Election 2012 - Who to vote for?

[colmywaykurtz]

I am still waiting for someone to tell us what the proportionate reasons are that would allow a Catholic to vote for Obama.

Well, I seem to have been beaten to the punch by bellasbane, but I have a entrant to make in this category also.

Here are some thoughts on the subject, though I‘m certainly not egotistical enough to think they‘ll lay the issue to rest once and for all.

What I hear invoked in defense of your viewpoint (and similar ones), more often than anything else, is sets of numbers about how many pregnancies have been terminated by abortion in this country (since Roe v Wade was handed down).

For instance, people on Catholic Forums have said that the numbers aborted in America since then surpass the numbers of lives of uninsured (or uninsurable) who would probably be lost prematurely because of the lack of affordable, decent care that the Affordable Care Act is intended to provide. There can no moral equivalence between the two sets of numbers (or the moral evils they represent) simply because of the numerical quantity disparity, people have claimed here. This is seen as a justification for doing nothing about healthcare, until abortion is outlawed.

This is said in Catholic Forums, although the current pope says healthcare is a right; additionally, Europeans have universal healthcare, and he hasn’t told them they morally have to suspend it until abortion is outlawed in their countries.

But let’s get back to the issue of the numbers.

With respect to numbers lost to abortion in the past vs. numbers lost to a generalized lack of accessible, decent health care in the past, proponents of this viewpoint might be right. It’s impossible to say, because the lack of a universal health care in this country has only become an issue in recent decades. Before that, if people died from lack of access to decent healthcare—healthcare that may well have been available to SOME at that time—people shrugged it off and accepted it as an inescapable evil. Investigations of such things were not made, and records obviously not kept for investigations not made. We don’t have solid numbers on such things.

So, as I say, proponents of this viewpoint might be right on that, where past numbers are concerned. We don’t know for sure. But let’s say they are. If the numbers told the whole story, they’d be right on the issue of abortion vs. healthcare.

But the numbers may not tell the whole story in the moral dimension of things. Look at Mt 20: 1-16. The parable of the vineyard owner, hiring workers at various times during the day, and rewarding them all equally, despite differences in hours worked. Human notions of moral quantifiability, and moral conclusions based on those notions, proved inadequate, and Jesus said so.

And I remember reading, in one of the St. Joseph’s children’s catechism books, an explanation of how “Thou Shalt Not Kill” relates to the lives of children. The young reader was exhorted not to be cruel or unkind to others, in deeds or in speech. This kind of “spectrum of moral continuity” between unkindness and killing would also doubtless include (in the bigger picture) withholding of healthcare from the sick. These books had the imprimatur of Francis Cardinal Spellman, and the Nihil Obstat of Richard Kugelman and Eugene F. Richard.

The inclusion of withholding healthcare within a “spectrum of moral continuity” that includes killing, and the biblical assertion that human notions of moral quantifiability are not always correct—taken together, these give us room to question the notion that the abortion issue HAS to trump the healthcare issue. The “proportional reasons” argument as a justification for keeping healthcare on the back burner has had a “reasonable doubt” raised here, I think.

Now, I’ve also heard it said in these forums that the issue is not abortion vs. healthcare, but is rather the “fungibility” of money, and the possibility that the Affordable Care Act will make it possible for taxpayer money to fund elective abortions. That’s an issue for another post, or maybe another thread.

 

[scipio337]

I’d prefer people who actually accomplish things rather than speculate on what it takes to accomplish things.

Although not a great president in my opinion, I’ve always been moved by this:
Theodore Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

 

[bellasbane]

I’d prefer people who actually accomplish things rather than speculate on what it takes to accomplish things.

I wonder what the implications of that might be…

I guess it means that it’s time for me to sign off from CAF for today and start getting some work done.

Bye!

 

[stevegravy]

Well, I seem to have been beaten to the punch by bellasbane, but I have a entrant to make in this category also.

