Can Catholics Vote Democrat?

  • Thread starter Thread starter adawgj
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
More excerpts from the article…

“However, if one nurses people after they have had abortions, or cuts the grass at the abortion clinic, it would not contribute anything essential to the act of abortion and would be an act of mediate material cooperation. Finally, the possibility of scandal could prohibit acts of even mediate material cooperation because, even though the moral object of the act is good it may lead another into sin.”

“Get the picture? Even mediate material cooperation should be avoided. There is no “free pass” for the conscientious conscience.”

Is voting for a pro-abortion candidate, no matter the party, immediate or mediate cooperation? If I vote for the pro-abortion candidate for other reasons and I do not agree with the intrinsic evils supported by the candidate, it is seen as mediate material cooperation; the lesser of the situations. The possibility of scandal because of my vote in favor of a pro-abortion candidate places that responsibility on me to act differently if I am of a “conscientious conscience”.

If the vote goes to that candidate for that reason then I may be guilty of formal cooperation; it is the result I am looking for.

Notice in the example above, even though the reason for making the decision to work there is to provide for the family and good is being done possibly, it is still mediate material cooperation and should be avoided.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Why do you think Mother Jones is right and the NYT and Frontline wrong?
Click to expand...
To cite former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan:
“Bush and his White House were engaging in a carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval to our advantage.”
More on McClellan: washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052703679.html

The source in the “NYT and Frontline” stories came from Judith Miller. If you’ve never read about how Judith Miller was the mouthpiece of the administration, here’s a good read: nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/

From the story:*
"Her Iraq coverage didn’t just depend on Chalabi. It also relied heavily on his patrons in the Pentagon. Some of these sources, like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, would occasionally talk to her on the record. She relied especially heavily on the Office of Special Plans, an intelligence unit established beneath Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. The office was charged with uncovering evidence of Al Qaeda links to Saddam Hussein that the CIA might have missed. In particular, Miller is said to have depended on a controversial neocon in Feith’s office named Michael Maloof. At one point, in December 2001, Maloof’s security clearance was revoked. In April, Risen reported in the Times, “Several intelligence professionals say he came under scrutiny because of suspicions that he had leaked classified information in the past to the news media, a charge that Mr. Maloof denies.” While Miller might not have intended to march in lockstep with these hawks, she was caught up in an almost irresistible cycle. Because she kept printing the neocon party line, the neocons kept coming to her with huge stories and great quotes, constantly expanding her access. "*

She appeared on Christopher Lydon’s phenomenal program, “The Connection” and said this:
“My job was not to collect information and analyze it independently as an intelligence agency; my job was to tell readers of the New York Times, as best as I could figure out, what people inside the governments, who had very high security clearances, who were not supposed to talk to me, were saying to one another about what they thought Iraq had and did not have in the area of weapons of mass destruction.”
 
40.png
Ridgerunner:
But if you are thinking Bush claimed Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 911, you’re wrong, because he never said that.
Click to expand...
Actually, the hand-waving trick was much more indirect. McClellan stops short of saying Bush lied, but here’s how he described the administration: “Over that summer of 2002,” he writes, “top Bush aides had outlined a strategy for carefully orchestrating the coming campaign to aggressively sell the war. . . . In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage.”

Everything the Bush administration said was well-sculpted to avoid making false statements. That doesn’t mean they didn’t mislead. Here’s the actual transcript of the Cheney interview on 12/9/2001 on “Meet the Press.”

*RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. When you were last on this program, September 16, five days after the attack on our country, I asked you whether there was any evidence that Iraq was involved in the attack and you said no.

Since that time, a couple of articles have appeared which I want to get you to react to. The first: The Czech interior minister said today that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with Mohammed Atta, one of the ringleaders of the September 11 terrorists attacks on the United States, just five months before the synchronized hijackings and mass killings were carried out.

And this from James Woolsey, former CIA director: ``We know that at Salman Pak, in the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eye witnesses–three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. inspectors–have said, and now there are aerial photographs to show it, a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers, trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives.’’

And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck, and there it is. The plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers.

Do you still believe there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?

CHENEY: Well, what we now have that’s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that’s been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.

Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don’t know at this point. But that’s clearly an avenue that we want to pursue.

