Mitt Romney Just Hammered Obama On Libya In A Big, Wide-Ranging Foreign Policy Speech

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Pork_Roll said:
Bishop Gracida–bishop of Corpus Christi from 1993-1997–was likely crossing a line when he said that a catholic must vote for the lesser of two evils who can win. He basically said we have to vote for GWB. Look where that got us!

Bishop Lori said we can’t vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil. Well, I can think of three intrinsic evils Romney supports: abortion (rape and incest), contraception and arming the rebels of Syria.

The point is there is no official church policy on how to handle Romney vs. Obama vs. pro-life third party candidate.
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But it is official church teaching that makes clear we cannot support obama under any circumstances in this election. In my opinion a Catholic can indeed vote for a third-party . I just hope that if Obama gets reelected they understand the consequences of their decision to waste their vote.
 
As long as one remembers that the Holy Father has said the decision to wage war or support war is a prudential judgment and catholics can disagree with him on this in good conscience.
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If the Holy Father says a war is evil or unjust, than we as catholic owe him our obedience at the very least. But your argument about following your conscience is always true, even when it conflicts with catholic teaching. We may do wrong when following our conscience, but not necessarily sin.

You can’t vote for Obama. But if we vote for Romney, we should at least point out those issues where he is in conflict with catholic teaching so we can help bring the Republican or Democrat party in line with the truth. Just because Romney is infinitively better than Obama doesn’t mean we owe our complete allegiance to him or his party.
 
smndtupidisaftr said:
Okay, let’s just ignore all of the second part because it’s just global infighting and is irrelevant. Back to the smaller (by geometric comparison) issue. What do you think the US should have done in Syria? Whom should the government have supported, and after that goal was achieved what role should it have had after in the country?
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The US could have easily done what we have done in the past helped the most pro democracy and paid them to play nice.
 
Pork_Roll said:
Our Holy Father adamantly opposes the arming of the rebels in Syria. He supports neither Asad nor the rebels but calls for the international community to create a peaceful solution. If Romney is gravely wrong in his Syrian policy of arming rebels according to our Holy Father, how can we be sure his entire middle east foreign policy is not going to create more violence and suffering like what happened when Bush invaded Iraq preemptively? It certainly sounds at odds with our Catholic faith.
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Well, I don’t know that the Holy Father intended this as broadly as you do. The French certainly helped arm the American revolutionaries. But for them, we might still be singing “God Save the Queen”.

Ideally, the international community would create a peaceful solution. It would also persuade the Islamic terrorists worldwide to stop killing innocent people. It would also end abortion. It would do lots of things, but it doesn’t. The Holy Father isn’t going to back one faction against another, and he can definitely complain about the arms trade, which, as we know, is totally unrestrained, and from every direction.

If (and one has to be skeptical) Romney really is able to identify a faction composed of decent people and aid it with arms, money and other aid to a successful outcome, can that truly be worse than just leaving it to Iran to arm the worst of them so they can kill the best of them?

Obama, unfortunately, has seemed always to back the worst. But that does not mean there are no decent people in the Middle East at all who are worthy of our support. But I will readily agree it would be tough to identify them reliably. Nevertheless, doing tough jobs successfully is what the presidency is all about, or ought to be.
 
Pork_Roll said:
Bishop Gracida–bishop of Corpus Christi from 1993-1997–was likely crossing a line when he said that a catholic must vote for the lesser of two evils who can win. He basically said we have to vote for GWB. Look where that got us!

Bishop Lori said we can’t vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil. Well, I can think of three intrinsic evils Romney supports: abortion (rape and incest), contraception and arming the rebels of Syria.

The point is there is no official church policy on how to handle Romney vs. Obama vs. pro-life third party candidate.
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  1. What if none of the candidates are completely pro-life?
As Pope John Paul II explains in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), “…when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.” Logically, it follows from these words of the Pope that a voter may likewise vote for that candidate who will most likely limit the evils of abortion or any other moral evil at issue.

forums.catholic-questions.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=9870155
 
MODERATOR NOTICE

This thread is wandering

This thread is about foreign policy, please stay on that topic.
 
