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Sailor_Kenshin
Guest
Can you cite examples?
Also, are you aware of how laws are made and/or changed? Have you read the ‘reasoning’ behind Roe v. Wade?
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Also, are you aware of how laws are made and/or changed? Have you read the ‘reasoning’ behind Roe v. Wade?
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gearhead
Guest
I agree. I think that Jesus’ teachings in the Bible are made with the implicit assumption that he’s addressing a group of outlyers: people who are separate from mainstream society and governmental power. Therefore, I think it’s a stretch to say that the Gospel argues for the use of the governmental power available to them in one way but not another. I think the assumption was that Christians would not be in a position where they would have governmental power available to them in the first place.
Not in the sense that it can form intentions, but government can do positive or negative things.
Of course he did. It’s in the verse right after he says “give comfort to the poor, but don’t use the government to do it.”
What makes you think that being liberal necessarily means being pro-abortion?
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nuntym
Guest
We should be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves,” sharp as a fox in thought but loyal as a dog in will and deed. Soft-heartedness does not excuse soft-headedness, and hard-headedness does not excuse hard-heartedness. In our hearts we should be “bleeding-heart liberals” and in our heads "stuck-in-the-mud conservatives."Hi all~
I know that you cannot be both Catholic and pro-choice due to what we believe and practice as Catholics, but is it possible to be a liberal and still be a good Catholic? A lot of my extended family is left-wing, yet claim to be Catholic. My immediate family is fully conservative, however, and I have never doubted that. Is it that I don’t fully understand the term “liberal” and think that you must automatically be conservative if you’re Catholic?
Please help me understand and excuse my political ignorance…
~Therese
Peter Kreeft, “Discernment”
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Nyarlathotep
Guest
Has any Pope / Bishop / Priest / Other Important Person ever listed any actual or hypothetical “proportionate reasons”? I’d be interested to know, especially since I can think of about a dozen right off the top of my head (1) unjust war, (2) oppression of the poor, (3) corporate greed, (4) destruction of the environment, …
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love2learn
Guest
Here’s a little recent history relating to the often cited Death Penalty Excuse for pro-life Catholics voting Democrat: Bill Clinton was strongly pro-death penalty as governor and as president. In the 2000 election, both Al Gore and George W. Bush said they were pro-death penalty. Both men cited deterrance and saving innocent lives as their only reason for supporting it.
In the 2008 election, Barak Obama wrote in his memoirs that he does not think the death penalty deters crime, but he thinks is it justified for especially heinous crimes. The other Democratic candidate in 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said she is a longtime advocate of the death penalty with restrictions.
I learned this all in about 5 minutes googling their biographies on the web. How can you say this issue is a decisive factor is how you vote and yet get it complelely wrong? You implied that Democrats do not support the death penalty-- and that is demostrably not true. Clinton, Gore, Obama are not backwoods political nobodies who veered off the mainstream platform of the party. They are the party.
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PJM
Guest
Please help me understand and excuse my political ignorance…
Like you I’m not infavor of one label fits all.
Given the realities of todays political landscape one must vote with a properly informed conscience, in full communion with our Pope, the Magisterium, and those who are willing to subdue there own freewill, in support of Moral Truths, absolute Good, and what is God’s opinion of what is actually right, what God actually expects us to do.
Because one “can” has never been justification for saying that one “should” support in any manner intrinsic evils. Or thsoe who propose, support, defend and approve of them.
Love and prayers,
Pat
Love and prayers,
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AHapka
Guest
Because I’ve always been taught that’s part of the definition of the word. And that if you weren’t, you were not liberal.
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gearhead
Guest
This is wrong. Whoever taught you taught you incorrectly.
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itinerant1
Guest
Catholic Just War Doctrine, like all Catholic doctrine, is not liberal or conservative–it is just theologically correct.
Unjust wars, including the Gulf Wars, were supported by Congressional Democrats and Republicans, whether liberal, centrist or conservative. American politicians and American citizens have a lot of innocent blood on their hands from unjust wars. There are a few notable exceptions in Congress such as Representative Ron Paul from Texas.
