Can Catholics Vote Democrat?

[estesbob]

Soon enough, we may not have any Pro-Life candidate to vote for

GOP vs GOP flight over abortion

I hardly think the vote of less than two hundred people in one of the most sparsely populated states in the union is an indication the GOP is abandoning its commitment to life.

 

[estesbob]

**Reading 1 ez 12:1-12 **

The word of the LORD came to me:
Son of man, you live in the midst of a rebellious house;
they have eyes to see but do not see,
and ears to hear but do not hear,
for they are a rebellious house.

From Todays first reading at Mass

 

[Lapey]

What does “should not” mean to you when you have two equally pro-abortion candidates?

That is already answered by the USCCB and I have already conceded that as have others here; yet you continue to throw it back out there like an “I got you” moment.

You have nothing but a propensity to avoid answering questions. Our debate is becoming stale, it has no focus but to deter from the real discussion.

 

[Stilldreamn]

I hardly think the vote of less than two hundred people in one of the most sparsely populated states in the union is an indication the GOP is abandoning its commitment to life.

I sincerely hope not. The Nevada delegation remarks were chilling, and I hope that as demographics change nationally that this does not become the pattern:

“Any resources that we spend continuing to push divisive issues will reduce the resources we need for** the real fight of electing Republicans that will advocate for our core principles**,” the Nevada GOP officials concluded in their email to the national party’s officials.”

I would think that abortion and gay marriage ARE part of their core principles.

Unfortunately this seems to be spreading: GOP hopefuls

 

[Path_Finder]

I sincerely hope not. The Nevada delegation remarks were chilling, and I hope that as demographics change nationally that this does not become the pattern:

“Any resources that we spend continuing to push divisive issues will reduce the resources we need for** the real fight of electing Republicans that will advocate for our core principles**,” the Nevada GOP officials concluded in their email to the national party’s officials.”

I would think that abortion and gay marriage ARE part of their core principles.

Unfortunately this seems to be spreading: GOP hopefuls

Not sure if your link was working but here is this: mprnews.org/story/2014/07/21/gop-socialissues

 

[fnr]

From the Gospel reading for today: Matthew 18:21-19:1

“His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?’”

Those who view themselves as righteous can see others as unworthy of mercy.
I ask your mercy and offer mine, for I know that I am the villain in the story as often as the victim.

Look at our politics through this lens: we are divided, divisive, and distracted by the rightness of our own ideas. I do it as much as the next person.

Can we not pray together?

Oh my Jesus,
forgive us our sins,
save us from the fires of Hell,
and lead all souls to Heaven,
especially those in most need of thy mercy.

 

[estesbob]

From the Gospel reading for today: Matthew 18:21-19:1

“His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?’”

Those who view themselves as righteous can see others as unworthy of mercy.
I ask your mercy and offer mine, for I know that I am the villain in the story as often as the victim.

Look at our politics through this lens: we are divided, divisive, and distracted by the rightness of our own ideas. I do it as much as the next person.

Can we not pray together?

Oh my Jesus,
forgive us our sins,
save us from the fires of Hell,
and lead all souls to Heaven,
especially those in most need of thy mercy.

I didn’t say others were unworthy of mercy-I said they were wrong and misstating the teachings of the Church. If ALL Catholics adhered to the teachings of the Church instead of trying to rationalize rejecting them if they are in opposition to their politics we would not have any divisiveness.

Personally I do not want to stand before the Lord and be asked “why did you slaughter of the innocents” and my only reply is “well, Bush was evil and Sara Palin was stupid”

 

[colmywaykurtz]

Short answer–“yes,” adawgj. But I know a barrage of hellfire and questionings of my “Catholicity” is now headed my way, and it’s not a hill I want to die on. Been there, done that. For what it’s worth, there’s your answer.

 

[Ridgerunner]

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.

But see, one kind of shows one’s biases when one accuses Catholics of adopting the notions of Ayn Rand just because they didn’t vote for Obama. I have never met or heard tell of one who truly and fully did. Sure, Ayn Rand hated socialism and espoused free markets, and so do a lot of people. She might have also liked hot dogs with sauerkraut, but that doesn’t mean everybody who likes hot dogs likes sauerkraut. Those on the left who say Paul Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand don’t understand Ryan or Rand, either one.

