Can Catholics Vote Democrat?

[Path_Finder]

I can’t let this pass. You do know that it was Obama the one who caused the uprisings in Libya now, Egypt, Syria. See arab spring policy of this administration.

Oh and about Syria, it was this administration who wanted to go to war there. Remember? Don’t try and blame just McCain. This administration if not put in check would have gone to Syria to topple Assad. (Not Muslim Brotherhood, a shiite) Guess what? This administration wanted to support the so-called rebels that are now beheading children in Iraq. Actually they did by sending them weapons. Now they are saying that they stole them from the Iraqi army. They had many of the weapons they did in Syria already.

This administration actively supported, actually formed an international coalition to replace non-Muslim Brotherhood leaders all throughout the middle east to replace them with hardcore Muslim Brotherhood (the overarching organization of more than 100 terrorist organizations in the world). See the case of Egypt and Morsi. You know those hardcore sharia abiding Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

So nope his foreign policy is not only a disaster but dangerous.

Very well said. Even the Egyptian government was smart enough to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood. You are just speaking the truth, you are not being condescending in any way.

 

[Path_Finder]

The foreign policy of the region STARTED with Obama. The so-called arab spring is of THIS administration. Not Bush’s fault at all. Own up to it. At least learn something about it.

As to Iran, well look at it now.
As to Syria, did you seriously forget how Obama wanted to go? Pretty ironic how the same rebels that Obama wanted to support are now in Iraq. Oh he wanted to pull the troops out and now?

If you think ISIS and the Muslim islamists organizations strengthening across the globe is Bush’s fault, then I say to you to study history since 634 Ad and to also know the appointees of this administration. There is a vast number of hardcore supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in this administration. If anything it was the strong support of this administration of the Muslim Brotherhood that emboldened them.

Obama didn’t negotiate anything. NOTHING. Unless it was with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Oh and FYI butchering human beings under the guise of choice would trump all of the other issues. How does it feel to have voted for someone who supported INFANTICIDE 3 times and then lied about it? How does it feel to have voted for someone who had no problem letting wounded babies rot and suffer a slow death?

You honestly answered the issues to the questions. Said it much more explicitly than what I tried to earlier.

 

[Al_Moritz]

In other words you doubt Catholic moral teaching.

Willful distortion.

You doubt the Church’s teaching on probably all the moral issues including abortion.

Willful and malicious distortion. Be glad if I do not report your post to the moderators.

You made here a judgmental insinuation not worthy of a Catholic.

Well, my friend, it is God who you will have to respond to.

Indeed. He will be the one to judge, not you.

 

[Al_Moritz]

So mr moritz: If a Catholic claimed that they believed it was okay to stone women accused of adultery based on “Prudential judgment” i’m guessing that you would judge their conscience to be not properly formed.

Willful and shameless distortion.

Be glad if I do not report your post to the moderators. Just like Milasol, you are clearly overstepping boundaries here.

And so, that is how I judge voters who vote for Pro abortion Democrats while claiming to be faithful catholics. A properly formed conscience would not allow for that.

Ishii.

I am glad that it is God who ultimately will perform the judgment of my soul that really matters, and not you.

You may judge me whatever you want, yet bear in mind Pope Francis’ words: “Who am I to judge?”. I say this not as an excuse, but only to point out proper Christian attitude.

 

[DeniseNY]

This:

I’m guessing that most of them are genuinely good people who are ignorant. We are all sinners. But this thread has been one of the most disappointing threads in a long time. I mean, its illuminating to see the vacuous arguments of the Democrat catholics. But its depressing to see so much obstinacy.

Ishii

Too true.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Willful and shameless distortion.

Be glad if I do not report your post to the moderators. Just like Milasol, you are clearly overstepping boundaries here.

Ishii,
I made these comments in response to a misreading of your post. I sincerely apologize.

I stand by the second part of above post, as well as by my post to Milasol prior to that.

