Papal nuncio: Catholic division undermines religious freedom

[Mickey]

those who have already been born. They cry for justice too.

And they were born. They have the gift of life. They have options. They have a chance to survive.

The preborn are murdered in cold blood without uttering a word.

 

[Rence]

It doesn’ need to say"only." That is a very weak argument. It is saying that abortion is an issue that carries the greatest weight…In particular…Distinctly greater extant.

The issue of abortion is of special importance…it stands out because of its intrinsic evil.

Crash and burn.

Yes, he would have to say “only” if he meant “only”. Words matter. If the proper words aren’t used to give specific meaning to what is said, then anyone can come up with their own interpretations. You say that abortion is the only issue. The majority disagree with you. The words written, the way they were written, speak for themselves. Especially/in particular do not mean “only”. There’s no doubt that abortion is a very important issue. If abortion were the only issue, trumping all other issues, the Church would say so in official teaching documents. They don’t. Yes, they would have to. Just like they spell out everything else that is an absolute.

 

[seekerz]

"What is taking place in America, is a war against the child.”
Mother Teresa

Thanks for the quote. A pity it tells me nothing about her views of the politics-abortion nexus. I don’t see anybody arguing here that abortion is right - the only disagreement I see is over the politics of abortion.

 

[Rence]

And they were born. They have the gift of life. They have options. They have a chance to survive.

The preborn are murdered in cold blood without uttering a word.

Yep, they were born. They’re already here, and especially the sick and disabled, the very young and very old who can’t help themselves, they need more than birth to survive. They don’t get shoved out into the world and stand a chance to survive without help.

 

[JimG]

On what basis do you anticipate this? What is religious freedom if not the liberty to believe and live in Christ? You see somebody taking that away against your will? Who has the power to do that? Nobody.

What I detect is the fear of persecution: i.e. having to undergo some discomfort or adverse effect because of identifying with Christ. If that is what it is, then the cure is to read the Gospels and the history of the Church - much more uplifting to the soul than fretting over tomorrows that may never come…

Religious freedom is the freedom to practice one’s religion, including the practice of the corporal works of mercy on an institutional basis. The USCCB states as much on its website in its statement with regard to religious liberty.

The HHS mandate in effect negates religion if it is put into practice in the public square. You don’t get religious liberty unless you are just worshiping in your church and serving only Catholics. That’s why Catholic institutions which do the corporal works of mercy are at risk of closure or ceding their Catholicity.

 

[Mickey]

Thanks for the quote. A pity it tells me nothing about her views of the politics-abortion nexus.

Take a wild guess.

 

[seekerz]

I stand corrected. He wasn’t talking about you, he was talking about you(s) platform.

My platform? Excuse the levity, but the only meaning that word has for me is with regard to certain vivid images of those punishing 1970s shoes!

I don’t have a political platform, if that is what you mean - because I belong to no party.

 

[Mickey]

Yes, he would have to say “only” if he meant “only”.

Poppycock! We have numerous teaching from the Catholic Church that tell us about the intrinsic evil of abortion. We have the Pope’s quote here that singles out abortion with a distinct importance. We have the Papal Nuncio’s comments about the party’s platform. We have multiple bishop’s denouncing the pro-death culture of this administration with appeals to vote them out. If you do not have the eyes to see…and the ears to hear…

anyone can come up with their own interpretations.

Yeah . It seems you have come up with your own interpretations to justify a vote for the culture of death.

You say that abortion is the only issue.

I say that abortion is the issue of all issues. But I voted on other issues also…do I have to name them again? Abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, Planned Parenthood, HHS mandate, gay unions.

The majority disagree with you.

The majority of traditional Catholic disagree with you.

 

[seekerz]

Take a wild guess.

That was exactly my point: why the need to guess? In 1971, when India legalized abortion, did she condemn Indira Gandhi or the Congress party as murderers whose words (to borrow a phrase from my fellow poster) “give off a stench…”? Or was her response more nuanced?

 

[Mickey]

That was exactly my point: why the need to guess.

Exactly. Mother Teresa would have opposed this man with everything she had. We have never seen a president so committed to pro-death.

 

[Mickey]

Yep, they were born. They’re already here, and especially the sick and disabled, the very young and very old who can’t help themselves, they need more than birth to survive. They don’t get shoved out into the world and stand a chance to survive without help.