And what would make anybody think people supported Bush in the Iraq War just because he was prolife? Maybe some did, but a lot of congress members who are a long way from being prolife supported it too. As strange as it may seem to some who hate Bush, lots of people really did think a man (Saddam) who had started two aggressive wars, in one of which he used poison gas, and in another of which practically the whole world opposed him, was a danger to regional peace. Not such an outrageous idea.

One needs to remember that, in appointments to the Supreme Court, the only body that can actually overturn Roe and other pro-abortion cases, Bush appointed Roberts and Alito, both opposed by abortion organizations. Obama appointed Sotomayor and Kagan, both endorsed by abortion organizations.

In the only abortion case recently to reach the Supreme Court, which was about partial birth abortion; perhaps the most inhuman form of abortion, the five justices who voted to allow outlawing it were Repub appointees. The four Dem appointees all voted in favor of unrestricted partial birth abortion.

So let’s not be saying it makes no difference, let alone that it’s “counterproductive” to support prolife candidates and oppose pro-abortion candidates.

 

[Path_Finder]

Ayn Rand was a big pro-choicer at the very least. I doubt if Catholics would adapt Ayn Rand let alone her social policy. In fact, I think the word is she was pretty far out in left field on this issue.

liveactionnews.org/ayn-rand-on-abortion/

While many fiscal conservatives are also pro-life social conservatives, Rand was certainly not.

• An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body? *

 

[estesbob]

But see, one kind of shows one’s biases when one accuses Catholics of adopting the notions of Ayn Rand just because they didn’t vote for Obama. I have never met or heard tell of one who truly and fully did. Sure, Ayn Rand hated socialism and espoused free markets, and so do a lot of people. She might have also liked hot dogs with sauerkraut, but that doesn’t mean everybody who likes hot dogs likes sauerkraut. Those on the left who say Paul Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand don’t understand Ryan or Rand, either one.

And what would make anybody think people supported Bush in the Iraq War just because he was prolife? Maybe some did, but a lot of congress members who are a long way from being prolife supported it too. As strange as it may seem to some who hate Bush, lots of people really did think a man (Saddam) who had started two aggressive wars, in one of which he used poison gas, and in another of which practically the whole world opposed him, was a danger to regional peace. Not such an outrageous idea.

One needs to remember that, in appointments to the Supreme Court, the only body that can actually overturn Roe and other pro-abortion cases, Bush appointed Roberts and Alito, both opposed by abortion organizations. Obama appointed Sotomayor and Kagan, both endorsed by abortion organizations.

In the only abortion case recently to reach the Supreme Court, which was about partial birth abortion; perhaps the most inhuman form of abortion, the five justices who voted to allow outlawing it were Repub appointees. The four Dem appointees all voted in favor of unrestricted partial birth abortion.

So let’s not be saying it makes no difference, let alone that it’s “counterproductive” to support prolife candidates and oppose pro-abortion candidates.

We also have to remember that supporting abortion on demand does not happen in a vacuum. A person who supports this abject evil is morally flawed. Do people really want someone who believes it is OK for woman to pay a someone to kill child in a position of leadership at any level of government? Do they really trust someone who holds this heinous view to be involved in making decisions about the health and welfare of the citizens of our country? It is beyond me how anyone could support such a person for any public office, whether it be dogcatcher or president of the United States.

 

[fnr]

But see, one kind of shows one’s biases when one accuses Catholics of adopting the notions of Ayn Rand just because they didn’t vote for Obama. I have never met or heard tell of one who truly and fully did. Sure, Ayn Rand hated socialism and espoused free markets, and so do a lot of people. She might have also liked hot dogs with sauerkraut, but that doesn’t mean everybody who likes hot dogs likes sauerkraut.

I too hate socialism and espouse free markets. I love sauerkraut on just about everything.

Those on the left who say Paul Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand don’t understand Ryan or Rand, either one.

On Ryan, I just read newspapers and magazines. To quote this article:*
"So, here are seven things Paul Ryan has done that suggest Ayn Rand has influenced him:

1. Spent the Bush years demanding larger, more regressive tax cuts than Bush himself was proposing, urging them to be less afraid of “class warfare.”
2. Spent the Obama years repeatedly proposing budgets that “would produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.”
   In other words, Ryan’s entire legislative career.
3. Listed Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, as one of the three books he most frequently rereads.
4. Told The Weekly Standard, “I give out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it.”
5. Repeatedly divided American society into “makers” and “takers.”
6. Declared that Rand’s thinking is “sorely needed right now” because we are “living in an Ayn Rand novel” and that “Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism, and this, to me, is what is [sic] matters most.”*

On Rand, I just read her books, including The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and The Virtue of Selfishness. I can tell you her biography, how she grew under the oppression of state socialism. In her novels, she paints caricatures of her political opponents and then tries to her fables into a basis for what amounts to little more than anarcho-capitalism, perhaps more akin to the “minarchism” of many American libertarians.