 

[ringil]

No, they cannot vote for Dem. If Catholics vote for Dem, they are actually not Catholics at all and they know that.

Is this sarcastic?

 

[CrossofChrist]

I’d say the positives of President Obama’s tenure and what I think he will be remembered for in a good light will be the ability to avoid getting the United States deeply engaged in foreign wars and foreign misadventures. From Senator McCain’s comments, it is likely he would have gotten the US more deeply involved and possibly in a full military conflict with Iran, Syria and Libya. Now how this will be looked back on is with hindsight and it will depend on how ISIS develops in the Middle East as well as the continuing Israel conflicts, so it could still go either way, but knowing what I know, I can’t fault President Obama’s foreign policies at this point.

On domestic issues, I think Obamacare has generally been positive, but it isn’t enough to resolve major issues in the delivery and expenses of health care in the US. I also think, the Democrats are generally better on the idea that tax reductions will not solve all of society’s ills. Finally, the Democrats generally did not rename torture as ‘enhanced interrogation’

Of course, there is nothing that stops the Republicans from embracing many of these positions, as they can reasonably represent conservative positions (Obamacare isn’t that terribly different to what Senator Dole was proposing in 1995). Most of the differences is a result of the weird “neo-con” mindset of political hacks like William Kristol and the good people at Fox News. If the Republicans could correct themselves on many of these points and emphasize the positive actions they have made on the pro-life front in the last few years, I think they would be in very good shape in the 2016 elections.

Thank you for answering. I’m not going to request a response or anything so this is just something for everyone to think about, but if we take this as a general outline for why someone should vote Democratic over Republican, does it seem like these are reasons that outweigh abortion, potentially the gay marriage movement in the next couple of years, and religious freedom?

Just something to ponder.

 

[estesbob]

Also, I’m not saying economics trumps abortion. I’m saying that, when both candidates are roughly equal in their positions on the issue of abortion,.

NARAL Pro-Choice America endorsed President Obama Tuesday, calling him “a leader who stands with women and their families.”

“The difference between President Obama and Mitt Romney on choice is clear and stark,” group president Nancy Keenan said in a statement. “President Obama thinks women and doctors should make medical decisions; Romney thinks politicians should be in charge. President Obama wants to uphold a woman’s right to choose; Romney wants to outlaw abortion and even supports a ‘personhood’ ban that would outlaw common forms of contraception. President Obama made it possible for nearly every woman to get insurance coverage of contraception without a copay; Romney wants to take away contraception coverage and defund family-planning programs. We will make sure that voters understand the importance of re-electing President Obama."

=======
To suggest - as some Catholics do - that Senator Obama is this year’s ‘‘real’’ prolife candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse.

Archbishop Charles Chaput

 

[Dawnia]

Texas has a very pragmatic job plan that is not really led by conservative policy. This is why Abbott (the actual instituter of Texan policy, not Rick Perry) was defeated by Ted Cruz in the GOP Senate primary 2 years ago. For conservative policies, look to states like Kansas and Wisconsin, both of which have had their economies completely decimated by right-wing fanaticism in economic policy. Many lives have been destroyed in the wake of conservative economic zeal.

While WI and KS aren’t growing by leaps and bounds like ND or TX, they are far from being devistated. Compared to MI, IL and CA which have cities or are themselves on the brink of bankruptcy thay are doing pretty darn good.

North Dakota is a non-sequitur. They had a near-zero unemployment rate even at the height of the recession. In fact, I’m fairly certain they were the #1 state in the country in employment. The employment opportunities in North Dakota are so non-dependent on economic policy that it is disingenuous to use them as an example. Because there’s no job “growth;” just job retainment due to the types of jobs North Dakota has.

Maybe 10 years ago that was true, but not recently. ND has been #1 in job and population growth with around a 2% unemployment rate for the past few years and it is predicted that their growth will continue.

