Election a setback for the prolife movement

[rascal_one]

I don’t if anyone out there listens to catholic media, but yes, it is. Tons of Bishops and priests spent plenty of time and energy informing us before the election that you cannot vote for a pro-choice politician if there is a pro-life alternative even if you happen to like his position on minimum wage. The USCCB guide clearly stated that life was the primary concern for faithful catholics. There is no excuse for catholics to be ignorant.

And while I still angry, when are we going to excommunicate Nancy Pelosi. I am so frustrated by the spinelessness of our leaders.

Kendy

It should happen but it Will never happen. The Amercian Catholic church has liberals at the top. Our church has become infected with liberalism.

We have lost our way.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Well perhaps you need to talk to the Pope than, (Benedict that is) when he said that premptive war is NOT in the catechism.

Given that Saddam violated the terms of the ceasefire stipulated after his defeat in Kuwait – a war which he started – how was the Iraq War pre-emptive?

:ehh:

 

[Thomas_B]

Yes, the democrat shift is a setback for the prolife movement, just as the republican domination the past 6-12 years was a setback for the environment and international relations.

This is how we need to approach it:
Obviously, pray.
Pray that the democrats use this opportunity to focus on the environment, health care, and the economy…there is much for them to do there in 2 years, so if we keep them focused on that they can do little harm to the advances made so far for pro-life. Then we have the presidential election in 2008 along with other congressional races.

In the meantime, Bush set up the Supreme Court quite nicely and they are reviewing critical cases at this moment. The pro-life movement itself - not relying on congressional legislation - can do much in this time to advance the cause - to continue to educate others about life issues.

And then we need to put our money where our mouths are and start building the campaign chests of pro-life candidates that can get on the ballot in 2008. There’s not much time here to get the job done…but there is a job to do.

I say keep the democratic party busy and distracted so they can’t push forth any pro-choice legislation in the next two years.

Good comments as usual YinYangMom.

The only other thing I would add is to pray for the democrats to have a change of heart about pro-life issues, and write or send e-mails to them letting them know our views on pro-life. I see some much hatred and vitriol on this message board towards the democrats such as calling them the ‘party of death’, ‘evil’, ‘demoncrats’ etc. But labelling and discarding people isn’t going to change people’s views or attitudes or help the pro-life movement- to the contrary, it will probably just make them more entrenched in their positions.

It also encourages me that many democrats that were elected or re-elected are social conservatives- like Bob Casey of Pennslyvania and Ben Nelson of Nebraska- both declared pro-life.

 

[bekalc]

Given that Saddam violated the terms of the ceasefire stipulated after his defeat in Kuwait – a war which he started – how was the Iraq War pre-emptive?

:ehh:

There were no WMD’s haven’t really found them yet. Saddam was the guy trying to get by the rules as much as he can, but just was a bit of rascall, but he was a harmless rascall to world peace and even the inspectors didn’t want us to do it…

Besides the term were with the UN, not just US a long. The rest of the world (and that’s who the UN represents the World) didn’t want us to go in there. My friend in Brazil said that the Brazilians waged protests at the US embassey. Obviously, to the rest of the world, our arguments didn’t stick.

But Cardinal Francis George said that part of the problem the rest of the world has with America is that we act as if we are blind and deaf, we do what we want, and we don’t bother to listen or hear what others have to say. And now we have quaqimire on our hands.

 

[utica]

But labelling and discarding people isn’t going to change people’s views or attitudes or help the pro-life movement- to the contrary, it will probably just make them more entrenched in their positions.

Amen!

I’m a Democrat living in Pennsylvania. I voted for Bob Casey Jr. in the primary, and after much study and prayer, voted for Rick Santorum in the general election.

Maybe a good rule of thumb here would be: Hate the policy, but love the policy maker.

 

[YinYangMom]

Now that Congress is defintively no longer on the side of life, I think the lobbying and marching should be supplanted by educating and evangelizing of the masses. Lets just face it, orthodox pro-life Catholics and other Christians are a minority in ths US, we simply don’t have the political clout.

This is a time to shift gears away from the legislative approach to the one of education and conversion, as you well noted.

We don’t have the political clout because we don’t have the numbers. I’ve always stated we need to start the education/conversion process at home. That doesn’t just mean literally in our own individual houses, but the Home of the Church.

If we cannot get our own family members to see the Truth why should we expect to change the minds of secular-minded people, let alone politicians, judges, doctors, etc?

When we start seeing the efforts of our evangelization, preaching, teaching and role-modeling take hold in our own parishes then we will see our united numbers increasing. It’s difficult to wage the battle when the opposition can so readily hold a mirror up to our House to show how few of us there are who buy our arguments.

I think the pro-life movement needs to take advantage of this 2 year period to clean house in our churches - starting with the Cathlolic faith, then moving down the list from there. If they can succeed in that effort the votes and political clout will be more present at the 2008 elections. It may not be enough to turn things around, but if we can get a significant increase you know the MSM will pick up on that and comment about it. That helps build/maintain momentum.