Here are some thoughts on the subject, though I‘m certainly not egotistical enough to think they‘ll lay the issue to rest once and for all.

What I hear invoked in defense of your viewpoint (and similar ones), more often than anything else, is sets of numbers about how many pregnancies have been terminated by abortion in this country (since Roe v Wade was handed down).

For instance, people on Catholic Forums have said that the numbers aborted in America since then surpass the numbers of lives of uninsured (or uninsurable) who would probably be lost prematurely because of the lack of affordable, decent care that the Affordable Care Act is intended to provide. There can no moral equivalence between the two sets of numbers (or the moral evils they represent) simply because of the numerical quantity disparity, people have claimed here. This is seen as a justification for doing nothing about healthcare, until abortion is outlawed.

This is said in Catholic Forums, although the current pope says healthcare is a right; additionally, Europeans have universal healthcare, and he hasn’t told them they morally have to suspend it until abortion is outlawed in their countries.

But let’s get back to the issue of the numbers.

With respect to numbers lost to abortion in the past vs. numbers lost to a generalized lack of accessible, decent health care in the past, proponents of this viewpoint might be right. It’s impossible to say, because the lack of a universal health care in this country has only become an issue in recent decades. Before that, if people died from lack of access to decent healthcare—healthcare that may well have been available to SOME at that time—people shrugged it off and accepted it as an inescapable evil. Investigations of such things were not made, and records obviously not kept for investigations not made. We don’t have solid numbers on such things.

So, as I say, proponents of this viewpoint might be right on that, where past numbers are concerned. We don’t know for sure. But let’s say they are. If the numbers told the whole story, they’d be right on the issue of abortion vs. healthcare.

But the numbers may not tell the whole story in the moral dimension of things. Look at Mt 20: 1-16. The parable of the vineyard owner, hiring workers at various times during the day, and rewarding them all equally, despite differences in hours worked. Human notions of moral quantifiability, and moral conclusions based on those notions, proved inadequate, and Jesus said so.

And I remember reading, in one of the St. Joseph’s children’s catechism books, an explanation of how “Thou Shalt Not Kill” relates to the lives of children. The young reader was exhorted not to be cruel or unkind to others, in deeds or in speech. This kind of “spectrum of moral continuity” between unkindness and killing would also doubtless include (in the bigger picture) withholding of healthcare from the sick. These books had the imprimatur of Francis Cardinal Spellman, and the Nihil Obstat of Richard Kugelman and Eugene F. Richard.

The inclusion of withholding healthcare within a “spectrum of moral continuity” that includes killing, and the biblical assertion that human notions of moral quantifiability are not always correct—taken together, these give us room to question the notion that the abortion issue HAS to trump the healthcare issue. The “proportional reasons” argument as a justification for keeping healthcare on the back burner has had a “reasonable doubt” raised here, I think.

Now, I’ve also heard it said in these forums that the issue is not abortion vs. healthcare, but is rather the “fungibility” of money, and the possibility that the Affordable Care Act will make it possible for taxpayer money to fund elective abortions. That’s an issue for another post, or maybe another thread.

In short fight for your right to other people’s money and your growing dependency on the political class to let you keep sucking the government teat.

 

[St_Francis]

I will try to put my replies in a form that explains why I oppose Obama.

…However, I support Obama over Romney, because even though I don’t like many of his policies, I believe he a good leader who really cares about the middle class,

I believe that the bill they passed did not address the actual problems we are having in health care, and that the bill will cause tremendous hardship to families who cannot now afford health insurance. Moreover, I think the whole thing will fall apart because it is based on faulty principles.

got us out of a terrible economic crisis,

We lost 9 million jobs in Obama’s first year in office. We have since re-gained 2.2 million of those jobs. I’m not sure one could say that we are out of the crisis yet, and some analysts believe that what little headway we have made is not the sort that will help carry us back to prosperity.

The amount of money he has spent is a burden on each of us–each baby born today will be over $50K in debt.

