Can you be both Catholic and liberal?

[ManOnFire]

Jesus said that the way to salvation was to give up all worldly possessions, and to follow him, and that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than it would be for a rich man to enter Heaven. In this light, the political party that is least charitable toward the poor and promulgates legislation favoring the wealthy might be considered less Christian.

2000 years sgo, when more people were truly starving and not “finding” money for cell phones and fashions, then I would agree with you. If we put family first and materialism second, taught basic economics to the public, and forced everyone to be responsible for choices, then we’d make real progress. If the liberal media would stop promoting lust, drugs, sin, materialism, and consumerism, people would be less DISTRACTED into what they think they need and could see the path to true love more clearly. There is too much fraud and waste of taxpayer funds. I worked in the city. I’ve seen it first hand. There certainly is a great deal of ignorance when it comes to public perception of the laws and justice of business and economics.

 

[estesbob]

PART II

The statements you provided to support your argument represent the opinion of individual Cardinals and Bishops who in part dissent from the teaching of the Magesterium. While his condemnation of abortion is in union with church teaching his statement that a person may never vote for a person who holds a “pro choice view” is a dissenting opinion and in schism from the Magesterium. The official position of the Catholic Church on the matter of being a faithful citizen with regard to the American voter is found in* “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility”* from the Catholic Bishops of the United States (USCCB). It received a Nihil Obstat and an Imprimatur in November of 2007 when it was first published. You can download the PDF version on line and I encourage you to read the entire document. Here is some citations which are pertinent to this discussion:

Making Moral Choices

31. Decisions about political life are complex and require the exercise of a wellformed
conscience aided by prudence. This exercise of conscience begins with
outright opposition to laws and other policies that violate human life or weaken its
protection. Those who knowingly, willingly, and directly support public policies or
legislation that undermine fundamental moral principles cooperate with evil.

32.Sometimes morally flawed laws already exist. In this situation, theprocess of framing legislation to protect life is subject to prudential judgment and “the art of the possible.”At times this process may restore justice only partially or gradually. For example, Pope John Paul II taught that when a government official who fullyopposes abortion cannot succeed in completely overturning a pro-abortion law,he or she may work to improve protection for unborn human life, “limiting theharm done by such a law” and lessening its negative impact as much as possible. Such incremental improvements in the law areacceptable as steps toward the full restoration of justice. However, Catholics mustnever abandon the moral requirement to seek full protection for all human life from the moment of conception until natural death.

*34…A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, **if the voter’sintent is to support that position. ***In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to otherimportant moral issues involving human life and dignity..

Pax Vobis,
David Lamb

It’s a typical response from pro-choice Catholics. Direct quotes from members of the Magestrium are dismissed as being from “dissenters”(Cardinal Burke is in schism with the Church??? do you how ridicolous that comment is???) while you only come back is to cut-and-paste from Catholic documents and demand we accept your personal interpretation of what they say. You cannot find a single member of the Magestrium that even hinted there were proportionate reasons that would’ve allowed a Catholic to vote for Barack Obama in the last election. him

Again Archbishop Chaput says it better than i ever could:

Yet for thirty-five years I’ve watched prominent “pro-choice” Catholics justify themselves with the kind* of moral and verbal gymnastics that should qualify as an Olympic event.***:

I think we’re seeing a gold medal performance in this thread

 

[Faithdancer]

In fact, i like President Obama! I voted for him! And I am going to vote for him again!

David, David, David (sigh). How can you pledge your continued support for this anti-Christ, this Bolshevik/ illegal immigrant from Hawaii/ closet homosexual/ Klingon/ spawn of a secret tryst between Beelzebub and Eleanor Roosevelt/ mad abortionist/ Al-Quaeda-Romulan agent, this man who wasn’t even elected by a majority vote but used family influence and an ultra-liberal Supreme Court to overturn the lawful election of his opponent, and steal the presidency!!! How can you, when in less than three years he has taken this country from an all time high in prosperity, a huge budget surplus left him by his predecessor, all-time lows in home foreclosures and unemployment, to our present state of economic distress? You must remember that before he took office, China was in our debt, not vice-versa, and we were in a state of universal peace, a beatific pax Americana everywhere around the globe. Surely you must remember all this, David? How many fingers am I holding up, David?

