at any time of pregnancy, and Candidate B only tolerates abortion in cases of rape, incest and when the life of mother is in jeopardy. Neither position conforms to the natural moral law or the magisterial teachings of the Church. Yet, the lesser of two evils can be tolerated when there is no alternative. Whether Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian or tea party, when the choice is between two candidates who are not 100 percent pro-life/anti-abortion, the one who is more pro-life and less ‘pro-choice’ must be selected over his or her opponent.

Even though there are many valid and important issues (like the economy, the environment, death penalty, war, health care, family and marriage rights), there is a hierarchy of values. The right to life trumps all other rights and privileges. The Declaration of Independence clearly states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Notice that the inalienable right to life is mentioned first, even before liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is no ‘right’ to an abortion. Abortion is legal, but so was slavery and racial segregation at one time in America. There is no ‘right’ to contraception, either. Both abortion and contraception are legal in the United States, but they do not and should not be financed by the government since the taxpayers are the ones who pay the bills.

Bottom line is that no priest, deacon or bishop needs to say who to vote for in any election. We do not and should not mention any names or political parties. On the other hand, we must and are obliged to inform our people of their moral duty to use a well-formed conscience in choosing a candidate. Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) and the CDF made it crystal clear: Not all moral issues are of the same moral weight. The right to life is paramount; economic, environmental, military, and social issues are secondary, if not tertiary. When the choice is between a candidate who manifests his or her pro-abortion position and a candidate who professes to be pro-life, the moral obligation is to choose life by choosing the pro-life politician.

It is not that we are single-issue voters, but there is a proportion, a hierarchy of values in which the right to life outweighs all other concerns. The unjust killing of innocent lives is not eclipsed or overshadowed by any other concern. When there are two candidates whose stand on abortion is basically the same, then other issues can and must be brought into the equation to make a prudent vote. When Election Day comes this November, we should know well who is more pro-life and who is more ‘pro-choice.’ Then our well-formed conscience should tell us to choose the former over the latter.
Father John Trigilio Jr. (from EWTN)
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Your reading of environmental issues is totally wrong – it’s as if you are saying killing with a knife is wrong, while killing thru poison is okay.

There are many many ways in which we kill people – and switching to a different method of killing never makes killing innocent people and fetuses right.

I think people are better advised to follow their consciences than someone’s interpretation of church teachings that in effect says killing by any other means (even killing fetuses, even massive genocide) other than selective medical abortions is okay or not proportionate to medical abortion killing with a drs scalpel, even when those other forms of killing greatly outnumber the ones by drs scalpels.

But in any case, since it is difficult to legislate morality, I would hope people on their own reduce their environmental harms (and not have abortions either). It is really up to people to do the right thing, esp when legislation and policies fail to inspire or direct us to do the right things.

The question troubling me for well over 20 years, is why do people want to wipe out life on earth. Why? I know JPII and BXVI have been very good on environmental issues, but if the Church as a whole had been good on environmental issues (and America’s GHG emissions had dropped 20% below its 1990 levels – which can be done cost-effectively, saving money and helping the economy), it wouldn’t even be an election issue with people like me. It is bec of our collective failure that it is an issue at all.

If you all want to make people like me turn away from anti-abortion candidates (which might be your intent), then just keep on putting up to run for office anti-abortion, anti-environmental candidates, whom one could never truly believe are sincerely anti-abortion, because of their anti-environmental stance (their “anti-abortion” stance is quite fishy).
 
lynnvinc said:
I thought we were talking about environmental issues that could wipe out much, perhaps all, of life on earth, not about “the environmental issues” camp.

If that camp does have people into pop control or world domination, etc (whom I’ve never met, so where are they?), it is bec the so-called good people and pro-life people are just not involved in this mother of all pro-life issues. They are hypocrits (or at least naively unaware) and one cannot take their supposed “pro-life” stance very seriously.

