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1Lord1Faith
Guest
No, no, no…Jonathan Swift proposed a solution to that problem over 250 years ago.
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Vonsalza
Guest
As with everything in history, he’s only partially right when he tries to identify “one thing”.Vonsalza:
I had a super-liberal fairly well-known professor who pointed out that Roe v Wade basically gave birth to the religious right as a political movement (and questioned the decision’s overall value on that ground) so I think we can blame the Supreme Court at that time, not the Republicans.
The Republican party was in a scamper. Thanks to Nixon, the democrats absolutely crushed the republican party in the next presidential election where Carter was chosen. There was a panic to increase the base.
Additionally, blacks were defecting from the party. A trickle turned into a gush when Roosevelt started forwarding his New Deal and that gush became a torrent when LBJ and others advocated The Great Society (read: New Deal 2) and the Civil Rights Act.
The Evangelicals were a perfect fit, especially since courting them switched the republican control over the south from being based on racist ex-democrats jaded with their increasingly progressive former party to being based on championing the religious views of the same people. At the time, this was often the exact same folks, but with a different (and more legitimate) basis for allegiance.
Genius, if you ask me.
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Vonsalza
Guest
Yes. And reps are 1-in-3 pro-choice. In English, that’s 34% (using the exact Pew number). And it’s trending upward.
Another 12-13% and yours will be a majority pro-choice party too.
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pnewton
Guest
That may be, except for the “you” part. I haven’t seen that though. Most agree that abortion is of greater gravity, and that it is only part of the seamless garment of pro-life, as the USCCB has been teaching, specifically in its voter guide. How can adhering to what the bishops are saying be reshaping the Church in our likeness?
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upant
Guest
hopefully this will be changed in the next election.
explain how having a different way of fixing health care, immigration, poverty, etc. is sin.
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on_the_hill
Guest
Well…now…see…that’s gonna be a tall order. See, a good many of those issues are championed by the Opposing Party…and, well…er…we don’t want to associate with those types, see, on account of those are the same people who make up the Party of Death…and it might, sort of, cause scandal if people saw us agreeing with them on those other issues because…then people would think that we’re affiliating with those others. Savvy?
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MarkInOregon
Guest
You say they seek out a loving god in another church–don’t you mean a god who affirms their beliefs whatever those are? Would you please direct me to a passage in the New Testament where Jesus affirms a sinner in their sin. What were Jesus first words as he started his ministry? (see Matthew 4:17: "From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”) Jesus call’s us to repent and to change our lives–to conform them to Gods will. We are to seek the truth and when we find it, to attempt to conform our lives to it as best we can–acknowledging that we are sinners and as such will stumble and fall and get back up asking for forgiveness seeking to do better. Today many seem to want to conform God to their own will and create a world where there is no sin, indeed a world where sin is often considered good and they expect us to affirm them in this.
Jesus proclaimed many hard teachings and followers left because of them. Take a look at John chapter 6 – there you will find this: “Then many of his disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’ Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, ‘Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, ‘For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.’ As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” Where do you think they went? Do you think they went in search of a loving god? That maybe they found a loving god somewhere else? Did they walk away from the true God in search of a false God?, in search of a god who’s teaching were not so hard?
What makes a loving parent? Is it the parent who lets the child do whatever they want? Does this lead to the child’s long term happiness and success? Or is the loving parent the one who sets some rules and disciplines the child and tries to instill life lessons that will lead to the child’s long term success and happiness in life?
Perhaps we should all seek out the one true God and then attempt to do his will and not ours. The Church is there to proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ, to pass on Christ’s teachings, and to administer the sacraments and help us to grow in holiness. It is there to accept and love us as we seek Gods mercy and strive to attain holiness. It is not there to affirm our sin and tell us our sin is no big deal. It is there to help us repent and reconcile with God through his mercy.
The peace of Christ,
Mark
Jesus proclaimed many hard teachings and followers left because of them. Take a look at John chapter 6 – there you will find this: “Then many of his disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’ Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, ‘Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, ‘For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.’ As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” Where do you think they went? Do you think they went in search of a loving god? That maybe they found a loving god somewhere else? Did they walk away from the true God in search of a false God?, in search of a god who’s teaching were not so hard?
What makes a loving parent? Is it the parent who lets the child do whatever they want? Does this lead to the child’s long term happiness and success? Or is the loving parent the one who sets some rules and disciplines the child and tries to instill life lessons that will lead to the child’s long term success and happiness in life?
Perhaps we should all seek out the one true God and then attempt to do his will and not ours. The Church is there to proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ, to pass on Christ’s teachings, and to administer the sacraments and help us to grow in holiness. It is there to accept and love us as we seek Gods mercy and strive to attain holiness. It is not there to affirm our sin and tell us our sin is no big deal. It is there to help us repent and reconcile with God through his mercy.
The peace of Christ,
Mark
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SuperLuigi
Guest
As D’Souza notes, there is a direct correlation between declining racism in the South and the rise of the Republican Party.
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SuperLuigi
Guest
If that’s slander and calumny, then I’m a liberal atheist.
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Vonsalza
Guest
I agree there’s a correlation. But there’s also a correlation between violent crime and ice cream sales.Vonsalza:
As D’Souza notes, there is a direct correlation between declining racism in the South and the rise of the Republican Party.
Causality is what’s important, here.
If southern republicans weren’t as racist as they were when they were democrats, I would imagine that the southern blacks wouldn’t have fled from the party to the high extent they did.
In fairness, I think D’Souza’s work is often suspect. He’s brilliant. But he’s also an ideologue.
YMMV
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Tis_Bearself
Patron
To the extent anyone is “unloving”, it’s not God. We don’t have a different God than the Protestants up the road.