RUSSERT: What we do know is that Iraq is harboring terrorists. This was from Jim Hoagland in The Washington Post that George W. Bush said that Abdul Ramini Yazen (ph), who helped bomb the World Trade Center back in 1993, according to Louis Freeh was hiding in his native Iraq. And we’ll show that right there on the screen. That’s an exact quote.

If they’re harboring terrorist, why not go in and get them?

CHENEY: Well, the evidence is pretty conclusive that the Iraqis have indeed harbored terrorists. That wasn’t the question you asked the last time we met. You asked about evidence involved in September 11.

RUSSERT: Correct.

CHENEY: Over the years, for example, they’ve provided a safe harbor for Abu Nadal (ph), worked out of Bagdad for a long time.

The situation, I think, that leads a lot of people to be concerned about Iraq has to do not just with their past activity of harboring terrorist, but also with Saddam Hussein’s behavior over the years and with his aggressive pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
*
In this quote, Cheney mentions “evidence involved in September 11.” The next line he mentions is Baghdad’s harboring Abu Nidal. This statement is true, but has absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The Abu Nidal Organization is a Palestinian socialist terrorist group, that has never been implicated as having any attachment to 9/11. Cheney talking like this on Meet the Press was true, but misleading. It hints that through Abu Nidal, Iraq was involved with 9/11. This is just one example.

I don’t know what all terrorists Saddam harbored and which ones he killed. He picked his victims according to his own thinking, and some of his thinking was paranoid and/or insane. What is indisputably true is that he paid the families of suicide bombers who killed Israeli civilians. Maybe some wouldn’t call that terrorism, but I sure would. And possibly some would say that Saddam’s attempt to assassinate Bush Sr wasn’t terrorism either. The 2008 Pentagon study concluded that Saddam and AQ didn’t actually share projects and aims, but did work together in an overlapping sort of manner, and both were involved in terrorism, but each with his own agenda.

Cheney did back off his statement after the Czechs backed off theirs, and said that’s why he did.

Accuse Bush and Cheney of being too easily convinced of threats being larger than they really were. There would be some truth to that. But a lot of others, including nearly all Democrat congressmen were convinced as well.

Some of these accusations are simply left wing myths fabricated to make people hate the Repubs; sort of like the “truthers” who claim Obama was born in Kenya. I think I would want to do a lot of digging before I supported abortion out of dislike of an abortion-promoter’s opposition.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
I read through the article - twice - and I think I understand it. The article does not say what your first sentence says. Randall Smith does an excellent job in explaining the categories of cooperation with evil, and the moral evaluation of each category. Regarding mediate material cooperation, he says it “should be avoided”. Those are his exact words. He did not say “must be avoided”, or the one “may not” engage in it. But the words I have seen here regarding voting are “may not”. How do you explain the difference?
Click to expand...
I’m not sure what is so hard to see. We should avoid this, better? That doesn’t change anything unless we are looking for an out. Is that what we are doing? We should also avoid any appearance of scandal, gossip, indulging in too much drink, ogling women, etc. Help me figure out why I should choose to do something that I shouldn’t.
 
Lapey said:
I’m not sure what is so hard to see. We should avoid this, better? That doesn’t change anything unless we are looking for an out. Is that what we are doing? We should also avoid any appearance of scandal, gossip, indulging in too much drink, ogling women, etc. Help me figure out why I should choose to do something that I shouldn’t.
Click to expand...
I think that there is a big difference between should not and must not. For example, one should not vote for pro-abortion candidates, that is it is something to be avoided whenever possible. However, there are times when that is not possible, such as might be the case in the MA governor election this fall. The republican front runner is just as pro-abortion as the democrat. So while in ordinary circumstances one should not vote for a pro-abortion candidate, if there are only two choices and they are both equally bad it cannot be a sin to vote for the pro-abortion candidate.
 
Lapey said:
I’m not sure what is so hard to see. We should avoid this, better? That doesn’t change anything unless we are looking for an out. Is that what we are doing? We should also avoid any appearance of scandal, gossip, indulging in too much drink, ogling women, etc. Help me figure out why I should choose to do something that I shouldn’t.
Click to expand...
You shouldn’t. I never said you should. I accept that “a good Catholic should not vote for a pro-choice candidate.”
 