Here’s the most brutal ad you’ll see this election: grist.org/politics/the-most-brutal-ad-youll-see-this-election/

It’s really too bad for the pro-life issues - assuming there might be a few people who actually do care about life out there.
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I liked the Romney smile. I thought the creators of the ad made a wonderful self-parody, suggesting that the East Coast hurricane was due to MMGW. It was right for Romney to smile. If he had seen the pretense about the hurricane, he probably would have (and should have) laughed out loud.

Of course, they don’t mention the much worse East Coast hurricanes in the 1950s or the 1930s or the 19th Century or the 18th Century or the 17th or the worst one anyone knows about (disclosed by studying the alluvial deposits) sometime before 1492.
 
lynnvinc said:
If you all want to make people like me turn away from anti-abortion candidates (which might be your intent), then just keep on putting up to run for office anti-abortion, anti-environmental candidates, whom one could never truly believe are sincerely anti-abortion, because of their anti-environmental stance (their “anti-abortion” stance is quite fishy).
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Really? You would betray your religion because you believe Al Gore? One thing you know, and that is that MMGW is not a universally held belief and has lots of worms in it that have not been squeezed out yet. You have to know that. But a dead child is a dead child and no question about it.
 
Are we complicit, in anyway, if we approach those supporters of intrinsic evils with less than honest Christian charity and cause them to entrench themselves in their support of those evils?
 
Ridgerunner said:
Really? You would betray your religion because you believe Al Gore? One thing you know, and that is that MMGW is not a universally held belief and has lots of worms in it that have not been squeezed out yet. You have to know that. But a dead child is a dead child and no question about it.
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Reminds me of the female comedian whose comic style was often variations of the same joke … she’d tell a contrived story and screw up her face because (we were supposed to surmise) the audience wasn’t buying it … then she exclaim in an exasperated outburst … “Well! It could happen!”. Abortion is happening … the end of the world has a ways to go … and I’m not yet ready to rocket Jor-el to planet Krypton yet for a better life.
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
Are we complicit, in anyway, if we approach those supporters of intrinsic evils with less than honest Christian charity and cause them to entrench themselves in their support of those evils?
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We are obliged to speak the truth to evil, not to canoodle with it. Those who entrench themselves in evil do so because they want to, not because they are confronted with the truth. But some who hear the truth will listen and turn away from the evil.
 
Ridgerunner said:
We are obliged to speak the truth to evil, not to canoodle with it. Those who entrench themselves in evil do so because they want to, not because they are confronted with the truth. But some who hear the truth will listen and turn away from the evil.
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It’s how we deliver the message of truth that has an affect.
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
Are we complicit, in anyway, if we approach those supporters of intrinsic evils with less than honest Christian charity and cause them to entrench themselves in their support of those evils?
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At some point, people have to accountable for their own shortcomings. God does it to us all the time.
 
Scott_Lafrance said:
At some point, people have to accountable for their own shortcomings. God does it to us all the time.
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We are not God.

I have to pay close attention to the letters of correction written by St. Paul to see they are actually letters of correction, because of the love in which they were written.

The followers of Islam are making people accountable, and they’re getting results.
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
We are not God.

I have to pay close attention to the letters of correction written by St. Paul to see they are actually letters of correction, because of the love in which they were written.

The followers of Islam are making people accountable, and they’re getting results.
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So what do you suggest, we go back to the good old days of chopping off hands and feet and gouging out eyeballs and stoning?
 
Scott_Lafrance said:
So what do you suggest, we go back to the good old days of chopping off hands and feet and gouging out eyeballs and stoning?
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I suggest love and charity in all things.

I believe any less alienates people, and causes doubt of the Gospel we speak of.
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
I said they were not targeted. Now, I’m being held to a more in depth definition, or comparison?

Was the Iraq war just? I know, 'we at liberty to disagree with the Pope(s) on that issue.; Two wars at once drained our economy, and many innocents lost their lives due to the wars. An innocents death is a travesty, in war, in domestic violence, or abortion. I would not try to measure it on the ‘curve’.
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If we cannot differentiate between murder and non murder then we are lost.
 
fix said:
If we cannot differentiate between murder and non murder then we are lost.
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We’re lost then, because large segments of population can’t tell that anymore. They watch too much TV and worship the wrong things.
 
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