Pork_Roll said:
If the Holy Father says a war is evil or unjust, than we as catholic owe him our obedience at the very least. But your argument about following your conscience is always true, even when it conflicts with catholic teaching. We may do wrong when following our conscience, but not necessarily sin.
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The Cathecism permits just war it doesn’t not permit abortion or euthanasia under any circumstances.
 
Pork_Roll said:
Bishop Gracida–bishop of Corpus Christi from 1993-1997–was likely crossing a line when he said that a catholic must vote for the lesser of two evils who can win. He basically said we have to vote for GWB. Look where that got us!

Bishop Lori said we can’t vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil. Well, I can think of three intrinsic evils Romney supports: abortion (rape and incest), contraception and arming the rebels of Syria.

The point is there is no official church policy on how to handle Romney vs. Obama vs. pro-life third party candidate.
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I agree. In voting for GWB, we got a president who did not effectively resist Obama, Schumer, Dodd and Frank in allowing FNMA and FHLMC to create the housing bubble.

Romney does not support abortion, contraception or arming, willy-nilly all rebels in Syria. Not promising to oppose all abortions of every kind or contraception, is not “supporting” them, as Obama does.

As to rebels in Syria, he has said he would aid a non-terrorist faction if it could be done successfully. Nothing wrong with that.
 
Pork_Roll said:
If the Holy Father says a war is evil or unjust, than we as catholic owe him our obedience at the very least. But your argument about following your conscience is always true, even when it conflicts with catholic teaching. We may do wrong when following our conscience, but not necessarily sin.
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Sorry-that is not what he said. He made it very clear that a Catholic can disagree with him, in good conscience, on the judgment to wage or support a war. I have posted a statement in this thread, a statement that was ratified by bishop garcia.

I never said one word about following your conscience as always being true. When i did do was point out what the church teaching is on voting for candidates who allegedly support a more robust intervention than the pope does. As Catholics are conscience must be formed by the authoritative teachings of the church-which is exactly why the Pope made the statement about the acceptability of supporting ac war in spite of his personal opposition.He made this statement during the height of the Iraq and afghan wars at a time when Democratic Catholics were actually pushing the idea that one could vote for a pro-abortion candidate if his opponent supported these wars. The Pope made it clear this is not true-wasn’t true in 2004 and it isn’t true in 2012.
 
I agree. In voting for GWB, we got a president who did not effectively resist Obama, Schumer, Dodd and Frank in allowing FNMA and FHLMC to create the housing bubble.
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The good bishop Gracida did say that we can vote third party but implied that it is unrealistic.
Those Catholic voters who love moral absolutes would have no choice but to vote for candidate (C, Peroutka), but those Catholics who recognize that in the real world it is sometimes necessary to choose the lesser of two evils in order to prevent greater harm—in this case harm to innocent unborn children would vote for candidate (B, Bush).
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Sorry-that is not what he said. He made it very clear that a Catholic can disagree with him, in good conscience, on the judgment to wage or support a war. I have posted a statement in this thread, a statement that was ratified by bishop garcia.
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I think it’s very foolish to follow GWB (or Romney) over our Holy Father, especially one as saintly as JPII.
Pope John Paul II and top Vatican officials are unleashing a barrage of condemnations of a possible U.S. military strike on Iraq, calling it immoral, risky and a “crime against peace.”
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One thing that nobody can disagree with is that if we continue to allow abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage, we will have no hopes of peace in the middle east or here at home!
 
KP3243 said:
The US could have easily done what we have done in the past helped the most pro democracy and paid them to play nice.
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Like Saddam Hussein, King Abdullah, Ali Abdullah, Berdymukhamedov, Mbasogo, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said, or the rest of these people:

military-veterans-for-justice.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10&Itemid=13

My point is, like I said before, it is not clear who are the “good guys” because you have a dictator on one side and a group supported by terrorists on the other side. It’s a tough call, and I don’t think there is a morally superior option.
 