And I hope you’re not suggesting that being “loving” means telling someone to “go ahead and have that abortion”. That’s not very loving to the baby getting killed.
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SuperLuigi
Guest
Blacks in general started voting Democrat when FDR ran, just like much of the country, for perceived economic reasons. But Blacks were also leery about leaving the party of Lincoln.
The idea that life-long Democrats would just switch their ideology on some magical day in the 1970s that was handed down to them since the founding of the country and thoroughly ingrained in their institutions because of Richard Milhouse Nixon is the most absurd argument ever, especially when it comes from people who think Republicans are idiots. I’m not saying you act like this, but a lot of leftists talk out both sides of their mouths and don’t realize it.
Also, to be clear, unless you are going to try and cement the past mistakes of the Democratic Party on the GOP, the USA or the South, you don’t have an obligation to justify your party’s more distant past.
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the_coppersmith
Guest
Nope. That happens when you separate Church and State.the_coppersmith:
Because when you separate the two you deny the Social Reign of Christ the King.
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the_coppersmith
Guest
See, that’s reasoning politically when there’s no reason to do so. It does not matter whether clergy and laity support this or that party - neutrality means that their conscience must be formed according to the Catholic teaching, which is non-partisan.
Which means in some areas it appears to be liberal, in other areas it appears to be conservative. That’s why politicizing creates such a huge division within the Catholic laity.
You mean “the Catholic position”. There is no “Vatican” or “bishop’s” position when they teach in the name of the Church. If they opine as individual American citizens, that’s a whole different story. But from the pulpit one should only hear the Church speaking.
You do make a good point when you mention parties bent on wiping the Church away. We’ve seen this in several countries, with right-wing and left-wing dictatorships. If you study the Italian example, where the Church confronted the strongest Communist party in the entire European region after the War, you will realize that a lot of trouble was stirred when clerics began to take political positions instead of being the neutral voice of the Church.
For example, you had priests who dressed like laborers, participated to their strikes, and so forth. As a result, they alienated the landowners, industry owners, and almost every conservative layman. They were called “Bolshevik priests”.
Then you had priests who would always be seen at social gatherings with the landowners, industry owners, and so forth, and they always told the people not to stir up trouble, because communism is condemned by the church [true] and therefore they had to vote for the ABC Party [false!!! that’s a political stance]. These were called “Fascists” or “enemies of the people”, and sometimes they were attacked and even killed.
What was the proper stance to take? Simply to speak to both sides, reminding one side that the Social Doctrine of the Church does not leave room for the exploitation of the worker and of the immigrant, and reminding the other side that the Magisterium of the Church had condemned the Communist ideology because of x, y, and z, and that voting for the Communist party carried an automatic excommunication. This way, both sides would have seen the neutrality of the Church.
The only banner the Church should carry is the banner of the Cross.
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Vonsalza
Guest
Quite right. They started really leaving “the party of Lincoln” during the New Deal and where pouring out of it by the Civil Rights era. The “Party of Lincoln” had lost of confidence of the black voter and that continues largely to this day.
You got the decade wrong (more like the 1960s) but that’s almost exactly what happened.
The progressivism of northern democrats and LBJ was an absolute betrayal to them. No surprise though. For anyone with half an education on the dems, they’d tried to split into more northern and southern aligned parties several times in their history. The Dixiecrats, Southern Democrats, The American Independent Party of Wallace…
Them dems began in 1828. I don’t think there are any active political parties extant today since the founding of the country…
Where on earth do I argue the southern dems went rep because of Nixon? Exact post, pretty please?
Of course not! The actions of men long dead are payable by those long dead men and not their present sons.
This is just fun to me.
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the_coppersmith
Guest
If you say so…
Tis_Bearself
Patron
It matters to the priest who is going to get up and give a homily and doesn’t want to alienate half his parishioners so they get mad, write to the Bishop, decide to stop attending his church, and most importantly, cut their donations in half.
Hate to sound mercenary but I am positive that most parish priests take this into account.
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SuperLuigi
Guest
I really don’t think the Sunday pulpit is the place to talk about political parties. There’s already a big disconnect between the pulpit and the pews, and telling people how to vote along party lines won’t do anything.
When it comes to issues, however, sermons should not be crowd-pleasers but speak the Truth. And people need to understand that there are people even in Churches who act like snowflakes and think that their friends’ feelings come before God and just want to be told it’s okay if they do something bad.
There are tactful ways of telling the Truth, but the Church is not nor ever has been a popularity contest.
Those who choose evil need to know their options.
When it comes to issues, however, sermons should not be crowd-pleasers but speak the Truth. And people need to understand that there are people even in Churches who act like snowflakes and think that their friends’ feelings come before God and just want to be told it’s okay if they do something bad.
There are tactful ways of telling the Truth, but the Church is not nor ever has been a popularity contest.
Those who choose evil need to know their options.
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the_coppersmith
Guest
That’s a side I had not seen…thanks! Indeed you do not wish to alienate your parishioners, who embrace a wide range of beliefs.
But the focus should remain on sticking to the “neutral” (or simply “non-partisan”) Catholic doctrines.
Even our Lord, when He preached, had people complain to the religious leaders and even throw stones at them. And the apostles did need support to survive during their itinerant preaching. We can’t worry exceedingly about making everyone happy or about losing money. God has plenty of money and we do live in the “valley of tears”
It’s a tough world for clerics out there.
But the focus should remain on sticking to the “neutral” (or simply “non-partisan”) Catholic doctrines.
Even our Lord, when He preached, had people complain to the religious leaders and even throw stones at them. And the apostles did need support to survive during their itinerant preaching. We can’t worry exceedingly about making everyone happy or about losing money. God has plenty of money and we do live in the “valley of tears”
It’s a tough world for clerics out there.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
On this, we agree
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