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Havard
Guest
You mean like Ugg boots, flat brimmed caps, and skinny jeans? I agree, they look awful!
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Skeptic92
Guest
Can we just boil this all down to: I stand with the Catholic Church?
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2cherubs
Guest
Absolutely! In fact, classical liberalism has always defended the most helpless and voiceless. Defending the rights of women and their unborn offspring carries this philosophy to its natural conclusion!
Beliefs donât come in convenient little packages like âLunchables.â I am very much a liberal and find it preposterous that somehow my views on abortion should have anything to do with my views on trade with China, education, gun control, global warmingâŚ
OP, you can still be a liberal. Youâand not the Telegraphâget to be the judge of who you are and what you believe.
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joclucsylv
Guest
I am so with you!!! I always claimed that I was democrat claiming the party of my parents. I grew up with the mentality that the dems are for the poor and the reps are for the rich. I am embarrassed to admit that I even voted for Obama because of his seeming love for the poor.
WellâŚfast forward 4 years later and Obama is not getting my vote. To be honest, I never realized how conservative I was until Obama took office. His love of the culture of death is sickening. The pivitol point for me was the HHS mandate.
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King_Lazy
Guest
Communist, classical liberal, Democrat, socialist, capitalist, Republican, conservative, liberalâŚ
Theyâre all names of philosophies that are to a lesser or greater extent contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Weâre Catholic first and then we can sympathise with some of the better aspects of all or some of those godless philosophies. If we identify ourselves too closely with any of them, however, we become Liberal Catholics, Socialist Catholics, Capitalist Catholics, Republican Catholics, Conservative Catholics, Democrat Catholics, etc. If Catholicism isnât first and foremost in your mind, then you really arenât a faithful Catholic.
Neither can âCatholicâ be used as an adjective to a godless philosophy. We canât truly be Catholic communists, Catholic conservatives, Catholic Democrats, or Catholic liberals. We may say that as shorthand for âCatholic who supports some aspects of that philosophy as opposed to others,â but we must be wary of serving two masters, for fear of losing our orthodoxy.
The only adjective in front of âCatholicâ should only really be âfaithfulâ or âorthodox.â And Catholic should only be an adjective to Christian. So letâs all be faithful Catholic Christians, and subordinate all our other political sympathies to the teaching of the Church.
Theyâre all names of philosophies that are to a lesser or greater extent contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Weâre Catholic first and then we can sympathise with some of the better aspects of all or some of those godless philosophies. If we identify ourselves too closely with any of them, however, we become Liberal Catholics, Socialist Catholics, Capitalist Catholics, Republican Catholics, Conservative Catholics, Democrat Catholics, etc. If Catholicism isnât first and foremost in your mind, then you really arenât a faithful Catholic.
Neither can âCatholicâ be used as an adjective to a godless philosophy. We canât truly be Catholic communists, Catholic conservatives, Catholic Democrats, or Catholic liberals. We may say that as shorthand for âCatholic who supports some aspects of that philosophy as opposed to others,â but we must be wary of serving two masters, for fear of losing our orthodoxy.
The only adjective in front of âCatholicâ should only really be âfaithfulâ or âorthodox.â And Catholic should only be an adjective to Christian. So letâs all be faithful Catholic Christians, and subordinate all our other political sympathies to the teaching of the Church.
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247cath
Guest
Very insightful comment . Our intent and promise as Catholics should be to reduce the occurrence of every and any abortion. To do so does require that we act to not only prevent abortions from a long term legal standpoint, but that we act today to prevent any abortion that would be prevented by us acting in a more Christlike manner to those that would consider an abortion for any reason.On one hand, free and legal abortion wonât end abortion so restrictions are necessary; that is in favor of conservatism. On the other hand, societal conditions that devalue people in society will keep the demand for abortion high; that is in favor of liberalism. Keeping BOTH of these values in mind, will be a quest for sainthood.
The abortion rate reduced faster during Clintonâs time in office than Bushâs. By the end of Bushâs time in office, the abortion rate had stopped decreasing and was increasing. One reason why: because his actions never reduced the rate at which poor women had abortions, and they make up the highest demand. So closing oneâs eyes to the impact of poverty on abortion and simply saying - they may be poor but they can still be moral; this approach puts one in the position of God to judge another personâs morality and excuses one from any effective action on abortion.
It seems that much of the discussion among us âpro-lifersâ creeps into how little is legalistically required of us regarding the total scope of what Jesus taught regarding the issue of abortion (it can only flow from how Jesus valued each life as He never spoke directly to the issue) as it relates to treating the least like they may be Jesus in the guise of the least. We more commonly ask what we should be doing in terms of what Jesus taught through His preaching regarding the redistribution of wealth and paying for abortion instead of what He taught about how we should go about loving our enemies and our neighbors.
It is not the withholding of funds that minimizes abortions it is the sharing of love and the concept of the value of each and every one of us that will minimize abortions.
Take care,
D
DLG123
Guest
HmmmmmmmâŚ
This just so happens to coinside with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid taking over Congress which controls the purse. Liberals take control of congress and abortions go up. Weelllllll⌠Nothing to see here⌠move along people⌠move along.
Just and observation
DLG
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DLG123
Guest
My philosophy is that we are NOT to judge but sometimes we (as a society) need to set up the meeting!!!
DLG
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andrewstx
Guest
I used to be conservative, raised by parents so far right they did not to fund public or any schools with tax funds.
Then I had a stroke without insurance, and lost my job. I had to accept SSI or starve, and medicaid or die.
I began to see the liberalâs point. Many conservatives, at least my parents are self centrered. They threw me out the night I graduated HS, and when they died left me nothing at all. No of course not all conservatives are that way, but many are.
