Papal nuncio: Catholic division undermines religious freedom

[_Abyssinia]

At this point, we are simply going around in circles. You ask me questions, I answer them, you don’t like the answer, so you ask again. Endless loop. I’m sorry, but my answers are not going to change just because you keep asking the same questions of me. There is nothing coming from the Vatican that says Catholics must discount and disregard the other issues in favor of one or two issues. There is none of that business from the Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship either. These are demands made of some Catholics from other Catholics, not the heirarchy of the Church.

Here are the answers to your questions…yet again. I know you do not like my answers, and you don’t agree with them, but they are MY ANSWERS:

That is quote from you, not from a document from the Church. You think that health care and the economy are proportinate but that is only your claim, that is not based in Church teaching

 

[Rence]

No, but there are candidates whose policies allow 1 million plus abortions in clinics. Is it that abortion is behind closed doors and that if there were 1 million murders in the street you would be faced with more of the direct reality of those deaths? Deaths in an abortion clinic or deaths because of murder are street are still deaths

You think it is acceptable to vote for a pro abortion candidate but I doubt you would vote for a candidate whose policies supported deaths in any other area of society

There wouldn’t be a candidate who supports illegal deaths in any area of society, not if they wanted to be taken seriously.

 

[_Abyssinia]

There wouldn’t be a candidate who supports illegal deaths in any area of society, not if they wanted to be taken seriously.

For the sake of argument, do you think it would be acceptable to vote for a candidate if you knew that the policies they voted for and supported would allow 1 million plus human beings annually to be killed

 

[_Abyssinia]

Really? Better check up on the Nixon administration under whose watch Roe vs Wade became law and rape and interracial abortions were encouraged. We have these on tape.

And this after Reagan signed into law a pro-abortion bill and Eisenhower became co-sponsor of Planned Parenthood WHILE ABORTION WAS STILL ILLEGAL.

Nixon supported exceptions for abortion. Republican party was different back then just like the democrat party was different than it was now. Democrat party was pro life, then in the 1960s got into the pocket of the abortion industry

1967 Reagan signed Therapeutic Abortion Act, which had a democrat sponsor. Lou Cannon, biographer in Ronald Reagan: The Presidential Portfolio, said

“Reagan did not know what to do,” he says. “His staff was divided (also largely on religious lines), and he was lobbied heavily from both sides.… After several days of indecision, Reagan reluctantly signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act. After he recognized its consequences, he became an opponent of abortions, except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest”

1970 Reagan responded to those who wanted to liberalise California’s abortion laws

“Who might they be doing away with? Another Lincoln, or Beethoven, an Einstein or an Edison? Who shall play God?”

 

[Rence]

That is quote from you, not from a document from the Church. You think that health care and the economy are proportinate but that is only your claim, that isn’t based anywhere in Church teaching

Circles and loops: voting in the interests of the poor, the sick, the disabled and the poor make healthcare and the economy priority issues along with the abortion issue. My claim is based on the Bishops’ guide to conscience formation which you are very familiar with, therefore quoting from it is kind of a waste of time. You have it at your disposal, please refer to it.

You don’t agree with me that those are proportionate reasons. I insiste they are. More circles and loops. I’m not going to change your mind, and I don’t care to. But you won’t change my mind either. There is more to life than just being born. The arleady-born are important too.

Neither candidate will end abortion. The only way to end abortion is to make women not want to seek them. Period. Even Romney backed down in the end, in a desperate measure to get more women’s (and more liberal) votes and said he had no desire to turn over RVW. No Republican has done this yet, and there is no reason to think one will (especially Romney) in the near future. So that argument doesn’t make a relevant point.

The fact is, after all the circles and loops, what it boils down to is this: we favor different candidates and we have our own reasons for doing so. That doesn’t make either one of us right/wrong or good/evil or stupid/smart.

 

[Rence]

For the sake of argument, do you think it would be acceptable to vote for a candidate if you knew that the policies they voted for and supported would allow 1 million plus human beings annually to be killed

There is no argument: there is no candidate whose policies they voted for and supported would allow 1 million plus human beings annually to be murdered.

 

[JMJSHJ]

There is no marijuana party. If there was a marijuana party, then the question would be relevent.