Being pro-life involves more than being anti-abortion. Unjust war, like abortion, violates the Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”. Unnecessary polluting and exploitation of the environment contradicts pro-life principles. Environmental destruction adversely affects the quality of life and life itself. Even though it is only man who is made in the image of God, pro-lifers should respect all living things. What is lacking in our spirituality is a reverence for life, all life, and all of God’s creation. St. Francis of Assisi clearly exhibited this reverence I am speaking about.
Do the Republican led unjust wars justify voting for Obama? What about Obama’s “war” on the prenatal child? As evil and murderous as unjust wars are, abortion kills a larger number of innocent persons. And Obama’s war on the unborn has just begun. So far he is the most pro-abortion president we have ever had. He gave a U.N. speech in which he advocated so-called abortion “rights” for every nation.
I would rather give up my U.S. citizenship than vote for Obama. I am patriotic, but not to the point of “my country right or wrong.”
Unfortunately, too often our political choices are not real options. We end up voting for what we think is the lesser of two or more evils. This course of action when voting is morally permissible. However, voting for the lesser evil is still a vote for evil.
The political party that is closest to my political views is the Constitution Party. My Republican friends object to my voting for a Constitution Part candidate saying the Constitution Party is still too small to win a presidential election. My response is that the observation is obviously correct, but it is more important for me to be right than to win. I do not need to win or be on the winning team, at all costs. I just need to be right. Even the Apostles did not always “win”: “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.”
I shook Republican and Democratic Party dust from my feet and moved on.
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estesbob
Guest
None of those rise to the level of abortion:
Speaking for myself,** I do not know any proportionate reason that could outweigh more than 40 million unborn children killed by abortion and the many millions of women deeply wounded by the loss and regret abortion creates**.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. To portray the 2008 Democratic Party presidential ticket as the preferred ‘‘prolife’’ option is to subvert what the word ‘‘prolife’’ means. Anyone interested in Senator Obama’s record on abortion and related issues should simply read Prof. Robert P. George’s Public Discourse essay from earlier this week, ‘‘Obama’s Abortion Extremism,’’ and his follow-up article, ‘‘Obama and Infanticide.’’ They say everything that needs to be said.
Archbishop Chaput
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
Pope Benedict XVI
In fact one can not find a single member of the magestrium that said there were proportionate reasons that would allow a Catholic to vote for barrack obama.
**
**
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lil_flower_luv
Guest
That is a very good opinion!
I’ve been taught something like that, as well. But no, this is not true. Like ^ Pat said ^ one label does not fit all. A common belief of a liberal may be to be pro-choice, but everyone is different…So a person who may be called “liberal” may be liberal for other reasons, but can still be considered pro-life or anti-abortion, etc.
+JMJ+
Therese
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stromssa
Guest
For what it’s worth, I am the child of fairly liberal parents (non-Catholic) and have always appreciated their open-mindedness and concern for those less fortunate, in particular.
I never knew their stance on the pro-life/pro-choice debate until recently. I had always assumed they were pro-choice,being Democrats, but my mom recently said she is pro-life, due in part to the fact that I had been born prematurely (at 26 weeks-weighed just over 1 pound) --and certainly at that point, I was indeed a human being. She said it is hard to deny the reality that, when conception happens, something is being created – and that something is life. While I also consider myself relatively liberal in a lot of aspects, I have to agree with my mom on the pro-life angle she has, though I would never want to have to make the decision between the mother’s life and the baby’s life (and that is perhaps the only instance for which I would think it should be legal).
I never knew their stance on the pro-life/pro-choice debate until recently. I had always assumed they were pro-choice,being Democrats, but my mom recently said she is pro-life, due in part to the fact that I had been born prematurely (at 26 weeks-weighed just over 1 pound) --and certainly at that point, I was indeed a human being. She said it is hard to deny the reality that, when conception happens, something is being created – and that something is life. While I also consider myself relatively liberal in a lot of aspects, I have to agree with my mom on the pro-life angle she has, though I would never want to have to make the decision between the mother’s life and the baby’s life (and that is perhaps the only instance for which I would think it should be legal).