Lapey said:
More excerpts from the article…

“However, if one nurses people after they have had abortions, or cuts the grass at the abortion clinic, it would not contribute anything essential to the act of abortion and would be an act of mediate material cooperation. Finally, the possibility of scandal could prohibit acts of even mediate material cooperation because, even though the moral object of the act is good it may lead another into sin.”

“Get the picture? Even mediate material cooperation should be avoided. There is no “free pass” for the conscientious conscience.”

Is voting for a pro-abortion candidate, no matter the party, immediate or mediate cooperation? If I vote for the pro-abortion candidate for other reasons and I do not agree with the intrinsic evils supported by the candidate, it is seen as mediate material cooperation; the lesser of the situations. The possibility of scandal because of my vote in favor of a pro-abortion candidate places that responsibility on me to act differently if I am of a “conscientious conscience”.

If the vote goes to that candidate for that reason then I may be guilty of formal cooperation; it is the result I am looking for.

Notice in the example above, even though the reason for making the decision to work there is to provide for the family and good is being done possibly, it is still mediate material cooperation and should be avoided.
Click to expand...
This very much reminds me of something Solzenitzyn said in one of his “Gulag Archipelago” volumes. He recounts what was said to him by a man in one of the prisons (Butryki, I think) sentenced to be shot. The doomed man told Solzhenitzyn that he planned to tell everyone taking part in his execution (and I’m paraphrasing) “It is you who are responsible for my death. Do not think the guilt is Stalin’s, nor the NKVD’s, nor the Party’s. The guilt is yours.”

And it’s true. Every willing and knowing person in the “chain of causation” is guilty of the consequence. And so, one who supports abortion-promoting candidates when he could oppose them is as guilty of the deaths of children as the “doctor” who wields the knife.

Now, in our system the only way most of us can oppose such a candidate is by voting for his opponent. (Other can do more, of course) We all know supporting the opposing candidate may be avoided only if that candidate espouses a “proportionate evil”. As against a million killings and more per year, it’s very hard to truly say something is “proportionate” to that.
 
Fogwalker said:
Republicans’ opposition to abortion has been woefully ineffective, even when they controlled the presidency and both houses of congress in the 2000s. There are no facts to support the idea that a Republican vote will significantly reduce the abortion rate in the United States relative to a Democratic vote.

Democrats’ active promotion of abortion, while real, is unnecessary, because our corrupted culture already considers abortion to be acceptable and widely available. The culture has promoted abortion on its own - with great success - regardless of which political party is in power, and there is no evidence that Democratic power makes this cultural message stronger than it otherwise would be.

In conclusion, the Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated that they are either unable or unwilling to make serious attacks on abortion, and the Democrats’ pro-abortion message is just a symptom of the widespread disease in our culture, which voting Republican would not cure.
Click to expand...
Excuses # 5,6 and 10.

EXCUSES FOR VOTING FOR PRO-ABORTION POLITICIANS
  1. National Republicans aren’t “really” pro-life, so it’s okay if I vote for the virulently pro-abortion party.
  2. Specific candidate isn’t “really” pro-life, or I don’t believe his supposed change of belief, so it’s okay if I vote for the virulently pro-abortion party.
  3. My deacon/priest/bishop/cardinal told me or wrote me a letter telling me it was okay to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  4. I’m not a one-issue voter, so I can ignore the Church’s teaching and vote for the virulently pro-abortion politician.
  5. Republicans (at any level) have not passed enough pro-life laws (as decided by me), so I can vote for the political party that is virulently pro-abortion.
  6. Republicans (at any level) have not had enough success on pro-life issues (as decided by me), so I can vote for the political party that is virulently pro-abortion.
  7. Roe vs. Wade is still the law of the land even though most Supreme Court justices were appointed by the Republicans, therefore Republicans aren’t serious about abortion, so I can vote for the political party that is virulently pro-abortion.
  8. I found a Church document that mentioned proportionate reasons in voting, so I personally judged support for a higher minimum wage (or other social justice cause) was on equal footing with abortion, and I can vote for the political party that is virulently pro-abortion.
  9. I personally believe that Democratic policies will reduce abortions, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  10. We can’t do anything about abortion until we change the hearts and minds of the people, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  11. You can’t legislate morality, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  12. People will still have abortions even if you make them illegal, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  13. We can’t end abortion until we address the root causes, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  14. I can’t impose my beliefs on other people, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  15. There isn’t any difference between the parties, so it is okay for me to vote for the virulently pro-abortion party.
  16. The Pro-Life movement is in the tank for the Republican party (even though all pro-life legislation has had the overwhelming support of Republicans and overwhelming opposition from Democrats), so it’s okay for me to vote for the virulently pro-abortion party.
 