Actually there is:

usmjparty.org/

 

[JMJSHJ]

Circles and loops: voting in the interests of the poor, the sick, the disabled and the poor make healthcare and the economy priority issues along with the abortion issue. My claim is based on the Bishops’ guide to conscience formation which you are very familiar with, therefore quoting from it is kind of a waste of time. You have it at your disposal, please refer to it.

You don’t agree with me that those are proportionate reasons. I insiste they are. More circles and loops. I’m not going to change your mind, and I don’t care to. But you won’t change my mind either. There is more to life than just being born. The arleady-born are important too.

Neither candidate will end abortion. The only way to end abortion is to make women not want to seek them. Period. Even Romney backed down in the end, in a desperate measure to get more women’s (and more liberal) votes and said he had no desire to turn over RVW. No Republican has done this yet, and there is no reason to think one will (especially Romney) in the near future. So that argument doesn’t make a relevant point.

The fact is, after all the circles and loops, what it boils down to is this: we favor different candidates and we have our own reasons for doing so. That doesn’t make either one of us right/wrong or good/evil or stupid/smart.

Except Abyssinia’s arguments are rooted in Catholic teachings. For the record the Bishop’s Guide doesn’t represent Catholic teachings anymore than the 1978 USCCB document on Environment and Art does. Yours are your own personal opinions.

 

[Faithdancer]

The only way to end abortion is to make women not want to seek them. Period.

I agree that education about the evil of abortion has faltered, greatly, and needs renewal. However, human beings have a weak and sinful nature and civil laws, particularly when grounded in Divine law and the natural law that is written on the human heart, can encourage people to maintain right willing when faced with temptation.

 

[Al_Moritz]

I think this speaks to the proportionate reasoning argument.

I’M GONNA MEMORIZE IT as my best argument against the social justice crowd.

THANK YOU, AL MORITZ !!!

You’re very welcome, wynnejj!

First, I don’t think anybody realistically expects a “cure” of for the social justice issues from any party.

Second, I agree that social issues alone do not weigh sufficiently against the abortion issue.

Note what I had said earlier in my post about ‘proportionate reasons’:

In summary, both the neutralizing and the positive morally grave reasons combined are more than enough for me to overcome the mere theoretical promise by the GOP to do enough about abortion, a theoretical promise that in practice has failed miserably. If I had good reasons to believe that on the legislative front anything substantial about abortion in this country (especially on the federal level) would happen by voting GOP, this would change things. But I have no such reasons, or at the very least, no sufficient reasons, to believe that.

Yet given GOP inaction, the political reality is not as simple as social issues vs. abortion. Also note, that in the same post on ‘proportionate reasons’ ,

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10029934&postcount=79

I gave an abortion-reducing argument priority over other social issues (Abyssinia tried to rebut the argument with studies on abortion rates of the poor, but first, there are conflicting studies, and second, my argument was about the middle class, not the poor).

You had said yourself that I had made strong arguments:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10037355&postcount=198

and even that upon closer reading my arguments became yet stronger:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10037373&postcount=201

So what happened in the meantime? Apparently the arguments of the pro-Republican Catholics have managed to soften you up, even though they are terribly one-sided, and you forgot about the rationality and the moral reasonableness of my arguments.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Circles and loops: voting in the interests of the poor, the sick, the disabled and the poor make healthcare and the economy priority issues along with the abortion issue. My claim is based on the Bishops’ guide to conscience formation which you are very familiar with, therefore quoting from it is kind of a waste of time. You have it at your disposal, please refer to it.

You don’t agree with me that those are proportionate reasons. I insiste they are. More circles and loops. I’m not going to change your mind, and I don’t care to. But you won’t change my mind either. There is more to life than just being born. The arleady-born are important too.

Neither candidate will end abortion. The only way to end abortion is to make women not want to seek them. Period. Even Romney backed down in the end, in a desperate measure to get more women’s (and more liberal) votes and said he had no desire to turn over RVW. No Republican has done this yet, and there is no reason to think one will (especially Romney) in the near future. So that argument doesn’t make a relevant point.