I think some people can argue for the stimulus bills (which I did not agree with), but the Cash for Clunkers took cars out of the pool from which poorer people could buy, and now it is harder for them to afford transportation. That was a really bad move, and the loans to “green” companies seem to have all totally washed out.

Moreover, I believe that one reason we are stuck economically is the health care bill: employers do not know what they are committing to when they hire an employee, so they are hunkering down until they find out. This is a huge drag on the recovery.

passed health-care reform,

Se above

ended the war in Iraq, and killed Bin Laden.

I think that both would have happened anyway.

In my eyes, Mitt Romney has done nothing other than act as turn-coat and say anything to get elected president. I do not believe he cares about average Americans - they are just numbers on a spread-sheet to him. I do not support any of his economic or foreign policies, because they fail to factor in the cost of human suffering. I believe they will hurt America, hurt the poor, and hurt the middle class.

Which policies that he advocates do you think will cause so much harm? I only ask because I have not seen any that I think will cause problems.

He is waffley on the issue of abortion, but I think that since he is running as someone who is pro-life, he can have his feet held to the fire, unlike Obama, who is firm in his insistence that killing their unborn children is a woman’s right.

Regarding “life” issues:

I support a federal ban on abortion on the basis that an embryo is a person and therefore has the right to life. I do not support Scalia’s argument in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey that the federal Constitution does not guarentee a woman’s reproductive rights and therefore it is a matter for the states to decide.

If a woman’s reproductive rights are not protected by the federal government, then any state can prohibit a woman from having an abortion. However, by the same token, any state can prohibit a woman from having a child - like they did in China. Or it could coerce women into becoming pregnant - like they did in Romania under Ceausescu. If a woman has no federally protected reproductive rights - the states can vote to do anything it likes with her body.

For those reasons, the rights of both parties must be affirmed - even if in the end the Court decides that in the specific case of elective abortion, one (the child’s right to life) takes precedence over the other (a woman’s reproductive rights).

So you think that if a woman loses her 'reproductive rights" that a state could require that she not have children, or require her to have children?

I see your logic, it just seemed like our physical rights were already protected.

Obama clearly does not believe an embryo is a person who has a constitutionally protected right to life under the United States Constitution. So he is no help there. That does not make him evil - even Saint Augustine wasn’t entirely certain about when a fetus became a person.

These theological speculations were in the context of deciding if someone would be guilty of murder if he caused the end of a pregnancy. Abortion has always been explicitly condemned by the Church, but the question of what precisely another person would be guilty of if his actions caused a woman to miscarry was up in the air. These speculations had nothing to do with the question of abortion, which has always been clearly condemned by the Church.

However, he does defend a woman’s reproductive rights

I think everyone in the US would defend a woman’s reproductive rights as you have defined them. Romney is no Ceausescu!

and supports government programs that help mothers & children.

Ehhh, maybe not so much. He voted against a bill which would have put into law that SCHIP has to cover pregnant women and their unborn babies.

I believe a sense of security reduces the likelihood that a woman will seek out an abortion - so Obama gets credit for that.

Despite the fact that during the years when “women’s sense of security” was being vastly expanded was when we saw abortion rates soaring?

Six years ago, Mitt Romney was a pro-choice Republican. During the primaries, he said in an interview that he supported the personhood amendment in Mississippi, but at the same time, he is the only GOP candidate who has refused to sign the Personhood Pledge. In my mind, that’s just more evidence that he has no integrity and cannot be trusted. I seriously doubt he would lead the charge for personhood at the federal level in the next four years when it couldn’t even get passed in a place like Mississippi. It could ruin his chances for a second term.

I don’t think any of these personhood amendments will pass because they would ban several types of birth control: IUDs, the Pill, the injectables, etc.

If anything, he is more likely to limit abortions by appointing justices to the Supreme Court who side with Scalia and would undermine a woman’s reproductive rights, which I cannot support for the reasons already given.