I predict, if this usurper you support is somehow fraudulently re-elected to a second term, we will see the following:

1. Obama will force all American women to undergo dilation and curretage, whether or not they are pregnant!
2. The US debt will be downgraded to C+. While this would be equivalent to an excellent gpa at Yale, for some, it will spell Armageddon for the US economy.
3. Obama will continue to boast publicly and loudly about achievements he had absolutely nothing to do with, such as the surprise attack on Osama Bin-Laden’s secret lair.
4. It will be revealed that Obama was in fact the second gunman on the grassy knoll.

I will continue to pray nightly for your political re-education, David, though perhaps the ultimate solution for you will be a trip to room 101 with Mr. O’Brien. Until then, however, whenever you spout such heresy I can only cover my ears and shout, sheepishly:
“Four legs good! Two legs better! Four legs good! Two legs better!”

Note: In the interest of charity, I refrained from mentioning accusations against Obama of bestiality and necromancy. These allegations have not been substantiated…yet.

 

[MOTHBALL83]

According to this website politicalcompass.org/test Pope Benedict is a authoritarian Liberal. Im not sure how valid it is though.

I found myself to be Libertarian Conservative.

 

[Faithdancer]

According to this website politicalcompass.org/test Pope Benedict is a authoritarian Liberal. Im not sure how valid it is though.

I found myself to be Libertarian Conservative.

Y’all are gonna have your own islands to live on pretty soon. Lucky!:dancing:

 

[Faithdancer]

2000 years sgo, when more people were truly starving and not “finding” money for cell phones and fashions, then I would agree with you. If we put family first and materialism second, taught basic economics to the public, and forced everyone to be responsible for choices, then we’d make real progress. If the liberal media would stop promoting lust, drugs, sin, materialism, and consumerism, people would be less DISTRACTED into what they think they need and could see the path to true love more clearly. There is too much fraud and waste of taxpayer funds. I worked in the city. I’ve seen it first hand. There certainly is a great deal of ignorance when it comes to public perception of the laws and justice of business and economics.

Thanks for clarifying, ManOnFire. I am now corrected! In my previous state of ignorance I had actually thought that lust, desire for drugs (Oxycontin, for example?), sin, materialism, and consumerism were flaws that had nothing to do with partisan politics, but affected many human beings regardless of their political affiliation. But now I see that it is the liberal media who is enabling our continuing materialism, not the advertising agencies hired by the manufacturers of the goods themselves. But of course, these advertising agencies and manufacturers must all be liberals as well, I see that now. It’s all part of a grand Satanic conspiracy, no doubt!

 

[Faithdancer]

Note: In the interest of charity, I refrained from mentioning accusations against Obama of bestiality and necromancy. These allegations have not been substantiated…yet.

Oh gosh! I guess by mentioning that I refrained from mentioning these accusations…I actually mentioned them! My bad! I guess they must be true, then, according the laws of Sophistry!

 

[davidmlamb]

It’s a typical response from pro-choice Catholics.

I am not a pro choice Catholic estabob. I am pro life from natural conception to natural death.

Direct quotes from members of the Magestrium are dismissed as being from “dissenters”(Cardinal Burke is in schism with the Church??? do you how ridicolous that comment is???) while you only come back is to cut-and-paste from Catholic documents and demand we accept your personal interpretation of what they say.

Cardinal Burke is not in schism from the Church, he has a dissenting opinion which is limited to the way a person may vote. The Magesterium does not teach us we may not vote for a pro choice candidate under any circumstances. It teaches us we may not vote for a candidate who holds a pro choice view or any other view that supports an intrinsic evil for precisely the reason to support that position. A Catholic may however vote for a pro choice candidate if he/she has made a prudential judgment that the candidate he votes for supports the lesser evil and will do lesser harm to the dignity of human life.