And what would make anybody think people supported Bush in the Iraq War just because he was prolife?

Have you read the reply to an earlier of my posts that said (paraphrasing closely) “where have you been? Abortion is always morally wrong. War isn’t. End of story.” But wait, is it really? When it’s a war that’s abominable?

On a different issue, look at the environment. A couple year ago, the head of a pro-life group near me told me that the EPA is secretly a front for population control and is just pushing contraception, sterilization, and abortion. This is an example of how single-issue voters collapse all other issues into their narrowed worldview.

People resolve cognitive dissonance by changing their beliefs to avoid feeling bad about voting for things they may have once thought to be nasty.
“Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance etc.”
There are a million babies killed in abortion every year. It sure is nice to think that the president who earned someone’s vote because says he’s pro-life is not secretly a monster who’s manufactured a basis for war against a country that posed no threat to the U.S. So it becomes easy to reach an accommodation with oneself, and to say “we just need to trust the president.”

If you read my previous post, I heard a radio spot before the 2004 election on Catholic radio where someone, possibly Fr. Frank Pavone but definitely a leader of a prominent pro-life organization, tried to argue the “non-negotiable” version of voting and said that the Iraq war could be morally justified under just war doctrine.

Perhaps you have read anything by George Weigel in the lead-up to the invasion? Perhaps his Moral Clarity in a Time of War in First Things within 6 months of the invasion?

Maybe some did, but a lot of congress members who are a long way from being prolife supported it too. As strange as it may seem to some who hate Bush, lots of people really did think a man (Saddam) who had started two aggressive wars, in one of which he used poison gas, and in another of which practically the whole world opposed him, was a danger to regional peace. Not such an outrageous idea.

I was actually one of the people who was trying to get humanitarian aid to Iraqis during the 1990s and early 2000s. So I get how bad Hussein was. And I knew very well, as did the U.S. government, that he was the dictator of a secular state and had gone to war against one Islamic state, Iran, and had brutally suppressed the Shia in Iraq’s south. Maybe I was just more attuned to Iraq than other Americans.

 

[fnr]

Ridgerunner:

One needs to remember that, in appointments to the Supreme Court, the only body that can actually overturn Roe and other pro-abortion cases, Bush appointed Roberts and Alito, both opposed by abortion organizations. Obama appointed Sotomayor and Kagan, both endorsed by abortion organizations.

And as I outlined above, if you look at the estimated war-related mortality rate in Iraq between 2003 and 2007, it resulted in a higher death rate than the 1.1 million abortions per year here in the U.S.

If the point you’re making that Bush’s Supreme Court justice appointments outweigh everything else he did, then you’re kinda making my point for me. My fundamental contention is that trying to overturn Roe, with a laser-like focus on only that issue, is causing pro-life Catholics to undermine the culture change we need to actually end abortion: the New Evangelization. I’m not arguing for Obama at all. I’m saying that the title of this thread illustrates the problems the Church is facing.

What I’ve said and argued here is that if we’re going to end abortion, then look at the abortion rates before 1940 and see what was causing women to get abortions then, when abortion was illegal and had no chance of becoming legal. Still, Taussig (1931) estimated that there were 700,000 abortions nationwide annually, which corresponds to a rate similar to today. Now, with the stomach drug Cytotec being readily available on black markets, including in Texas. I’m saying that voting is not the way to tackle this problem. We need a new strategy for ending abortion, not the same one put together in 1975 by U.S. bishops. That means what Pope Francis has been hinting when he has said that Catholics need to “initiate processes” instead of “occupying spaces.” It’s the way the earliest Church spread in the pagan world around it, in a world where newborn infants could be left outside to die if they were unwanted, and where women were taxed into poverty if they didn’t get married. The Church at that time offered a different approach, not a legal one, but an evangelical one.

 

[estesbob]

I too hate socialism and espouse free markets. I love sauerkraut on just about everything.

On Ryan, I just read newspapers and magazines. To quote this article:
"So, here are seven things Paul Ryan has done that suggest Ayn Rand has influenced him:

1. Spent the Bush years demanding larger, more regressive tax cuts than Bush himself was proposing, urging them to be less afraid of “class warfare.”