I can understand your reasoning here, even tho I think your premise is wrong.

So here is the absurdly simplified breakdown:

Personhood: Obama (No), Romney (No)
Reproductive Rights: Obama (Yes), Romney (No)
Economic Security: Obama (Yes), Romney (No)

If the GOP had chosen any other candidate I would have been seriously conflicted - since they all support Personhood and that is the key to everything. Unfortunately, they chose the only one who refused to take a stand. Now all I want is for Romney to go away so that the GOP can nominate a better man (or woman) in 2016.

Well, I am not too enthused about Romney myself–I just think that on a lot of issues he would be better than Obama.

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

As Obamacare is a huge issue in this election, I though that this would fit here.

Tale of Two Doctors
Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same complaint. Both have trouble walking and appear to require hip surgery.

The FIRST patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.

The SECOND sees his family doctor after waiting 3 weeks for an appointment, then waits 8 weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn’t reviewed for another week and finally has his surgery scheduled for 6 months from then pending the review boards decision on his age and remaining value to society.

Why the different treatment for the two patients?

The FIRST is a Golden Retriever taken to a vet.

The SECOND is a Senior Citizen on Obama care…

In November if He and his Czars get another term we’ll all have to find a good vet.

tomsfo1.blogspot.com/

CAUTION: There is a photo of a scantily clad woman down the page in the link I posted, so please do not scroll past the first article.

 

[St_Francis]

Which way did you go?

Less politically conservative, not necessarily more politically liberal.

Consider what discussion is to be had here. Almost entirely conservative, with the exception of someone like Bellasbane. But, I myself will discuss on other than hot-button items.

it can be difficult to find liberals to discuss things with, that’s for sure!

I don’t see how such leads to “truth.” Persuasion is pretty much out the window on the Forum unless you think that some of our pro-life posters might go pro-choice or vice-versa. Furthermore, persuasion is a long-term process. I don’t think that people have a “Road to Damascus” experience on the basis of a dozen or so posts.

I changed my mind on illegal immigration on the basis of one post. It’s just that I had to wade through 3 years of posts to get to it

When people really discuss an issue, they bring information as well as viewpoints to the table. I may be wrong about some fact, for example, and then someone corrects that, and then I have to change what I think.

Human nature keeps most people from “seeing where they are wrong.”

I would hope that people who post here are more open to seeing where they are wrong. I try to be open to that in prudential issues.

 

[St_Francis]

Well, I seem to have been beaten to the punch by bellasbane, but I have a entrant to make in this category also.

Here are some thoughts on the subject, though I‘m certainly not egotistical enough to think they‘ll lay the issue to rest once and for all.

What I hear invoked in defense of your viewpoint (and similar ones), more often than anything else, is sets of numbers about how many pregnancies have been terminated by abortion in this country (since Roe v Wade was handed down).

For instance, people on Catholic Forums have said that the numbers aborted in America since then surpass the numbers of lives of uninsured (or uninsurable) who would probably be lost prematurely because of the lack of affordable, decent care that the Affordable Care Act is intended to provide. **There can no moral equivalence between the two sets of numbers (or the moral evils they represent) simply because of the numerical quantity disparity, people have claimed here. This is seen as a justification for doing nothing about healthcare, until abortion is outlawed./**quote]
I have not seen this expressed as a justification for being against Obamacare, only as a reason for not voting for Obama.

I agree with you that we can work on both. However, I suspect that you and I do not agree on ObamaCare, which I think was a bad solution to our problem, and will cause more political and economic trouble in the future.

Plus, I think the way it was passed bothered a lot of people; it certainly did me.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

I changed my mind on illegal immigration on the basis of one post. It’s just that I had to wade through 3 years of posts to get to it

WOW! Do you have a link to that post?

 

[estesbob]

Well, I seem to have been beaten to the punch by bellasbane, but I have a entrant to make in this category also.

Bellsbane didn’t give a proportionate reason that a catholic could vote for Obama-certainly you dont think a candiates oppostion to abortion disqualifies ahim from receiving the catholic vote???