Fogwalker said:
Our definitions of “effective” are not aligned. The word “effective” implies that there are results that can be measured. The only result that I care about in this debate is the number of babies that are aborted, and more specifically, that the number is zero. ** I do not see killing 1.1 million people as “better” than killing 1.2 million people** - we should be killing zero people and anything more than zero is unacceptable.

Saying that Democrats “fight tooth and nail” against pro-life policies is an unfair generalization. SOME Democrats fight pro-life policies. MANY do not. OTHERS break party lines to support pro-life policies.

My personal experience is that a woman who is willing to drive 1 hour across town to have an abortion will also be willing to drive 2 hours to have the same procedure out of state. And there are ways and means outside of clinics to have abortions. The number and location of clinics is not a good measure of abortion rates. As for funding Planned Parenthood, government funding and intervention do not guarantee an organization’s success (and might make it worse - just ask the Postal Service).
Click to expand...
Those 100k people see it differently. I guess you’re more flippant about the lives of enough people to fill a large college football stadium. That is horrific.

Oh, and the rest of your post: Excuses 10, 12 and 13

EXCUSES FOR VOTING FOR PRO-ABORTION POLITICIANS
  1. National Republicans aren’t “really” pro-life, so it’s okay if I vote for the virulently pro-abortion party.
  2. Specific candidate isn’t “really” pro-life, or I don’t believe his supposed change of belief, so it’s okay if I vote for the virulently pro-abortion party.
  3. My deacon/priest/bishop/cardinal told me or wrote me a letter telling me it was okay to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  4. I’m not a one-issue voter, so I can ignore the Church’s teaching and vote for the virulently pro-abortion politician.
  5. Republicans (at any level) have not passed enough pro-life laws (as decided by me), so I can vote for the political party that is virulently pro-abortion.
  6. Republicans (at any level) have not had enough success on pro-life issues (as decided by me), so I can vote for the political party that is virulently pro-abortion.
  7. Roe vs. Wade is still the law of the land even though most Supreme Court justices were appointed by the Republicans, therefore Republicans aren’t serious about abortion, so I can vote for the political party that is virulently pro-abortion.
  8. I found a Church document that mentioned proportionate reasons in voting, so I personally judged support for a higher minimum wage (or other social justice cause) was on equal footing with abortion, and I can vote for the political party that is virulently pro-abortion.
  9. I personally believe that Democratic policies will reduce abortions, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  10. We can’t do anything about abortion until we change the hearts and minds of the people, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  11. You can’t legislate morality, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  12. People will still have abortions even if you make them illegal, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  13. We can’t end abortion until we address the root causes, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  14. I can’t impose my beliefs on other people, so it is okay for me to vote for a virulently pro-abortion politician.
  15. There isn’t any difference between the parties, so it is okay for me to vote for the virulently pro-abortion party.
  16. The Pro-Life movement is in the tank for the Republican party (even though all pro-life legislation has had the overwhelming support of Republicans and overwhelming opposition from Democrats), so it’s okay for me to vote for the virulently pro-abortion party.
 
fnr said:
Actually, the hand-waving trick was much more indirect. McClellan stops short of saying Bush lied, but here’s how he described the administration: “Over that summer of 2002,” he writes, “top Bush aides had outlined a strategy for carefully orchestrating the coming campaign to aggressively sell the war. . . . In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage.”

Everything the Bush administration said was well-sculpted to avoid making false statements. That doesn’t mean they didn’t mislead. Here’s the actual transcript of the Cheney interview on 12/9/2001 on “Meet the Press.”
RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. When you were last on this program, September 16, five days after the attack on our country, I asked you whether there was any evidence that Iraq was involved in the attack and you said no.
*

Since that time, a couple of articles have appeared which I want to get you to react to. The first: The Czech interior minister said today that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with Mohammed Atta, one of the ringleaders of the September 11 terrorists attacks on the United States, just five months before the synchronized hijackings and mass killings were carried out.