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PJM
Guest
Friend neither God nor I care who you vote for so long as they are PROLIFE.
What about Justice Roberts, what about no pro choice legislation passing through George Bush?
I don’t give a dang for either party, but look at Bush’s 8 year record and Oboma’s 8 months. Going to hell is a basket!
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frecklemom
Guest
One has to ask themselves, how “remote is abortion, really?” Let’s be more honest with ourselves than that.
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estesbob
Guest
Its funny how disident catholic have seized on a footnote to then Cardinal Ratzingers letter on the sinfullness of voting for pro-abortion canidates and ignore the body of his letter where he makes it cleat that NONEof the laundry list of liberal talking points they haul out as worse than abortion actually rise to the level of abortion.
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Sailor_Kenshin
Guest
The left, aided by the abortion industry, is about to enact against the will of the people, the biggest pro-death bill on our sad history.
{quote]BREAKING NEWS Abortion industry lobbyists and
their allies in Congress are about to ram through
mandated government funding of abortion in health
care reform legislation THIS WEEK in the U.S. House
of Representatives.
Simply stated, if this abortion mandate is not
stopped, it could result in the largest expansion
of abortion since Roe v. Wade.
To respond swiftly to this crisis, 40 Days for Life
is helping to unify and mobilize the pro-life
movement TONIGHT on a huge nationwide webcast –
and your attendance is crucial:
StopTheAbortionMandate.com/webcast
40 Days for Life and the 70+ pro-life and pro-family
organizations that make up the Stop the Abortion
Mandate Coalition invite you to attend this urgent
educational event.
Though the event is over, the web site will contain action alerts and other info, and I beg your participation, in whatever way possible: prayer, protest, donation.
Becoming a nation of Molochs, eager to slaughter the unborn in the name of expedience or saving ‘the planet’, is THE issue of the day. All else pales in comparison. You cannot be liberal and Christian at the same time.
{quote]BREAKING NEWS Abortion industry lobbyists and
their allies in Congress are about to ram through
mandated government funding of abortion in health
care reform legislation THIS WEEK in the U.S. House
of Representatives.
Simply stated, if this abortion mandate is not
stopped, it could result in the largest expansion
of abortion since Roe v. Wade.
To respond swiftly to this crisis, 40 Days for Life
is helping to unify and mobilize the pro-life
movement TONIGHT on a huge nationwide webcast –
and your attendance is crucial:
StopTheAbortionMandate.com/webcast
40 Days for Life and the 70+ pro-life and pro-family
organizations that make up the Stop the Abortion
Mandate Coalition invite you to attend this urgent
educational event.
Though the event is over, the web site will contain action alerts and other info, and I beg your participation, in whatever way possible: prayer, protest, donation.
Becoming a nation of Molochs, eager to slaughter the unborn in the name of expedience or saving ‘the planet’, is THE issue of the day. All else pales in comparison. You cannot be liberal and Christian at the same time.
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love2learn
Guest
11/5/09 Breaking News about environment-loving liberals who control the executive and legislative branches of US government:
“The Obama administration has rejected the Kyoto Protocol (ensuring it will expire), adopted some of former President George W. Bush’s key positions in international climate negotiations, and demurred when asked about reports that the president has decided to skip the December climate summit in Copenhagen. United Nations climate negotiator Yvo de Boer has concluded that it is “unrealistic” to expect the conference to produce a new, comprehensive climate treaty—which also describes the once-fond hopes for passage of domestic climate legislation this year—or even in Obama’s first term.”
What do you gain by blaming liberal failures on conservatives? I see a lot of that in this forum and it shows a lack of awareness of history as well as current events.
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itinerant1
Guest
Good point. The liberal vs. conservative and Democrat vs. Republican perception is often based on stereotypic thinking rather than facts.
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Onyx88
Guest
“Pro-life” and “Obama” cannot be in the same sentence. Surely you must be joking!
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Onyx88
Guest
amen to that
“pro-life” and “obama” cannot be in the same sentence. Surely you must be joking!
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