Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?

[DL82]

There are so many threads on here about whether Socialism is compatible with Catholic doctrine, I thought I’d start one on whether the core values of American Democracy are compatible.

Catholic leaders in the past, such as St Louis IX of France, Philip the Fair, Mary Tudor, etc. were able to choose loyalty to the faith over popularity. An American leader can never do this.

Is the Pursuit of Happiness too closely linked to selfishness, individualism and greed, and, by definition, the absence of suffering, and thus contrary to the Pursuit of Holiness?

I’m not saying that I believe that America’s values are wrong here. Not at all! I just wanted to start a different kind of debate.

 

[catholicmessage]

The pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of Heaven. Its as simple as that.

Pursuit of pleasure or popularity is a totally different idea. Pursuit of pleasure is a very selfish notion, and many times it is contrary to the pursuit of holiness.

 

[Urf]

Seeing how Catholics came to this country to escape protestant oppression, wouldnt turning around and forcing their own views onto other people be rather hypocritical?

 

[Greg27]

Strictly speaking, the Christian life is about the pursuit of ‘life’, ‘liberty’ and ‘happiness’, though not in the sense a pure secularist or atheistic humanist would place it.

 

[buffalo]

Seeing how Catholics came to this country to escape protestant oppression, wouldnt turning around and forcing their own views onto other people be rather hypocritical?

Not really. If I move into a town that has greenspace and then at some point I would like to protect it by limiting development am I hypocritical?