And this from James Woolsey, former CIA director: ``We know that at Salman Pak, in the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eye witnesses–three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. inspectors–have said, and now there are aerial photographs to show it, a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers, trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives.’’

And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck, and there it is. The plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers.

Do you still believe there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?

CHENEY: Well, what we now have that’s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that’s been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.

Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don’t know at this point. But that’s clearly an avenue that we want to pursue.

RUSSERT: What we do know is that Iraq is harboring terrorists. This was from Jim Hoagland in The Washington Post that George W. Bush said that Abdul Ramini Yazen (ph), who helped bomb the World Trade Center back in 1993, according to Louis Freeh was hiding in his native Iraq. And we’ll show that right there on the screen. That’s an exact quote.

If they’re harboring terrorist, why not go in and get them?

CHENEY: Well, the evidence is pretty conclusive that the Iraqis have indeed harbored terrorists. That wasn’t the question you asked the last time we met. You asked about evidence involved in September 11.

RUSSERT: Correct.

CHENEY: Over the years, for example, they’ve provided a safe harbor for Abu Nadal (ph), worked out of Bagdad for a long time.

*The situation, I think, that leads a lot of people to be concerned about Iraq has to do not just with their past activity of harboring terrorist, but also with Saddam Hussein’s behavior over the years and with his aggressive pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. *
In this quote, Cheney mentions “evidence involved in September 11.” The next line he mentions is Baghdad’s harboring Abu Nidal. This statement is true, but has absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The Abu Nidal Organization is a Palestinian socialist terrorist group, that has never been implicated as having any attachment to 9/11. Cheney talking like this on Meet the Press was true, but misleading. It hints that through Abu Nidal, Iraq was involved with 9/11. This is just one example.

I don’t know what all terrorists Saddam harbored and which ones he killed. He picked his victims according to his own thinking, and some of his thinking was paranoid and/or insane. What is indisputably true is that he paid the families of suicide bombers who killed Israeli civilians. Maybe some wouldn’t call that terrorism, but I sure would. And possibly some would say that Saddam’s attempt to assassinate Bush Sr wasn’t terrorism either. The 2008 Pentagon study concluded that Saddam and AQ didn’t actually share projects and aims, but did work together in an overlapping sort of manner, and both were involved in terrorism, but each with his own agenda.

Cheney did back off his statement after the Czechs backed off theirs, and said that’s why he did.

Accuse Bush and Cheney of being too easily convinced of threats being larger than they really were. There would be some truth to that. But a lot of others, including nearly all Democrat congressmen were convinced as well.

Some of these accusations are simply left wing myths fabricated to make people hate the Repubs; sort of like the “truthers” who claim Obama was born in Kenya. I think I would want to do a lot of digging before I supported abortion out of dislike of an abortion-promoter’s opposition.
Click to expand...
None of which has any bearing whatsoever on whether a Catholic can vote for a pro-abortion candidate.
 
fnr said:
To cite former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan:
“Bush and his White House were engaging in a carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval to our advantage.”
More on McClellan: washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052703679.html

The source in the “NYT and Frontline” stories came from Judith Miller. If you’ve never read about how Judith Miller was the mouthpiece of the administration, here’s a good read: nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/

From the story:*
"Her Iraq coverage didn’t just depend on Chalabi. It also relied heavily on his patrons in the Pentagon. Some of these sources, like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, would occasionally talk to her on the record. She relied especially heavily on the Office of Special Plans, an intelligence unit established beneath Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. The office was charged with uncovering evidence of Al Qaeda links to Saddam Hussein that the CIA might have missed. In particular, Miller is said to have depended on a controversial neocon in Feith’s office named Michael Maloof. At one point, in December 2001, Maloof’s security clearance was revoked. In April, Risen reported in the Times, “Several intelligence professionals say he came under scrutiny because of suspicions that he had leaked classified information in the past to the news media, a charge that Mr. Maloof denies.” While Miller might not have intended to march in lockstep with these hawks, she was caught up in an almost irresistible cycle. Because she kept printing the neocon party line, the neocons kept coming to her with huge stories and great quotes, constantly expanding her access. "*