2. Spent the Obama years repeatedly proposing budgets that “would produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.”
In other words, Ryan’s entire legislative career.

3. Listed Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, as one of the three books he most frequently rereads.

4. Told The Weekly Standard, “I give out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it.”

5. Repeatedly divided American society into “makers” and “takers.”

6. Declared that Rand’s thinking is “sorely needed right now” because we are “living in an Ayn Rand novel” and that “Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism, and this, to me, is what is [sic] matters most.”

On Rand, I just read her books, including The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and The Virtue of Selfishness. I can tell you her biography, how she grew under the oppression of state socialism. In her novels, she paints caricatures of her political opponents and then tries to her fables into a basis for what amounts to little more than anarcho-capitalism, perhaps more akin to the “minarchism” of many American libertarians.

Have you read the reply to an earlier of my posts that said (paraphrasing closely) “where have you been? Abortion is always morally wrong. War isn’t. End of story.” But wait, is it really? When it’s a war that’s abominable?

On a different issue, look at the environment. A couple year ago, the head of a pro-life group near me told me that the EPA is secretly a front for population control and is just pushing contraception, sterilization, and abortion. This is an example of how single-issue voters collapse all other issues into their narrowed worldview.

People resolve cognitive dissonance by changing their beliefs to avoid feeling bad about voting for things they may have once thought to be nasty.
“Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance etc.”
There are a million babies killed in abortion every year. It sure is nice to think that the president who earned someone’s vote because says he’s pro-life is not secretly a monster who’s manufactured a basis for war against a country that posed no threat to the U.S. So it becomes easy to reach an accommodation with oneself, and to say “we just need to trust the president.”

If you read my previous post, I heard a radio spot before the 2004 election on Catholic radio where someone, possibly Fr. Frank Pavone but definitely a leader of a prominent pro-life organization, tried to argue the “non-negotiable” version of voting and said that the Iraq war could be morally justified under just war doctrine.

Perhaps you have read anything by George Weigel in the lead-up to the invasion? Perhaps his Moral Clarity in a Time of War in First Things within 6 months of the invasion?

I was actually one of the people who was trying to get humanitarian aid to Iraqis during the 1990s and early 2000s. So I get how bad Hussein was. And I knew very well, as did the U.S. government, that he was the dictator of a secular state and had gone to war against one Islamic state, Iran, and had brutally suppressed the Shia in Iraq’s south. Maybe I was just more attuned to Iraq than other Americans.

What does any of this have to do as to whether a catholic can vote for a pro-abortion candidate-especially in light of the fact it has been shown repeatedly that the Church stated support of the war was not a proportionate reason to allow a Catholic to vote for a pro-abortion candidate?

 

[Lapey]

What does any of this have to do as to whether a catholic can vote for a pro-abortion candidate-especially in light of the fact it has been shown repeatedly that the Church stated support of the war was not a proportionate reason to allow a Catholic to vote for a pro-abortion candidate?

Nothing. It is just further PROOF that Republicans are evil and must be opposed at all costs!

 

[estesbob]

Nothing. It is just further PROOF that Republicans are evil and must be opposed at all costs!

I have always noticed that one of the prime tactics of those trying to defend the indefensible is to change the subject.

 

[DoGodsBidding]

I have always noticed that one of the prime tactics of those trying to defend the indefensible is to change the subject.

I lost count a long time ago of how many times George Bush has been blamed. He hasn’t been in office for over 5 years and yet everything bad is still his fault.

DGB

 

[Crosscut]

So you agree with abortion and same sex marriage?

Having more footing on the liberal side doesn’t necessarily mean that I cant pick and choose what things to support and/or not support.

I think its sad that we so often have this all or nothing mentality when looking at US politics; things are so polarized that its hard to imagine that someone might actually enjoy the majority of a party but maybe not all of it.

 

[stinkcat_14]

I lost count a long time ago of how many times George Bush has been blamed. He hasn’t been in office for over 5 years and yet everything bad is still his fault.

DGB

It didn’t help that he had plenty to be blamed for, such as high spending and the expansion of the welfare state. On the other hand, Bush being bad doesn’t make Obama good.

 

[estesbob]

I lost count a long time ago of how many times George Bush has been blamed. He hasn’t been in office for over 5 years and yet everything bad is still his fault.

DGB

He also wasn’t the one running against Obama!