I think that all mankind is important.
Then I had a stroke without insurance, and lost my job. I had to accept SSI or starve, and medicaid or die.
I began to see the liberalâs point. Many conservatives, at least my parents are self centrered. They threw me out the night I graduated HS, and when they died left me nothing at all. No of course not all conservatives are that way, but many are.
I think that all mankind is important.
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King_Lazy
Guest
See, thatâs why I donât like to see Catholics being polarised among two different camps of secularists - conservatives and liberals.
Conservatism is not Catholic. Conservatism seeks to âconserveâ earlier forms of liberalism - those which were more concerned with restraining the influence of the State, dogmatically so, even in those areas where its influence, assistance and intervention may be legitimate.
Modern liberalism is not Catholic. It is simply conservatism, or old-fashioned, godless liberalism, which has taken the central idea of âfreedomâ to its logical conclusions, and, in opposition to conservatism it has also taken on a utopian flavour and seeks to use the power of the State to impose on the world that vision of freedom - a liberal moral order - which is none other than libertinism.
Both are incompatible with Christianity. Except the old-fashioned liberalism that we now call conservatism at least pays lip service to traditional Christian values, which it recognises made the old-fashioned form of liberalism in some aspects a rather successful system, despite its obvious flaws from the Catholic perspective.
But weâre Catholics. We have our own vision and itâs not concerned with âconservingâ a godless philosophy of the past, which would inevitably and logically progress to something like what we have today anyway. Neither is it about using the State to impose a utopian order. Nowadays we may be allied more with conservatives because of their accommodating stance to Christian moral issues, but in reality, itâs just a godless philosophy that is nothing other than a lesser evil, and it is not deserving of our wholehearted approval. Sooner or later, in years or decades, even those self-proclaimed conservatives will carry their liberal ideas to their logical conclusions and become like the liberals of today, while the liberals of today will probably keep on pushing the boundaries and think of something worse.
Both philosophies are broadly secular and gradually tend towards disintegration into moral relativism and chaos. One just likes to take the slow road, while the other one wants to take the highway.
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In_Spiration
Guest
Given the almost invisible and uncontested ubiquity of Liberalism, Catholics are now arguably called to be Reactionaries, not Conservatives (since that preserves Liberalism) or Counter-Revolutionaries (since the Left needs to be overthrown). On the other hand, Jim Kalb posted an essay the other day, âAfter Liberalism: Notes toward Reconstruction,â that I think might provide ground for a continued adherence to âconservatismâ â namely, Western civilization (or at least what remains of it).
It is hard for a political order based on abstractions such as freedom and equality to stay moderate and avoid anarchy or tyranny. To avoid both extremes, public life must be rational and open ended, but also ordered and coherent. To that end, principles that go beyond the limits of liberalism are necessary. What is needed are publicly valid explanations of man and the worldâwhat things are, how they work, what they are for, and what is worth pursuingâthat are more concrete and substantive than liberalism can offer but general enough to allow fruitful and open discussion.
The obvious and least disruptive way a better public order could emerge is for the West to revert to type. Liberalism depends on a heritage from the past to function at allâit depends on social capital it does not, itself, generateâand as mounting problems make that dependency more obvious, the advantages of the Western heritage are likely to become obvious as well. Other civilizations have followed cyclical patterns. Why shouldnât the West do the same? At a philosophical level, the result might be a renewed acceptance among educated and responsible people of something like traditional natural law, a rational outlook that accepts essence and teleology and so enables us to discuss what things are and what they are for. Such a move would provide a substantive and historically grounded alternative to liberalism.
Many details would of course still need to be filled in. The actual constitution of any society is a balance among the implications of fundamental principles publicly held, other views and demands, and practical circumstances. A variety of initiatives will likely be needed before a generally adequate response is found to the present situation. Nonetheless, an ideal goal is necessary to focus efforts and provide something concrete to hope for. For many Catholic conservatives today, and increasingly for other conservative-minded Christians, the social doctrine of the church provides such an ideal. It is an architectonic alternative to the welfare state or other versions of liberal technocratic society.
It is hard for a political order based on abstractions such as freedom and equality to stay moderate and avoid anarchy or tyranny. To avoid both extremes, public life must be rational and open ended, but also ordered and coherent. To that end, principles that go beyond the limits of liberalism are necessary. What is needed are publicly valid explanations of man and the worldâwhat things are, how they work, what they are for, and what is worth pursuingâthat are more concrete and substantive than liberalism can offer but general enough to allow fruitful and open discussion.
The obvious and least disruptive way a better public order could emerge is for the West to revert to type. Liberalism depends on a heritage from the past to function at allâit depends on social capital it does not, itself, generateâand as mounting problems make that dependency more obvious, the advantages of the Western heritage are likely to become obvious as well. Other civilizations have followed cyclical patterns. Why shouldnât the West do the same? At a philosophical level, the result might be a renewed acceptance among educated and responsible people of something like traditional natural law, a rational outlook that accepts essence and teleology and so enables us to discuss what things are and what they are for. Such a move would provide a substantive and historically grounded alternative to liberalism.
Many details would of course still need to be filled in. The actual constitution of any society is a balance among the implications of fundamental principles publicly held, other views and demands, and practical circumstances. A variety of initiatives will likely be needed before a generally adequate response is found to the present situation. Nonetheless, an ideal goal is necessary to focus efforts and provide something concrete to hope for. For many Catholic conservatives today, and increasingly for other conservative-minded Christians, the social doctrine of the church provides such an ideal. It is an architectonic alternative to the welfare state or other versions of liberal technocratic society.
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