She appeared on Christopher Lydon’s phenomenal program, “The Connection” and said this:
“My job was not to collect information and analyze it independently as an intelligence agency; my job was to tell readers of the New York Times, as best as I could figure out, what people inside the governments, who had very high security clearances, who were not supposed to talk to me, were saying to one another about what they thought Iraq had and did not have in the area of weapons of mass destruction.”
Click to expand...
You’re really just saying “I believe this way, so the person who agrees with me knows the truth while the one who disagrees with me is an unreliable source.” Might as well leave out the “middlemen” and say “I’m right because I’m right”.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
I think that there is a big difference between should not and must not. For example, one should not vote for pro-abortion candidates, that is it is something to be avoided whenever possible. However, there are times when that is not possible, such as might be the case in the MA governor election this fall. The republican front runner is just as pro-abortion as the democrat. So while in ordinary circumstances one should not vote for a pro-abortion candidate, if there are only two choices and they are both equally bad it cannot be a sin to vote for the pro-abortion candidate.
Click to expand...
Again, we have no disagreement and Church documents like “Faithful Citizenship” by the USCCB acknowledge that situation. So I again ask, what’s your point?
 
Lapey said:
Again, we have no disagreement and Church documents like “Faithful Citizenship” by the USCCB acknowledge that situation. So I again ask, what’s your point?
Click to expand...
I am just clarifying the situation. Someone could have read your comments and confused “should not” with “must not”. It is always better to have better clarity.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
I am just clarifying the situation. Someone could have read your comments and confused “should not” with “must not”. It is always better to have better clarity.
Click to expand...
What does “should not” mean to you in the topic we are speaking of, voting for a pro-abortion candidate while a pro-life candidate is available to cast a vote for instead?
 
Lapey said:
What does “should not” mean to you in the topic we are speaking of, voting for a pro-abortion candidate while a pro-life candidate is available to cast a vote for instead?
Click to expand...
What does “should not” mean to you when you have two equally pro-abortion candidates?
 
Ridgerunner said:
You’re really just saying “I believe this way, so the person who agrees with me knows the truth while the one who disagrees with me is an unreliable source.” Might as well leave out the “middlemen” and say “I’m right because I’m right”.
Click to expand...
No, it’s that I spent time since the mid-1990s on Iraq, looking at public health issues associated with the sanctions and the bombings under Clinton. I worked with my parish’s peace and justice group. I marched with a bishop to raise awareness. I sent money to aid organizations working in Iraq. So I had a long history of understanding Iraq long before 9/11.

I have always taken seriously the obligation of Catholics to seek peace. There’s a whole section of the Catechism dedicated to just war doctrine, so it is a big deal (2302-2317).

It very much seems to me that because Bush was ostensibly pro-life, many Catholics gave him a pass on Iraq. The narrowing of issues to the “non-negotiables” meant that many Catholics resolved any cognitive dissonance associated with voting for a president who took us into an unjustifiable war by surrendering their critical thinking skills about that war. “Bush says he’s pro-life, so he must be good!”

Abortion has become the trump card for all other issues, and in the intense push to end abortion, there has been a lack of consideration of any tactics other than those the pro-life movement developed in the 1970s: presidential elections, state legislatures, and crisis pregnancy centers.

This narrowing of the cognitive landscape has affected all sorts of issues as pro-life Catholics adopt the preferred policy positions of their coalition partners within the Republican Party: from social policy (with Catholics adopting Ayn Rand), fiscal policy (with Paul Ryan the new golden boy espousing Hayek’s economics), the environment (I’ve been told that the EPA is just a front for the population control movement), to war itself. It explains why so many people were so hurt when Pope Francis came out in his interview in America Magazine saying:
*“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel."*
I heard many people call into Catholic radio programs after that, wondering why Pope Francis had betrayed them, when they had viewed themselves as the loyal ones. Pope Francis was saying that there needs to be another way. Not “occupying spaces” but “initiating processes.” Evangelizing instead of politics.

I’m not arguing for Roe v. Wade, I’m saying that attempts to overturn it through electoral politics have been counterproductive to ending abortion. The “culture war” has been destructive of culture itself, replacing relationships with electoral schemes, and culture with politics.

I’m not arguing for the Democratic Party, I’m arguing for the Catholic Church to be one. Relationships are more important than arguments. We are One Body in One Lord.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top