I do not believe the GOP are pro life at all, I believe they are pro love of money at the expense of human life and human dignity and that they falsely claim to be against abortion and are pro life in order to get the Catholic vote. This is self evident when GOP "pro life governor Jan Brewer sentance 99 Arizona residence to death when she cut off their funding for organ transplants. Three have already died. That’s euthenasia! Not one GOP president has ever saved 1 baby from abortion. Not one democrat candidate has ever forced a woman to have an abortion. However, GOP congressman Bob Barr forced his misstress to have an abortion in 1998. The GOP has allowd more then 45,000 people each year to die from the health care system we just overcame. My vote saved those lives. I made the prudential judgment that voting Democrat will save not only those 45,000 lives every year, but will dramtically reduce abortion because the new health care law forces all private health care comnpany’s participatingto drop their abortion coverage. My vote was completely motivated by supporting human life and human dignity.

Women are not being forced by the government or pro choice candidates to have abortions, they freely choose to have them and the free market freely chooses to provide them. Only women can prevent abortions by choosing not to have them.

You cannot find a single member of the Magestrium that even hinted there were proportionate reasons that would’ve allowed a Catholic to vote for Barack Obama in the last election. him.

The voting choices are to be made by individual Catholics who have a well informed conscience and make prudent choices. Bishops cannot tell us how to vote. If that were the case then there would have been no need to publich faithful citizenship which you clearly reject and IS the official position of the Catholic Church. They would have instead printed a leaflet that said, Catholics are prohibited from voting for pro choice candidates for any reason. And yes there are plenty of Catholic Bishops who would agree that my reasons were proportionate and valid or else I would have been barred from the sacraments long ago. Finally, neither Catholic Bishops, the Pope, or the Magesterium are condemning President Obama, instead they are working with him and praying for his leadership to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Something I am quite certain you are not doing.

In the Service of Christ and His Church.

David

 

[MOTHBALL83]

Y’all are gonna have your own islands to live on pretty soon. Lucky!:dancing:

I saw that…looks neat.

 

[psychicharvard]

Dear “FaithDancer”:

How in the world can Socialisms raise the cost of raising a child to prohibited levels? Under Socialism medical care is taken care, the cost of education and college is taken care of, the cost of child care and help with with child care during the infancy is taken care of, so how on earth can Socialism heighten the cost of raising a child? You make no sense

Steps in the direction of almost all those things have been going on for sometime, under the guidance of both major parties. If the changes occured to rapidly, people would resist more fiercely. It’s the old cooking a frog in a pot analogy. If you make it too hot initially, the frog jumps out…but if you warm the water slowly, the frog never jumps and is cooked to death.

One of the primary obstacles to this coming to happen is point #2 above. Military officers and NCOs are a pretty conservative bunch, and many would resist orders to go beyond their constitutional duties. Perhaps cooincidentaly, Obama has talked about creating a parallel “civilian army” and is also trying to change that conservative military culture with steps like permitting openly homosexual service members.

Yes, I went to college I know the frog in water analogy, duh. And it seems you’ve abandoned trying to link Pope Pius’s 1931 comment. Also do you realize you just blew up your own argument? You try to equate Obama ending “don’t ask don’t tell” with Totalitarianism. Uh, do you realize that historically in Totalitarianism governments homosexuals are killed, or at the very least severely repressed? Obama letting gays be open about their sexuality directly contradicts the essence of Totalitarianism. Not to mention that civilian army stuff was rhetoeric that included additional members to the Peace Corp (some army) and was never spoken of again after 2008. This is lame, I’m tired of posting here on amateur night, gotta go.

 

[Faithdancer]

Dear “FaithDancer”:How in the world can Socialisms raise the cost of raising a child to prohibited levels? Under Socialism medical care is taken care, the cost of education and college is taken care of, the cost of child care and help with with child care during the infancy is taken care of, so how on earth can Socialism heighten the cost of raising a child? You make no sense
.