H

ere are some thoughts on the subject, though I‘m certainly not egotistical enough to think they‘ll lay the issue to rest once and for all.

What I hear invoked in defense of your viewpoint (and similar ones), more often than anything else, is sets of numbers about how many pregnancies have been terminated by abortion in this country (since Roe v Wade was handed down).

Has absolutely nothing to do we the number of abortions performed. A person who supports untrestricted taxpayer funded abortion on demand is morally unfilt to lead. You seem to be advancing an argument sumarily rejected by the Church-that somehow ones views on welfare or other social issues can mitigate their support for abortion. Here what Archbishop Chaput said about that:

*The abortion conflict has never simply been about repealing Roe v. Wade. And the many pro-lifers I know live a much deeper kind of discipleship than ”single issue” politics. But they do understand that the cornerstone of Catholic social teaching is protecting human life from conception to natural death. They do understand that every other human right depends on the right to life. They did not and do not and will not give up – and they won’t be lied to.

So I think that people who claim that the abortion struggle is ”lost” as a matter of law, or that supporting an outspoken defender of legal abortion is somehow ”prolife,” are not just wrong; they’re betraying the witness of every person who continues the work of defending the unborn child. And I hope they know how to explain that, because someday they’ll be required to.*

For instance, people on Catholic Forums have said that the numbers aborted in America since then surpass the numbers of lives of uninsured (or uninsurable) who would probably be lost prematurely because of the lack of affordable, decent care that the Affordable Care Act is intended to provide. There can no moral equivalence between the two sets of numbers (or the moral evils they represent) simply because of the numerical quantity disparity, people have claimed here. This is seen as a justification for doing nothing about healthcare, until abortion is outlawed.

This is said in Catholic Forums, although the current pope says healthcare is a right; additionally, Europeans have universal healthcare, and he hasn’t told them they morally have to suspend it until abortion is outlawed in their countries.

But let’s get back to the issue of the numbers.

With respect to numbers lost to abortion in the past vs. numbers lost to a generalized lack of accessible, decent health care in the past, proponents of this viewpoint might be right. It’s impossible to say, because the lack of a universal health care in this country has only become an issue in recent decades. Before that, if people died from lack of access to decent healthcare—healthcare that may well have been available to SOME at that time—people shrugged it off and accepted it as an inescapable evil. Investigations of such things were not made, and records obviously not kept for investigations not made. We don’t have solid numbers on such things.

This President has instituted a health care program that was categorically rejected by the Church and instituted a mandate that haws 43 Church institutions sighing him and multiple others stating they will shut down before complying with it. To say that Obamas health care law give a catholic proportionate reason to vote for him in spite of his support of unrestricted taxpayer abortion is absurd on the face of it.
So, as I say, proponents of this viewpoint might be right on that, where past numbers are concerned. We don’t know for sure. But let’s say they are. If the numbers told the whole story, they’d be right on the issue of abortion vs. healthcare.

But the numbers may not tell the whole story in the moral dimension of things. Look at Mt 20: 1-16. The parable of the vineyard owner, hiring workers at various times during the day, and rewarding them all equally, despite differences in hours worked. Human notions of moral quantifiability, and moral conclusions based on those notions, proved inadequate, and Jesus said so.

And I remember reading, in one of the St. Joseph’s children’s catechism books, an explanation of how “Thou Shalt Not Kill” relates to the lives of children. The young reader was exhorted not to be cruel or unkind to others, in deeds or in speech. This kind of “spectrum of moral continuity” between unkindness and killing would also doubtless include (in the bigger picture) withholding of healthcare from the sick. These books had the imprimatur of Francis Cardinal Spellman, and the Nihil Obstat of Richard Kugelman and Eugene F. Richard.