 

[YinYangMom]

The only other thing I would add is to pray for the democrats to have a change of heart about pro-life issues, and write or send e-mails to them letting them know our views on pro-life. I see some much hatred and vitriol on this message board towards the democrats such as calling them the ‘party of death’, ‘evil’, ‘demoncrats’ etc. But labelling and discarding people isn’t going to change people’s views or attitudes or help the pro-life movement- to the contrary, it will probably just make them more entrenched in their positions.

It also encourages me that many democrats that were elected or re-elected are social conservatives- like Bob Casey of Pennslyvania and Ben Nelson of Nebraska- both declared pro-life.

Agreed. We have to appeal to the democrats with softer approaches, enough of the bashing, name calling, yelling, etc. That is counter productive.

 

[Thomas_B]

This is a time to shift gears away from the legislative approach to the one of education and conversion, as you well noted.

We don’t have the political clout because we don’t have the numbers. I’ve always stated we need to start the education/conversion process at home. That doesn’t just mean literally in our own individual houses, but the Home of the Church.

If we cannot get our own family members to see the Truth why should we expect to change the minds of secular-minded people, let alone politicians, judges, doctors, etc?

When we start seeing the efforts of our evangelization, preaching, teaching and role-modeling take hold in our own parishes then we will see our united numbers increasing. It’s difficult to wage the battle when the opposition can so readily hold a mirror up to our House to show how few of us there are who buy our arguments.

I think the pro-life movement needs to take advantage of this 2 year period to clean house in our churches - starting with the Cathlolic faith, then moving down the list from there. If they can succeed in that effort the votes and political clout will be more present at the 2008 elections. It may not be enough to turn things around, but if we can get a significant increase you know the MSM will pick up on that and comment about it. That helps build/maintain momentum.

Hear, hear! :clapping:

 

[Richardols]

Given that Saddam violated the terms of the ceasefire stipulated after his defeat in Kuwait – a war which he started – how was the Iraq War pre-emptive?

:ehh:

Perhaps violation of a ceasefire doesn’t have to be responded to with an invasion.

In any case, it’s water under the bridge, and by now enough people ceased to trust Bush about his war so much that they voted the GOP out.

 

[chicago]

That is ONLY correct if there were an equivalent INTRINSIC evil of EQUAL or GREATER gravity to abortion. No such issue is identified in this election by the Church. You are seriously in error here and if you have voted for a “pro-choicer” , you have committed an objectively evil act by being complicit in supporting a candidate who trumpets an intrinsically evil act as a moral good in defiance of God’s law.

please pray on this (I will too)

Mind you, I didn’t say that we “should” vote for the candidate who happens to be pro-choice, merely that one who has done so hasn’t necessarily committed a serious sin if by doing so they are attempting to make a sincere judgement of practical prudence whereby the matter of a candidate’s position on abortion wasn’t their primary concern. Ought such a voter give more weight to this issue? Perhaps. But, still, we need to be careful to deal in distinctions when accusing someone of serious sin.

 

[mary_bobo]

Perhaps violation of a ceasefire doesn’t have to be responded to with an invasion.

In any case, it’s water under the bridge, and by now enough people ceased to trust Bush about his war so much that they voted the GOP out.

Have you seen the poll done by ABC? It found that only 32% of those voting Dem did so because of the war. The big thing was corruption.

 

[YinYangMom]

Have you seen the poll done by ABC? It found that only 32% of those voting Dem did so because of the war. The big thing was corruption.

That brings a chuckle, too…
I was thinking…corruption and unethical behavior is in both parties…but perhaps it’s because the Republicans proclaimed or pretended they were above the evil ways of the Democrats that they took such a big hit this time around.

It’s kinda like everyone expects the Dems to be morally challenged so when the news hits it’s not really news…but when the evidence confirmed what many people were saying about these particular Republicans who insist they did nothing wrong what was a conscientious voter to do???

I think those who voted independent or Dem this time after having voted Republican the last two times were really surprised to find out the people they thought were holier-than-thou-better-than-the-Democrats weren’t really.

 

[Monica02]

I wish people would understand that the current group of priests and bishops are not going to do anything to shed a bad light on their Democratic Party. I understand that there are some good priests and bishops who are not attached at the hip to the Democratic Party, but the vast majority are Democrats first and Catholic priests second or third.

That silly voter’s guide put out by John Kerry staffer Alexia Kelly, “Voting for the Common Good”, was was distributed in a number of parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago. I know of one priest who persisted in distributing it even after the Archdiocese banned it. I called the local bishop and he was not too concerned, sticking up for the priest who told us that he did not know of the ban (an email was for sure sent out).

I would hope parsihioners would take it upon themselves to distribute literature and inform other parishioners of important issues such as abortion, gay marriage, cloning ect… Simply bypass the priests and bishops. You do not need the permission of the priests to distribute literature on public sidewalks or roadsides. You also can distribute literature in the church and parking lot but if the priest orders you to stop you must take it to the public property.

Pray for the priests and bishops but do not wait for them to do anything that jopardize the Democratic Party.