I never made that argument, psychicharvard. Not my quote either. I think you have me confused with another poster?? S’alright, it can easily happen with all these snippets of quotes from posters being re-posted by other posters and then those snippets getting mixed in with other snippets…It’s fun though! As long as we all don’t get snippy!

 

[Faithdancer]

Shucks, I was trying to dampen the fire on this thread and in my haste I grabbed the gasoline can instead of the water can! Just one of those Wile E. Coyote moments, I guess. Beep-beep!

 

[Dan_Daly]

because the new health care law forces all private health care comnpany’s participatingto drop their abortion coverage.

David, you’ve mentioned this in a few threads on here. I’m very curious about where it comes from. I have not read the entire “obamacare” bill (but then again, neither did any of our legislators before they voted on it), so I don’t know everything that is included in it. However, I’m highly skeptical that it would do anything which makes abortion more difficult or more expensive to obtain for the simple fact that if it did, there would have been all sort of groups- NOW, NARAL, the Democratic Party, etc would have been fighting against the legislation tooth and nail instead of supporting it.

Can you please elaborate on what exactly you believe new law does regarding abortion?

Pax

 

[Dan_Daly]

Dear “FaithDancer”:

How in the world can Socialisms raise the cost of raising a child to prohibited levels? Under Socialism medical care is taken care, the cost of education and college is taken care of, the cost of child care and help with with child care during the infancy is taken care of, so how on earth can Socialism heighten the cost of raising a child? You make no sense

Yes, I went to college I know the frog in water analogy, duh. And it seems you’ve abandoned trying to link Pope Pius’s 1931 comment. Also do you realize you just blew up your own argument? You try to equate Obama ending “don’t ask don’t tell” with Totalitarianism. Uh, do you realize that historically in Totalitarianism governments homosexuals are killed, or at the very least severely repressed? Obama letting gays be open about their sexuality directly contradicts the essence of Totalitarianism. Not to mention that civilian army stuff was rhetoeric that included additional members to the Peace Corp (some army) and was never spoken of again after 2008. This is lame, I’m tired of posting here on amateur night, gotta go.

Yes, I think you have me and Faithdance confused. I said the passage you quoted above, but wasn’t trying to link any comment by Pope Pius in 1931. No matter, I am fully aware it can get confusing following threads on here sometimes- I’m guilty of poster confusion myself sometimes.

To address the point you made, that one totalitarian regime repressed homosexuality, does not logically mean that ALL totalitarian regimes will repress homosexuality. The Nazi regime saw Aryans at the master race. Stalin and Mao both ran totalitarian regimes, and neither one proclaimed Aryans as the master race. The point is that the details of totalitarianism vary- who are the “good guys”, who are the “bad guys”. The common thread is that ultimately the only good guys in the eyes of the regime are the members of the regime itself. Other individuals and groups are to be supported or repressed and sometimes both in turn, in order to ensure the power of the regime.

Pax.

 

[Faithdancer]

Yes, I think you have me and Faithdance confused. I said the passage you quoted above, but wasn’t trying to link any comment by Pope Pius in 1931. No matter, I am fully aware it can get confusing following threads on here sometimes- I’m guilty of poster confusion myself sometimes.

S’okay Dan, I don’t mind taking a little heat for you. Like the Godfather, I’m sure you’re a man who knows how to return a favor! (and I’m told I do a spot-on impression of Brando in that role)

 

[AHapka]

I believe they are pro love of money at the expense of human life and human dignity

As a side note: you gotta agree that this describes John Kerry to a T

 

[Dan_Daly]

As a side note: you gotta agree that this describes John Kerry to a T

Yes, if we are talking about politicians:

Wealthy lawyer who likes money and power and says different things to different groups in order to get reelected, may have some moral convictions but is very often willing to compromise them out of ambition or pressure from his party bosses…

I think that would fit the vast majority of politicians of BOTH major parties.

Pax.

 

[AHapka]

Yes, if we are talking about politicians:

Wealthy lawyer who likes money and power and says different things to different groups in order to get reelected, may have some moral convictions but is very often willing to compromise them out of ambition or pressure from his party bosses…

I think that would fit the vast majority of politicians of BOTH major parties.