Again the Church opposes Obamacare. Even it supported it can you provide any link to any Church teaching or document that either supports or rejects either prates approach to health care or ANYWHERE the Church says that ones views on Health care can EVER offset their support for unrestricted taxpayer funded abortion on demand?

The inclusion of withholding healthcare within a “spectrum of moral continuity” that includes killing, and the biblical assertion that human notions of moral quantifiability are not always correct—taken together, these give us room to question the notion that the abortion issue HAS to trump the healthcare issue. The “proportional reasons” argument as a justification for keeping healthcare on the back burner has had a “reasonable doubt” raised here, I think.

Now, I’ve also heard it said in these forums that the issue is not abortion vs. healthcare, but is rather the “fungibility” of money, and the possibility that the Affordable Care Act will make it possible for taxpayer money to fund elective abortions. That’s an issue for another post, or maybe another thread.

So the only proportionate reason you can find is Obama instituted a health care law that the Church rejects???

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

I changed my mind on illegal immigration on the basis of one post.
.

In which direction (if I may ask)? Ignore if you’d rather, obviously.

 

[rlg94086]

Okay, and who is taking away reproductive rights? Is there a proposed condom ban I’m unaware of?

And this surely in my mind wouldn’t be enough to supporting someone who favors unrestricted abortion to one who is pro life.

Her conclusion is based on a false premise, which she created by misrepresenting Scalia. To believe that he is okay with government coercion when it comes to reproduction (i.e sterilization, limiting reproduction, etc.) because he points out the limits of the Constitution is ridiculous. She then attributes the same attitude to Romney in order to claim he is against women’s reproductive rights.

Pure mental gymnastics.

 

[estesbob]

Her conclusion is based on a false premise, which she created by misrepresenting Scalia. To believe that he is okay with government coercion when it comes to reproduction (i.e sterilization, limiting reproduction, etc.) because he points out the limits of the Constitution is ridiculous. She then attributes the same attitude to Romney in order to claim he is against women’s reproductive rights.

Pure mental gymnastics.

And a candidate being against women’s “reproductive rights” in no way allows a Catholic to vote for someone who supports “reproductive rights” and supports unrestricted taxpayer funded abortion on demand, homosexual marriage and forced funding of immoral activities

 

[stevegravy]

I could never justify a vote for Obama because:
Gun Runner Executive Privilege to cover Holder’s ineptness
Murdering bushel basket full of Libyans without congressional approval
Obamatax which has reduced citizenship rights putting us on the path to serfdom
Lowering of the countries credit rating
Not correcting the abuses of Fannie MA and Freddie Mac
Failure to protect the borders from illegals entering the country
Reversing the government’s position on the UN arms control treaty and trying to end run second amendment rights
Attack on religious liberty
Unconscionable support for killing babies
Heavy-handed takeover of Chrysler and GM through government extortion tactics on corporate bondholders
Cash for clunkers
Expansion of drone attacks
Rendition
Aiding Al-Qaida in Syria
Abuse of the regulatory process at EPA and NLRB
Oil drilling moratorium
Keeping gas prices exceedingly high
QE1 And QE2 stimulus plan Tarp and trillions in debt, no budget for three years

And to think these are just a few reasons. I believe if I think hard about it I can come up with a whole bunch more.

 

[scipio337]

Her conclusion is based on a false premise, which she created by misrepresenting Scalia. To believe that he is okay with government coercion when it comes to reproduction (i.e sterilization, limiting reproduction, etc.) because he points out the limits of the Constitution is ridiculous. She then attributes the same attitude to Romney in order to claim he is against women’s reproductive rights.

Pure mental gymnastics.

That was my conclusion, but I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.

 

[St_Francis]

In which direction (if I may ask)? Ignore if you’d rather, obviously.

I was very much against amnesty or anything like that.

I had 4 points, 2 of which could be addressed in other ways through better enforcement, but here are the main two he addressed:

1. Having a lot of people who came illegally means a lot of people are here who have no respect for our laws
2. It was unfair to those who tried to enter legally (from Mexico, they often have to wait ten years) because the illegal immigrants got here more quickly by violating our laws.