And many of them get help. It is there. They have a chance.

The pre-born have no chance.

Why don’t you get this?

 

[Mickey]

I don’t have a political platform

You voted for a man who represents a platform. That platform represents abortion-on-demand, infanticide, euthanasia, Planned Parenthood, HHS mandate, and gay unions. Hence, you voted for that platform.

Very sad.

 

[Rence]

Poppycock! We have numerous teaching from the Catholic Church that tell us about the intrinsic evil of abortion. We have the Pope’s quote here that singles out abortion with a distinct importance. We have the Papal Nuncio’s comments about the party’s platform. We have multiple bishop’s denouncing the pro-death culture of this administration with appeals to vote them out. If you do not have the eyes to see…and the ears to hear…

It’s certainly not poppycock. We have explicit teachings that forbid sex outside of marriage without any exceptions, raising your children Catholic is an explicit responsibility of Catholics, the ten commandments are explicitly stated. If there were were no “proportionate reasons”, Ratzinger wouldn’t have said there were. He didn’t list out proportionate vs. disproportionate reasons because it’s a discernment issue. And he didn’t say that taking care of those already born is insignificant to abortion. If the Church’s teaching is that abortion is the only and most important issue, the Church would not be shy about telling us so. Any Catholic with a copy of the Catechism and access to the Encyclicals knows that.

I say that abortion is the issue of all issues.

That’s totally and completely fine. You can do that. I can discern with the same information, available to all, by the Church, to do the same for myself. That’s why you have you own vote, and I have mine. That doesn’t make either one of us right/wrong, or good/evil.

But I voted on other issues also…do I have to name them again? Abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, Planned Parenthood, HHS mandate, gay unions.

And I voted in the best interests of citizens, especially the sick, disabled, old and very young. I voted for the candidate whose plan for our citizens would do the least harm. I could not vote any other way. Neither candidate would do a thing to make abortion un-obtainable if a woman wanted one. So the next issues would be the health and welfare of our citizens who are already born.

The majority of traditional Catholic disagree with you.

Well, according to the Church, there are only Catholics. Apparently the majority of Catholics agreed with me.

 

[seekerz]

Religious freedom is the freedom to practice one’s religion, including the practice of the corporal works of mercy on an institutional basis. The USCCB states as much on its website in its statement with regard to religious liberty.

The HHS mandate in effect negates religion if it is put into practice in the public square. You don’t get religious liberty unless you are just worshiping in your church and serving only Catholics. That’s why Catholic institutions which do the corporal works of mercy are at risk of closure or ceding their Catholicity.

Why close or cede? Why can’t we run our charitable institutions by our rules, depending only on our funding and relying more on teams of generous volunteers than on employees? Does a single law (which BTW, I believe can and will be negated) cripple our ability to do God’s work or does it instead require us to change modus operandus? I may be totally wrong here, but I think power is in the eye of the beholder and I don’t see the government having any real power over the Church. So the suppose the law does indeed prevent us from continuing to do things in a particular way…is it impossible to find an alternative, perhaps more resilient way of functioning?

 

[seekerz]

Exactly. Mother Teresa would have opposed this man with everything she had. We have never seen a president so committed to pro-death.

I like how you treated the issue of the abortion politics that Mother Teresa actually faced during her lifetime…pretty deft.

Perhaps we can get past the Obama = abortion equation to address the question of what stances the blessed sister actually took to politicians who supported abortion…

 

[Al_Moritz]

Neither candidate would do a thing to make abortion un-obtainable if a woman wanted one.

Precisely. This the first step of discernment. The fake pro-life stance of Romney in particular, and the obvious inaction of the Republican Party and its appointed Supreme Court justices in general on the issue over the last forty years (at least on the federal level), makes the alleged pro-life platform of the Republicans meaningless. In terms of the abortion issue, both parties are rather equal, in practical terms, rhetoric aside.

So the next issues would be the health and welfare of our citizens who are already born.

Indeed. This follows based on above step one.

If the alleged pro-life stance of the Republican party had practical consequences on the federal level, it would be a different issue. But as it stands, voting Romney vs. Obama made no significant difference on the abortion issue in the US (defunding Planned Parenthood alone is not a sufficient proposition). But it did make a difference for those already born. That is why in good, well-formed conscience, after carefully pondering all the Church documents, I could impossibly vote Romney, but voted Obama instead.