…

Also, I’m not saying economics trumps abortion. I’m saying that, when both candidates are roughly equal in their positions on the issue of abortion, it is an irrelevant issue to consider. People are justifying that Romney would have put in pro-life policies because he’s Republican or because he had Ryan as his VP (who would sit twiddling his thumbs 99% of the time) or because he had Bork advising him (who would not even remotely be talking about abortion policy). But he had said multiple times that he is as pro-abortion as any Democrat. People can ignore that to fulfill their obsession with conservative economics, but I’m not going to vote for a GOP candidate that’s pro-abortion. The very fact that a significant portion of the GOP platform is patently immoral means that I would never vote for them unless there was a clear expectation of a difference in abortion, one of the very few immoral things in the Democratic platform (albeit a very significant one).

Can you even name a single thing in the Republican platform, let alone any part that’s immoral.

 

[ishii]

Ishii,
I made these comments in response to a misreading of your post. I sincerely apologize.

I stand by the second part of above post, as well as by my post to Milasol prior to that.

So you would agree then, that there are some people who believe they have a properly formed conscience but do not? And if that is true, then it is very possible that those who believe that it’s okay to vote for Democrats or Obama and think they have a properly formed conscience do not.

Would you agree with that?

Ishii

 

[Crossbones]

Thank you for answering. I’m not going to request a response or anything so this is just something for everyone to think about, but if we take this as a general outline for why someone should vote Democratic over Republican, does it seem like these are reasons that outweigh abortion, potentially the gay marriage movement in the next couple of years, and religious freedom?

Just something to ponder.

It is also important to remember that different issues matter to different voters. Few voters have the utter contempt that many here towards President Obama, much in the same way that few voters have the utter contempt for all things Republican that you will see on liberal websites such as dailykos.

I want to see Republican rebuild their awkward coalition of fiscal conservatives and social conservatives to embrace more Catholic, and by definition Christian, values. The neo-con thing works for very few. I don’t think the middle of the electorate cares to be heavily engaged in Middle Eastern issues and they certainly don’t want Americans dying in those conflicts. They should shed that group. They also need to emphasize pro-life issues more as we have seen in the state legislatures. I also think that the fiscal conservatives need to adjust their views to understand that we are part of the larger community and that government has a role to play in the support of all people. Really, the compassionate conservatism that President GW Bush talked about, but never made any attempt to implement. It isn’t a coincidence in my mind that the best the Republicans faired in a presidential election in the last 20 years was the victory in 2000.

 

[ishii]

It is also important to remember that different issues matter to different voters. Few voters have the utter contempt that many here towards President Obama, much in the same way that few voters have the utter contempt for all things Republican that you will see on liberal websites such as dailykos.

I want to see Republican rebuild their awkward coalition of fiscal conservatives and social conservatives to embrace more Catholic, and by definition Christian, values. The neo-con thing works for very few. I don’t think the middle of the electorate cares to be heavily engaged in Middle Eastern issues and they certainly don’t want Americans dying in those conflicts. They should shed that group. They also need to emphasize pro-life issues more as we have seen in the state legislatures. I also think that the fiscal conservatives need to adjust their views to understand that we are part of the larger community and that government has a role to play in the support of all people. Really, the compassionate conservatism that President GW Bush talked about, but never made any attempt to implement. It isn’t a coincidence in my mind that the best the Republicans faired in a presidential election in the last 20 years was the victory in 2000.

I have some comments on your analysis of Catholic voters here on CAF as well as that of the Bush presidency:

I would not compare the utter contempt toward Obama on the part of CAF posters here to the liberals on secular forums. We hold Obama’s policies in utter contempt which we view to be almost completely contrary to Catholic teaching. We also do not trust him on religious freedom due in part to the nature of Obamacare, HHS mandate, etc. Our contempt for Obama is based on this, among other things. I think it is natural for Catholics to be very upset by Obama’s policies - including his abortion policy. What is saddening to me is why some Catholics here actually support Obama (let alone are not upset at his policies).