Pax.

I will agree that there are many from my own party who are also like that…

 

[Faithdancer]

Yes, if we are talking about politicians:

Wealthy lawyer who likes money and power and says different things to different groups in order to get reelected, may have some moral convictions but is very often willing to compromise them out of ambition or pressure from his party bosses…

I think that would fit the vast majority of politicians of BOTH major parties.

Pax.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I am sympathetic towards the gay community NOT because of sexuality but as a matter of legal recognition that such domestic partnerships are a type of unorthodox family unit and that there should be civil legal recognition for health care benefits, and the benefactors of such unions when there is a death. This would also especially be the case for unmarried couples who have been together for many years and have children together.

With that said I strongly believe that sex only belongs in marriage (Man +Woman) and when someone has sex outside of marriage it is a vioilation against chastity and a mortal sin which requires the sacrament of reconciliation with a firm ammendment to avoid and turn away from such sin in the near future. This can never change.

David, the problem with the application of your “sympathies” is that it deconstructs your Church’s unified, coherent, and integrated view of sexuality. You don’t have the option of pulling it apart this way. The Bishops (not one or two, but speaking together, as a conference) have been united and explicit on the disapproval Catholics must share even in civil unions for same-sex couples, given its promotion of a lifestyle which you agree belongs as a formally approved sexual privilege to a man and a woman in a genuine (not pretend, not artificial, not socially constructed) marriage.

It is not within the moral priorities of the Roman Church to approve of such civil arrangements between same-sex partners, regardless of what they are called. In fact, to elevate such non-marital unions to a level of privilege enjoyed only by heterosexually married couples (in most States, still) is to create a false plane which is not justified or necessary. For those who “sympathize,” the better approach, and one less discriminatory to other kinds of relationships – ones which are not sexual at all – is not to extend government approved economic privileges, which should be reserved for the authentically (heterosexually) married couples, but to extend the privilege of legal relationship, across the board, to any two people who have a desire to be in any way responsible for each other. Thus, two friends of either or both sexes can apply for legal authority to make joint or substitute decisions, set up insurance contracts and other contracts, be at one another’s deathbed. That would not be at cost to the State, but neither would there be a blood or marital relationship necessitated to establish such privileges. Cost for things like insurance policies would be borne by the consumers of such policies. Other kinds of contracts could be created without professional help or with professional help, the cost to be born again by the individuals.

It is an important moral, legal, and symbolic decision not to extend economic benefits to those in same-sex sexual unions, because there is no benefit to society in such unions (any more than there is special benefit to the next generation in the friendships I just discussed). They are no more morally significant than non-sexual friendships are, and since the Church sees these unions as morally problematic, we are told we are not to encourage these or support these, as they violate Catholic moral purposes and the order of society.

I also don’t agree that an unmarried heterosexual couple with children should have privileges equal to or similar to that of the married couple. The State should be encouraging Traditional Marriage only, as should Catholics.

The Catholic moral teaching on sexuality, marriage, and the family is a whole unit. Our decisions must reflect that wholeness, and any activity which threatens the supremacy of traditional marriage is to be avoided vigorously. Sympathy has nothing to do with it, as we don’t make our decisions as Catholics on an emotional basis. We may sympathize with the woman who was using contraceptives until she forgot to one day, and finds herself unmarried & pregnant, but we don’t elevate that sympathy to approving of an elective abortion for her as her oops! form of birth control.

Clarifying above (I realized after I wrote it): I assumed you meant by “health care benefits” some kind of government involvement, or at least I anticipate that if some kind of national mandate comes into play. My point is that (1) the government should in no way be extending special status to these relationships (apart from other kinds of relationships), and that (2) discounts, such as possible for members of a legitimate family, should not be extended to same-sex unions either. If insurance companies want to offer various kinds of discounts to a variety of relationships, that’s a private business decision. But, for example, I’m strongly opposed to tax advantages for same-sex couples (whether in unions or in “marriages”) for the reasons I stated above.