So, the other person pointed out that we had not been really enforcing that law vigorously, ie, not respecting it ourselves, and that many had come at the close-to invitation of US companies willing to hire them, so we couldn’t really fault them for paying as little attention to our laws as we did.

And then showed how the parable of the vineyard owner and the workers applied: the fact that the people in Mexico waited as long as they had expected to wait was unaffected by our allowing those here illegally the chance to stay here legally.

He of course went into much greater detail and addressed other points I had but these were the arguments that really addressed my problems with the idea of amnesty or a pathway.

That is probably the fastest and most direct change of mind I have had, but in another case, with a different poster, his overall attitude of holiness and advocacy of some things with which I disagreed caused me to pay special attention to what he wrote about those topics and I more gradually changed my attitude rather than mind on a specific issue, and that caused me to change my mind about things and also to better understand Catholic thinking (which is a tricky area for me as I was baptized but not raised Catholic, so I didn’t grow up with a Catholic way of thinking.)

 

[CMatt25]

Lets see, one has an identifiable faith and seems to living it sincerely. The other is a convenient Christian who’s main faith seems to be the Progressive ideology. The Mormon Church is theologically at odds with Catholicism, but their moral structure is very similar and they live it devoutly. The other seems more enthralled with power than anything else.

“It is fair to discuss a politician’s or newsmaker’s position on the issues and their qualifications for office, it is not fair to discuss their spiritual well being. Criticisms of a anyone’s spiritual life or spirituality should be left between that person and their spiritual director or confessor. They are not allowed in the forums. If a politician or newsmaker states that they are a certain religion that is the assumed religion of the politician in this forum, please do not question it.”

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7224667&postcount=6

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

“It is fair to discuss a politician’s or newsmaker’s position on the issues and their qualifications for office, it is not fair to discuss their spiritual well being. Criticisms of a anyone’s spiritual life or spirituality should be left between that person and their spiritual director or confessor. They are not allowed in the forums. If a politician or newsmaker states that they are a certain religion that is the assumed religion of the politician in this forum, please do not question it.”

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7224667&postcount=6

I am not discussing his spiritual wellbeing. I am discussing what I observe about the man based on his behavior. SInce public behavior is fair game for discussion, I am well within my rights to speculate the nature of the consistency of his behavior, and Obama’s behavior is consistent with one who puts political ideology the value system that guides his actions. Most of what he does and says in public is inconsistent with traditional, orthodox Christian belief. In fact, much of what he says and does is quite contrary and antagonistic to traditional, orthodox Christianity. SO, Obama can call himself a slice of pizza if he wants to, but if he does, I am going to look for sauce, cheese, crust, and pepperoni. If I see a tortilla, cheese, beans, and sour cream, I am going to remark that he looks more like a burrito.

This act of objectively comparing his words and actions against what he claims to believe is not lack of charity, it is called “truth seeking”. I have an obligation as a Catholic Christian to discover truth and call it out when I cannot find it.

 

[onmyknees]

Failing to go to church on Sunday is ignoring God? What about those workers, train crews, airline pilots and crews, physicians, nurses, cops and firemen who have to work Sundays, and maybe on Saturday as well? Are they ignoring God, too?

The Catholic nurses I used to work with always found a way to go to mass even when they worked 12 hour night shifts. Many parishes (including mine) have mass on Saturday and Sunday evenings as well as at least three morning masses on Sundays. We have a 1pm Spanish mass on Sunday.

Going to mass on a regular basis is a commandment because if we don’t go we will be at risk for falling away.

 

[MidnightSun12]

Charity starts with humility.

I agree with you about being humble if we were discussing personal opinion. That said, the teachings of the Catholic church are infallible and any dissenting views that conflict with the teachings of Christ’s one true Church are simply incorrect. It would uncharitable for us to show tolerance for any beliefs that could potentially result in a soul going to hell.