Regarding compassionate conservatism, I think that was more of a campaign slogan than anything else. But if you want to look at Bush’s record, note that he was a big spending - ushering in new entitlements. I would tend to believe that such spending was done in the name of “compassionate conservatism.” So much for fiscal responsibility. I am sympathetic with your views on foreign policy, and would tend to agree that we have been perhaps too willing to put troops on the ground with no real timeline for withdrawal, nor a definition of what victory is. Thus, we get involved in a country like Afghanistan in 2001 and 13 years later we are still there. 13 years. That is what bothers me - not necessarily the involvement itself, but the length of the involvement. Its kind of like the corollary to the liberal big spending entitlements: once they are created, they never end. One thing that I think conservatives forget is that an activist foreign policy and a huge armed forces requires a huge, monolithic, activist federal government. Ironically it is the wars fought in our country’s history that have done so much to increase the size of government: wars that conservatives have always supported (for the most part).

Ishii

 

[Personanongrata]

NARAL Pro-Choice America endorsed President Obama Tuesday, calling him “a leader who stands with women and their families.”

“The difference between President Obama and Mitt Romney on choice is clear and stark,” group president Nancy Keenan said in a statement. “President Obama thinks women and doctors should make medical decisions; Romney thinks politicians should be in charge. President Obama wants to uphold a woman’s right to choose; Romney wants to outlaw abortion and even supports a ‘personhood’ ban that would outlaw common forms of contraception. President Obama made it possible for nearly every woman to get insurance coverage of contraception without a copay; Romney wants to take away contraception coverage and defund family-planning programs. We will make sure that voters understand the importance of re-electing President Obama."

On the differences between Obama and Romney, I agree with NARAL. I am a woman and I want to make choices regarding my body with my doctor. It is my right to decide/choose. I am part of the middle class. The women in Romney’s world are able to make choices about their bodies. When you have the money, you have access to doctors who “abide by your wishes”. That’s why you don’t see PP in Beverly HIlls. They don’t need it.

And finally, the overwhelming majority of Catholic women of child bearing age, use some form of contraception. I personally do not use contraception, but I would never support any man who would try to defund family planning services. I would not support a personhood bill. Women are not are brainless. We are smart, quite capable of making decisions about our own bodies and we vote.

Yes, I voted for Obama. I am one of them.

 

[shockerfan]

Here we go. From the USCCB voting guide (emphases added):

1. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position* may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons*. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental
   moral evil.

---

Note that all this is in full agreement with the statement by the Pope Emeritus discussed earlier in the thread:

---

The USCCB guide continues (emphases mine):

1. When all candidates hold a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate or, after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods.
2. In making these decisions, it is essential for Catholics to be guided by a well-formed conscience that recognizes that all issues do not carry the same moral weight and that the moral obligation to oppose intrinsically evil acts has a special claim on our consciences and our actions. These decisions should take into account a candidate’s commitments, character, integrity, and ability to influence a given issue. In the end, this is a decision to be made by each Catholic guided by a conscience formed by Catholic moral teaching.

---

So now I have a dilemma. Perhaps you can help me. My Bishop, Most. Rev. Kevin Farrell expounded upon the USCCB voting guide because there was confusion. He, in conjunction with Bishop Vann, wrote the following:

1. Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, in paragraphs 34-37, addresses the question of whether it is morally permissible for a Catholic to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil – even when the voter does not agree with the candidate’s position on that evil. The only moral possibilities for a Catholic to be able to vote in good conscience for a candidate who supports this intrinsic evil are the following:

a. If both candidates running for office support abortion or "abortion rights," a Catholic would be forced to then look at the other important issues and through their vote try to limit the evil done; or,

b. If another intrinsic evil outweighs the evil of abortion. While this is sound moral reasoning, there are no "truly grave moral" or "proportionate" reasons, singularly or combined, that could outweigh the millions of innocent human lives that are directly killed by legal abortion each year.