 

[rlg94086]

Have you seen the poll done by ABC? It found that only 32% of those voting Dem did so because of the war. The big thing was corruption.

Yep. Which explains Lieberman’s win. Remember, Lamont was supposed to defeat him, because this election was all about Iraq. Apparently not.

 

[bones_IV]

I think this election was disasterous for the prolife movement. Should the democrats go on to take control of the senate, you can say bye-bye to appointing the justice we need to bring back sanity to the Supreme Court.

We Catholics need to put forth a more consistent moral and ethical message. We must not be cafateria catholics on either the left or the right.

Had we heeded our beloved Pope John Paul II, and urged the President not to invade Iraq, the Republicans would have held onto a large majority in both houses. Our desire to end the stain of abortion and our desire to secure the institution of marriage would have been closer to reality.

So, to anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq, are you happy now?

The republican party is simply not pro-life. The democrats are the party of death.

 

[gam197]

The republican party did give up two new justices. Granted Bush really was really bad news when it came to the morning after pill.

But what else, have we got? The democrats have not had a pro-life candidate in forty years and now they have all of a sudden changed. Not true. Casey from Pa is in favor of contraception, the morning after pill, adoption for gays. According to Wm. Donahue from Catholic League, he is fraud because he voted for partial birth abortion and did not try to reduce abortion though giving many opportunities.

catholicleague.org/06press_releases/quarter%204/061027_casey_fraud.htm

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilzation has been 200 years. Alexander Tyler, Historian

 

[mary_bobo]

Yep. Which explains Lieberman’s win. Remember, Lamont was supposed to defeat him, because this election was all about Iraq. Apparently not.

The same poll had the economy and terrorism tied for second and Irag was fourth.

 

[rien]

I agree with you on this, and I understand the distiction.

It seems to me that in American politics there seems to be a Catholic right and a Catholic left vote. At least to a great extent.

I’m suggesting that those on the Catholic right need to take a hard look in the mirror and discern whether their support of the invasion of Iraq truly stemmed from Catholic teaching, or if it was more in line with Protestant evangelical teaching. If it was more of the later, then it would be good of them to acknowledge that this position is leading to the weakening of the momentum in the prolife movement.

There ought not be any Catholic right or Catholic left in American politics. Only Catholic, period.

You got it = right-wing Catholic support for the Iraq war was vafeteria catholicism as much as the left Catholics do.

Aside from NOR, right wing catholics were duped by the neo-cons.

And yes, the bishops need to take the lead on this.

 

[bekalc]

The republican party did give up two new justices. Granted Bush really was really bad news when it came to the morning after pill.

But what else, have we got? The democrats have not had a pro-life candidate in forty years and now they have all of a sudden changed. Not true. Casey from Pa is in favor of contraception, the morning after pill, adoption for gays. According to Wm. Donahue from Catholic League, he is fraud because he voted for partial birth abortion and did not try to reduce abortion though giving many opportunities.

catholicleague.org/06press_releases/quarter%204/061027_casey_fraud.htm

I thought that with Casey answered a survey saying he wasn’t in favor of adoption for kids…Since Casey never survived in a legislative branch, we really have no record to go from when it comes to him.

As for him supporting contraceptions, I’m going to defend him (just a little bit here.) First of all, I don’t agree with contraceptions, and if I am married, I won’t use them…

However, I know lots of people who use them, including Christians…And I think its a real hard sell to those people (to say we are going to make abortion illegal and contraceptions too.) Honestly, it really won’t fly…I’m not sure we as Catholics can make every mortal sin a crime.

So I can see why Casey might not be for making contraceptions illegal, although I am uncomfortable with his stance on the pill.

Honestly, I just want to see our government right start in acting plans to REDUCE abortion, for example there are a lot more limitations on abortions (in Europe). With the aim of eventually elimnation abortion altogether, in reality abortion isn’t going in this country until hearts change, and I do think hearts are beginning to change…

I’m reminded of how I studied the Civil rights movement, and everyone gives Martin Luther King Jr all the credit, but in reality, the person who deserves the most credit is Thurgood Marshall. He spent years of his life, trying to win slowly case after case, to build precedents to change the laws…Some people didn’t like his way of doing things, they wanted things done quicker etc…But Marshall actually got more concrete things down for the civil rights movement acting that way than probably anyone else.

 

[chicago]

The democrats have not had a pro-life candidate in forty years and now they have all of a sudden changed. Not true.

I’m sorry but I have to counter this a bit. There have ALWAYS been pro-life Democrats in various offices. In the last 30 years or so (ever since the Democrats created a system in the 70s of having more women involved in their party making; precisely at a time when the cultural revolution was springing forth such that the most radical of feminists got a sudden stronghold) there has been an increasing takeover. But “old school”, traditional Pro-Life Dems have long been a part of the party and still are. Some of the “new school” Democrats may well be those who have recognized the fallout of the disasterous direction that the party has gone, or maybe they are just of the old skool model. Indeed, at the local levels of government you might find even more pro-life Democrats. It’s not at all true, though, that there haven’t been pro-life candidates for a long time.