The fact is, after all the circles and loops, what it boils down to is this: we favor different candidates and we have our own reasons for doing so. That doesn’t make either one of us right/wrong or good/evil or stupid/smart.

I do not agree they are proportinate reasons because I see them nowhere stated that they are by a Bishop or in Catholic teaching, whereas I see specifically that Bishop Gracida, Archbiship John J Myers, and other Bishops say health care and economy are not proportionate to vote for a pro abortion candidate

 

[_Abyssinia]

There is no argument: there is no candidate whose policies they voted for and supported would allow 1 million plus human beings annually to be murdered.

You can not answer the question can you because it exposes the inconsistency

 

[Al_Moritz]

All of this is true. Yet the question must be asked: Why don’t the Bishops pressure the Republican Party to act more forcefully on these principles? The Republicans have conclusively demonstrated that, when push comes to shove, something else will ALWAYS be more important than ending legal abortion, no matter how much (around election time) they say they want to do so. This HAS to be a factor in ordinary Catholics’ voting decision, after nearly 40 years of Republican promises.

Precisely my point, see:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10029934&postcount=79

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10029945&postcount=80

 

[BroomWagon]

Neither candidate will end abortion. The only way to end abortion is to make women not want to seek them.

Revenue and Money is one motivation behind the Democrat Party regarding abortion, they highly favor Planned Parenthood, America’s biggest abortion provider so indeed, people really are voting for this Corporate relationship the two have and selling abortion for revenue purposes. Planned Parenthood sells abortions like shoeshine. I voted against them doing this.

Too, Romney pledged to defund the nation’s biggest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. It’s not so simple as you make it out to be.

 

[Boulder257]

I suspect there are no liberal responses because rebuttal will be extremely difficult. How do you rebut the statements of the Papal nuncio with any other Church authority?

I wish this were true. Unfortunately, many don’t allow little things like facts and Church Authority to stand in the way of a false argument.

 

[ProVobis]

I agree that education about the evil of abortion has faltered, greatly, and needs renewal. However, human beings have a weak and sinful nature and civil laws, particularly when grounded in Divine law and the natural law that is written on the human heart, can encourage people to maintain right willing when faced with temptation.

Civil laws become meaningless unless there are some penalties imposed. There are still laws against adultery and fornication, for example, but I have yet to hear of a simple fine against being caught if indeed anyone is even arrested for it. Not only that but these immoral acts are glamorized in movies and the consequences seldom mentioned.

 

[Rence]

Except Abyssinia’s arguments are rooted in Catholic teachings. For the record the Bishop’s Guide doesn’t represent Catholic teachings anymore than the 1978 USCCB document on Environment and Art does. Yours are your own personal opinions.

Mine are also rooted in Catholic teachings. For the record, they are according to the Bishops’ guide to the formation of conscience.

 

[Rence]

I do not agree they are proportinate reasons because I see them nowhere stated that they are by a Bishop or in Catholic teaching, whereas I see specifically that Bishop Gracida, Archbiship John J Myers, and other Bishops say health care and economy are not proportionate to vote for a pro abortion candidate

The Church is not shy about spreading absolutes and rules. Though Bishop Gracida, Archbisop John J Myers and other individual Bishops are highly regarded and of course should be considered, they do not speak on behalf of the Church. The Pope Himself concludes that there are proportionate reasons and gives us guidance to determine proportionate reasons. But just like “grave/serious reasons for using NFP” doesn’t spell them out for us. If the Church absolutely doesn’t consider healthcare and the economy (which directly affects everyone, including the poor, sick, disabled, very young and very old), they would come out and spell it out like they do other absolutes. But they don’t. They put out encyclicals, the Catechism, and the US Bishops’ teachings to help us come to our own conclusions. That doesn’t make either one of us right/wrong, good/bad, or anything else. The only thing that it makes us is different.

 

[Rence]

You can not answer the question can you because it exposes the inconsistency

It doesn’t deserve an answer because it is not realistic.

 

[_Abyssinia]

It doesn’t deserve an answer because it is not realistic.

You can not answer because it exposes your position

There is the reality of 1 million human beings being killed in abortion clinics. You have not answered my question of whether you believe life begins at conception because if you do not then that is consistant with your response to my question that you are responding too