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buffalo
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No, they have by their public actions and words have ceased to be in Communion with the Catholic Church and therefore Holy Communion is ineffective and a source of scandal.
"Religion was created to control people."
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niceatheist
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But doesn’t that create the risk that non-Catholics might not vote for Catholics, or that Catholics in a district where their beliefs are at odds with their constituents simply won’t run at all?
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buffalo
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Catholics have only made political ground in the last 50 years or so since this country was Protestant and pretty much hated Catholics. Many Catholic politicians have said their Catholicism will be kept private to get the vote. Quite a few have actually made the faustian bargain and supported the murder of the unborn while still calling themselves Catholic.
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niceatheist
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But if a personal religious belief is going to trump the will of the constituents therein lies a conundrum. Imagine instead of a Catholic it was a Muslim Representative. Would you as a Catholic expect such an elected official represent his constituents or his faith? Would you approve of his Imam or his mosque censuring him if he were to go against an article of his faith?
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buffalo
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A Republic cannot survive such adversity. The founders understood a united religious virtuous people was necessary for a republic.
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niceatheist
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And yet the First Amendment is clearly intended, as Jefferson put it, to create a “wall of separation”. The intent was clear; to prevent the kinds of religious tests for public office that were a feature of Great Britain at the time. Virtue perhaps, but even among the Founding Fathers there was a diversity of opinion on religious matters. Jefferson was perhaps at the extreme, a Deist who by and large had little time for most forms of Christianity. And sadly, for a very long time, even within that pluralistic framework, Catholics were often disadvantaged because of the belief, inherited from England, of Catholics having divided loyalties.
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buffalo
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Wrong wrong wrong. No forced state religion on the people is the Establishment Clause. Here is why: At the time of the founding most of the colonies had a state supported Christian sect. 99% of the citizens were Christian. How would the feds pick one over the other. They could not and punted it back to the states. Every state has God in its preamble or Constitution.
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niceatheist
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And the 14th Amendment went on to apply most of the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, to the States. But really, this is a digression. There were variant kinds of Christianity even when the Constitution was ratified, and some pretty broad interpretations. The issue of slavery drove that home, with extremes like the Quakers who believed in the liberty of all men regardless of race, and the Southern Baptists, who strove to prove the legitimacy of slavery through theology.niceatheist:
Wrong wrong wrong. No forced state religion on the people is the Establishment Clause. Here is why: At the time of the founding most of the colonies had a state supported Christian sect. 99% of the citizens were Christian. How would the feds pick one over the other. They could not and punted it back to the states. Every state has God in its preamble or Constitution.
Even now, there are Christians who do not object to abortion, birth control or divorce, and at the other extreme, Christians who object to all of them. The only way a pluralistic state can survive is by finding the common denominators. You seem to be arguing that Catholicism and similar churches with socially conservative leanings should be the common denominator, when it’s pretty clear that in most of the US, such churches are not representative, perhaps not even representative of their own memberships. After all, American Catholic views on matters such as birth control closely align to their non-Catholic counterparts.
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Elf01
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Yes. If somebody publically goes against their faith I have no issue with them being publically reprimanded by the leaders of that faith.
I don’t want somebody in office whose views change based on whats popular. Also, somebody willing to vote against their faith cannot sincerely believe in that faith and therefore is shown to be dishonest.
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niceatheist
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So who exactly does an elected representative represent?
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Elf01
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People vote based on their views on issues. If the representives views change and the popular view doesn’t they should vote for someone else. Likewise if the popular view changes and the representives doesn’t.
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niceatheist
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So really, the first question I should have for a candidate is “What is your religious affiliation?”niceatheist:
People vote based on their views on issues. If the representives views change and the popular view doesn’t they should vote for someone else. Likewise if the popular view changes and the representives doesn’t.
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Aquinas11
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When he or she runs for Office, they need to disclose to the public what their faith is (Catholic, Muslim, whatever). The public then has the duty to inquire and ask them questions like the good ones you’re bringing up about whether they’d vote based on faith or on polling. If the public fails to ask them that, then they can’t complain after election when their representative votes based on their faith over polling.
Now if they tell the public during the campaign that they will vote according to polls over their faith (hypothetically) and then renege on that, then public should demand they resign since they broke a promise.
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Elf01
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Personally I’d focus on the issues I care about and if their declared faith or political party disagree with the stance they give I would see it as a warning sign and ask further questions.
If another candidate has the positions, but their faith and party align with those positions assuming those two candidates are the top in terms of issues I would vote for the one where all three align.
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Pattylt
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Should President Kennedy have said this? I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me," Kennedy told Greater Houston Ministerial Association.
If we need to ask a candidate their religion, aren’t we creating a religious test for the office?
If we need to ask a candidate their religion, aren’t we creating a religious test for the office?
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Wozza
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Aren’t candidates meant to represent the views of the people who vote for them? What if a candidate for office was pro choice and he listened to the people who wanted abortion banned and changed his mind so he could represent the popular view?
We vote for those whose views most closely align with our own.
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Elf01
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Exacly.
If he really did change his mnd great. If not he’d get my vote against an open pro abort but not against someone who was always pro life.
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Wozza
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So in this case you would want someone in office who’s view changed to match the popular consensus.Wozza:
Exacly.
If he really did change his mnd great. If not he’d get my vote against an open pro abort but not against someone who was always pro life.
I think what we tend to do is reject someone who changes to a popular view with which we don’t agree. If we agree with it, then we’re back to voting for those who represent our views.
But I agree that we should pass on anyone who changes his or her view depending on which way the wind blows.
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whatistrue
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In my understanding, not quite. The purpose of the US representative system of government is not so that the population has a puppet in Washington, but so that the people of the district (or state, for senators or single-representative states) have someone who will represent their real interests, whether or not they align with the current fad.
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michaelArc
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If that’s true, then who was controlling who when Christians were being persecuted and fed to lions by the Romans for a few centuries?
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