KP3243 said:
The Cathecism permits just war it doesn’t not permit abortion or euthanasia under any circumstances.
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And were Afghanistan or Iraq just wars? Not at all (though you definitely have more of a case with Afghanistan than you do Iraq). Has Romney denounced those? Nay, he’s supported them and has said that Obama is too weak in Libya and Iran. Does he want more aggression against countries that have done nothing to us?
 
KP3243 said:
Hey its your soul and your salvation that is at risk I am just telling you what the Church is saying and the depths of consequences a vote has on your soul.
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The church has not said who we shold vote for. The church tells us what to consider in our voting. But there are more than 2 people on the ballot for president, and skipping that race is also possible.

Fr Mitch notwithstanding, US Catholics are not required to vote for Romney.
 
smndtupidisaftr said:
And were Afghanistan or Iraq just wars? Not at all (though you definitely have more of a case with Afghanistan than you do Iraq). Has Romney denounced those? Nay, he’s supported them and has said that Obama is too weak in Libya and Iran. Does he want more aggression against countries that have done nothing to us?
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Recall that Obama warred against Libya when it posed no threat to the U.S. or to any other country. He had no congressional approval. He just did it because he wanted to do it. So let’s not jump to conclusions about Romney being the “warmonger” of the two.

One could make arguments that both Iraq and Af/Pak were just wars, though I think the argument for Af/Pak is a lot weaker than it was for Iraq, because the chances of success in Af/Pak (one of the criteria) were always negligible. We actually did succeed in Iraq, but threw it away.

And “too weak” as regards Iran is relative. It would have cost Obama nothing to have at least denounced the regime’s crushing dissent and called for sanctions for that alone. But he wouldn’t even do that. Saying that’s “weak” is just telling the truth. It doesn’t mean Romney is going to land marines in Iran.
 
Mrs_Sally said:
KP3243;9870105:
The church has not said who we shold vote for. The church tells us what to consider in our voting. But there are more than 2 people on the ballot for president, and skipping that race is also possible.

Fr Mitch notwithstanding, US Catholics are not required to vote for Romney.
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All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
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Mrs_Sally said:
The church has not said who we shold vote for. The church tells us what to consider in our voting. But there are more than 2 people on the ballot for president, and skipping that race is also possible.

Fr Mitch notwithstanding, US Catholics are not required to vote for Romney.
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But we are in this, as in all things, morally obliged to oppose evil if we have the means to do so. In this election, it’s quite clear that we have the means of opposing the evils of abortion, promotion of homosexual “marriage” and of oppressing the Church, all of which are quite clearly part of the Obama agenda.

And Romney is the only “not Obama” who has any chance of success. The Church never tells anybody “who to vote for”. But it is quite clear from what the Pope and bishops have said that we cannot support Obama. So, do we oppose the evils he espouses and promotes, or don’t we?

If we saw someone about to kill a child or desecrate a church and had the means (easy means in this case) to prevent it, can anyone credibly argue that we have no moral obligation do do so? Can anyone credibly argue that we do not sin in failing to do so?
 
Hmmmmm…

** From the NationalMemo**

You all are debating a different foreign policy speech - it seems - cause Mr Obama has the same ideas :D:D
This is, needless to say, the exact same course that America is already following with Iran. The Obama administration has helped to cripple the Iranian economy (with sanctions, not words), and President Obama has repeatedly made it clear that he will “take no options off the table” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Romney himself has acknowledged that he and the president share the same “red line” when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program.
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On Afghanistan as well, Romney criticized President Obama without offering a clear policy alternative. Romney attacked Obama for planning a “politically timed retreat,” but he also promised that “I will pursue a real and successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.” This is the same “political” timeline that the Obama administration is following.
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Similarly, Romney promised that he would support the Libyan people’s efforts to establish a strong democratic government, and pursue the terrorists who attacked the American consulate in Benghazi — exactly what the Obama administration is doing as we speak.
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Romney echoed President Obama’s calls for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, saying “I will recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel.”
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nationalmemo.com/romney-offers-much-criticism-few-solutions-in-foreign-policy-speech/

Question: If this is true and they are Mr Obama and Mr Romney ] saying the same…kinda mutes the debate here?🤷
 
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