To vote for a candidate who supports the intrinsic evil of abortion or “abortion rights” when there is a morally acceptable alternative would be to cooperate in the evil – and, therefore, morally impermissible.

prolifedallas.org/voting

My dilemma is that your opinion differs from the teaching of my Bishop. Please answer the following question:

Whose opinion / teaching / instruction should I believe to be true?:
A) Al Moritz’s
B) Bishops Farrell and Vann

I eagerly await your answer.

 

[Milasol]

On the differences between Obama and Romney, I agree with NARAL. I am a woman and I want to make choices regarding my body with my doctor. It is my right to decide/choose. I am part of the middle class. The women in Romney’s world are able to make choices about their bodies. When you have the money, you have access to doctors who “abide by your wishes”. That’s why you don’t see PP in Beverly HIlls. They don’t need it.

And finally, the overwhelming majority of Catholic women of child bearing age, use some form of contraception. I personally do not use contraception, but I would never support any man who would try to defund family planning services. I would not support a personhood bill. Women are not are brainless. We are smart, quite capable of making decisions about our own bodies and we vote.

Yes, I voted for Obama. I am one of them.

Is the soul a woman carries inside, her own body?
Just asking because as a woman I am most certainly I had nothing to do with the creation of that soul.

So sad that you claim to be Catholic yet repeat the same garbage that anti-catholic people say.

I am a Catholic woman and I have a little humility in front of God and KNOW that I had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of a new person and not even my body. The fact that I exist is a gift. Never forget that. Unless, of course you can tell me what exactly you did to create your self, your body, your whole being?

 

[freeRadical]

On the differences between Obama and Romney, I agree with NARAL. I am a woman and I want to make choices regarding my body with my doctor. It is my right to decide/choose. I am part of the middle class. The women in Romney’s world are able to make choices about their bodies. When you have the money, you have access to doctors who “abide by your wishes”. That’s why you don’t see PP in Beverly HIlls. They don’t need it.

And finally, the overwhelming majority of Catholic women of child bearing age, use some form of contraception. I personally do not use contraception, but I would never support any man who would try to defund family planning services. I would not support a personhood bill. Women are not are brainless. We are smart, quite capable of making decisions about our own bodies and we vote.

Yes, I voted for Obama. I am one of them.

Do you think your views and the views you have expressed in this post are in line with what the Catholic Church teaches?

So it is your right to choose to kill your unborn child?

 

[estesbob]

On the differences between Obama and Romney, I agree with NARAL. I am a woman and I want to make choices regarding my body with my doctor. It is my right to decide/choose. I am part of the middle class. The women in Romney’s world are able to make choices about their bodies. When you have the money, you have access to doctors who “abide by your wishes”. That’s why you don’t see PP in Beverly HIlls. They don’t need it.

And finally, the overwhelming majority of Catholic women of child bearing age, use some form of contraception. I personally do not use contraception, but I would never support any man who would try to defund family planning services. I would not support a personhood bill. Women are not are brainless. We are smart, quite capable of making decisions about our own bodies and we vote.

Yes, I voted for Obama. I am one of them.

The fact that many Catholic women reject Catholic teaching is either a sign of willful ignorance our willful disobedience.It has no bearing on The truth of the teaching.

 

[freeRadical]

President Obama thinks women and doctors should make medical decisions; Romney thinks politicians should be in charge.

This made me chuckle. If anyone thinks the government should be in charge of people’s lives, its social liberal Democrats.

 

[Mark121359]

Is the soul a woman carries inside, her own body?
Just asking because as a woman I am most certainly I had nothing to do with the creation of that soul.

So sad that you claim to be Catholic yet repeat the same garbage that anti-catholic people say.

I am a Catholic woman and I have a little humility in front of God and KNOW that I had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of a new person and not even my body. The fact that I exist is a gift. Never forget that. Unless, of course you can tell me what exactly you did to create your self, your body, your whole being?