Others may have in good, well-formed conscience, after carefully pondering all the Church documents, found the only acceptable choice to be voting for Romney. That’s fine too; everyone needs to follow their own conscience before God.

 

[Lucky7]

And “distinctly greater extent” STILL doesn’t mean only. Still doesn’t mean 'disregard everything else because it just ain’t that important".

Seriously? OK, now I think you’re just being obtuse. No one has said to disregard everything else. We have been saying that abortion is a greater issue than everything else…which is the same thing as saying “distinctly greater extent”!

And that was a quote from whom? The Pope.

But apparently that’s not good enough either.

 

[Rence]

Precisely. This the first step of discernment. The fake pro-life stance of Romney in particular, and the obvious inaction of the Republican Party and its appointed Supreme Court justices in general, on the issue over the last forty years (at least on the federal level) makes the alleged pro-life platform of the Republicans meaningless. In terms of the abortion issue, both parties are rather equal, in practical terms.

Indeed. This follows based on above step one.

If the alleged pro-life stance of the Republican party had practical consequences on the federal level, it would be a different issue. But as it stands, voting Romney vs. Obama made no significant difference on the abortion issue in the US (defunding Planned Parenthood alone is not a sufficient proposition). But it did make a difference for those already born. That is why in good, well-formed conscience, after carefully pondering all the Church documents, I could impossibly vote Romney, but voted Obama instead.

This is the thing: I could totally understand conservatives bellyaching about voters voting for a candidate who is pro-choice, over one who is completely pro-life and committed to putting strong limitations on abortion. But that’s not what we had. We had a pro-choice candidate on one side, and a personally-pro-life candidate who said he wasn’t going to do anything about the legality and availablility of abortion. So for me as a voter, the abortion issue was off the table. The only sensible thing to look at after that was the welfare of our already-born. While both candidates had a plan for that, I chose the one whose plan might cause the least amount of damage to our citizens and I stand by that decision. Everyone has to own their own decisions. Whoever doesn’t like it can just deal with it. They have their own vote to cast.

 

[Rence]

Seriously? OK, now I think you’re just being obtuse. No one has said to disregard everything else. We have been saying that abortion is a greater issue than everything else…which is the same thing as saying “distinctly greater extent”!

And that was a quote from whom? The Pope.

But apparently that’s not good enough either.

Seriously. No offense, and with all due respect, if you’re not being deliberately obtuse, then you need to reread the last few pages, because YES, I am being told by other posters (no need to name them, you can read them yourself without me having to quote and link and quote and link ad nauseum) that we should disregard everything else in favor of abortion. Read. Please. To pretend that that’s not what is being said is being dishonest, and blatantly so.

Yes, abortion is great issue, a very important issue. But it doesn’t mean to disregard everything else. That means, I’ve been called to look at th whole picture, examine all the topics listed by the US Bishops in their directive, and come to a conclusion based on all I have looked at. What the Pope says, and what the US Council of Bishops as a group say is totally fine for me.

 

[Lucky7]

Seriously. No offense, and with all due respect, if you’re not being deliberately obtuse, then you need to reread the last few pages, because YES, I am being told by other posters (no need to name them, you can read them yourself without me having to quote and link and quote and link ad nauseum) that we should disregard everything else in favor of abortion. Read. Please. To pretend that that’s not what is being said is being dishonest, and blatantly so.

Yes, abortion is great issue, a very important issue. But it doesn’t mean to disregard everything else. That means, I’ve been called to look at th whole picture, examine all the topics listed by the US Bishops in their directive, and come to a conclusion based on all I have looked at. What the Pope says, and what the US Council of Bishops as a group say is totally fine for me.

No, they have not. That is your perception, your interpretation. They have said repeatedly that it is the greatest issue…not the “Only” issue (which is what YOU keep saying).

I still can’t wrap my head around choosing to vote for Obama knowing the Dem stance on abortion (and other grave sins per the Church). I’m not even saying anyone HAD to vote for Romney, but to CHOOSE Obama? It’s not just sad, it angers me. I get why cafeteria Catholics choose Obama, but faithful Catholics?? How do faithful Catholics choose to vote for a man who is not only pro-abortion, but also anti-Catholic?