Is there a political race in the country where euthanasia and murder are supported as acceptable to the same magnitude abortion is supported as acceptable?All infallible teachings of the Church, such as Euthanasia and Murder.
So, corruption is of equal magnitude to direct abortion?So I personally, cannot accept a number of other issues either, such as a war I believe to be unjust, modern slavery, or even the corruption of certain institutions which I belief are mandatory to meet the Church’s definition of an acceptable form of democracy.
I cannot follow your reasoning?In other words, I accept the Church supposition that to compromise on torture for the sake of abortion is morally incoherent and a detriment, since it errodes the underlying principle on which both teachings rest.
I’m not going to support anyone solely on one issue.But I most certainly will oppose someone Soley on one issue. Why would one even consider voting for somebody who has the mentality that there are circumstances were is okay to kill our children? . Do you really want that type of person to be in any kind of leadership position?While I may disagree with you on a point here or there, substantively I agree with you and applaud your character in honestly I think assessing the American system.
Mostly what I was trying to get across was the enormity of problems facing the country. Abortion, homosexuality, and other issues of sexual behavior are surely important. They are not the only issues before us. I’m not going to support someone soley on one issue if I think someone else can do an overall better job. I have to be alive first in order to work on any issue.
So?If one issue is a deal breaker then you are a one issue voter.
I guess you and I read this differently.You found 9 which are in italics in the original. . . .
One can always dream up scenarios where it would be appropriate ina given case to vote a single issue. I’m not against anyone voting a single issue, I merely raised what i consider a tension between doing so and one’s responsibilites in a representative democracy. If you don’t see the tension, then fine, you have no problem. I do.Oh really? If a candidate ran on a platform of reinstituting segregation would that be a dealbreaker for you? If so I guess your’e a single issue voter, aren’t you
Aquinas suggests that we not try to enforce Moral teachings of the church by civil laws until the population is sufficiently in agreement to make their enforcement meaningful. I tend to agree.There have been a few, lengthy threads on health care and poverty - I am not sure about the others. Some members of CAF are very active on the abortion issue. Others, such as myself, struggle at supporting the Church’s teaching. For example, it was painful for me to vote for George Bush, given his terrible record on so many pro-life issues, but he has been strong against abortion and embryonic stem cell research, and he has done much to increase access to anti-HIV drugs in Africa.
**do you feel the same having done so now? Seeing that he has of course done nothing really on abortion. A lot of people could have told you that was likely. I just find it weird when folks are seemingly willing to put their trust in Republican candidates who have made it clear they simply use the religious right to get elected, having no real interest in their issues. Too many Republican sexual scandals just make this a bit too much to take. How do you equate Bush’s promise to do something about abortion with his war that has cost how many thousands of lives? I’m not sure how to balance this? how many Iraqi lives/
American lives are equal to one anti-abortion candidate? you see the problem for me? **
SpiritMeadow, as much as I support the principle of separation of church and state, it is not part of the U.S. Constitution. It is a judicial tradition which has grown out of court rulings.
**well I think if you look you’d find it in the Constitution. **
Some of our laws do regulate morals. The definition of marriage is of current debate, but I think few citizens would advocate for allowing polygamy. One of our U.S. Senators was arrested for seeking to have sex in a public restroom. I have met persons who feel this sort of public sex should be legal, but the vast majority of Americans probably do not. Laws regulating moral standards are not necessarily a bad thing.
No but the combined total of those issues may well trump voting for candidates who claim they are pro-life but never do a thing to pursue it beyond getting you to vote for them.For the Church none. For many Catholics looking for an excuse to vote for pro-abortion candidates their personal views on the war, the death penalty or their personal interpretation of Catholic social justice trumps all. You see a lot on these forums-they post quotes from church documents talking about social justice and then claim only one party supports it. The fact that that party also supports abortion, homosexual marriage, euthanasia etc. is irrelevant to them because by gosh at least those who support all this hate George Bush and oppose the war.
Nearly 20,000 children have been killed since this thread began.
Refusal to answer the question is noted.One can always dream up scenarios where it would be appropriate ina given case to vote a single issue. I’m not against anyone voting a single issue, I merely raised what i consider a tension between doing so and one’s responsibilites in a representative democracy. If you don’t see the tension, then fine, you have no problem. I do.
Per your personal interpretation that is what Aquinas suggests. I prefer the clear teachings of the Church,Aquinas suggests that we not try to enforce Moral teachings of the church by civil laws until the population is sufficiently in agreement to make their enforcement meaningful. I tend to agree.
They may very well cause one not to vote fo ar pro-life candidate but they can never cause one to vote for a Pro–abortion Canidate.No but the combined total of those issues may well trump voting for candidates who claim they are pro-life but never do a thing to pursue it beyond getting you to vote for them.
What you describe above is the teachings of the Church. Reasonable people can disagree as to how Catholic social teaching should be applied. Such cannot be said for abortion.I guess you and I read this differently.
I see some issues that are very clear cut on which way we need to vote. I then see other issues that are open for reasonable disagreement on how they are best resolved and depending on your point of view, either way could be within the teachings of the church.
CCC:For the Church none. For many Catholics looking for an excuse to vote for pro-abortion candidates their personal views on the war, the death penalty or their personal interpretation of Catholic social justice trumps all. You see a lot on these forums-they post quotes from church documents talking about social justice and then claim only one party supports it. The fact that that party also supports abortion, homosexual marriage, euthanasia etc. is irrelevant to them because by gosh at least those who support all this hate George Bush and oppose the war.
Nearly 20,000 children have been killed since this thread began.
"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined.
. . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights."81
The problem is that you are assuming that a reasonable distinction can be made on magnitude. The problem with such comparisons is that they must begin with the devaluation of human life.Is there a political race in the country where euthanasia and murder are supported as acceptable to the same magnitude abortion is supported as acceptable?
So, corruption is of equal magnitude to direct abortion?
I cannot follow your reasoning?
It seems you confuse proportionalism with proportionate reasons?The problem is that you are assuming that a reasonable distinction can be made on magnitude. The problem with such comparisons is that they must begin with the devaluation of human life.
Remember, we are the creation of a God who can and does love us each infinitely. We are incapable of such scale, but we are directly instructed to come as close as we can by loving others as we love ourselves. Valuing each and every human person as we valued our own, well loved, hide.
Part of the reason we appear to be instructed not to judge is we lack the capacity to view certain things on God’s scale. Let me give a personal example, in Vietnam I rendered medical aide to a battalion of Marines that saw over 90% KIA over a 4 year period. I read and counted 748 names (battalion strength is rougly 800) when I visited Washington with my daughter years ago, and that undoubted missed some. Still, I believe that it is the highest battalion mortality rate in USMC history.
In the numerical sense, 748 is virtually nothing when compared to the overall death count related to Vietnam. But just the small percentage of that 748 that I personally witnessed in a 20 month period was beyond my capacity to fully grasp or handle. I had to decouple myself from my humanity, part of my Christian self, just to function.
When I returned home I got a sad lesson in humanity and scale. A friend became one of the very last MIAs when the A-6 he was copiloting was shot down. Watching the effect of that single loss ripple through his family, his young wife, his new daughter, his mother driven to an early grave, and the fabric of his family torn apart, gave me a brief (albiet partial) glimpse into the true magnitude of suffering I had personally already witnessed.
Having gotten a glimpe of our evil acts on a truer scale, arguments about scope and magnitude strike me as utterly hollow. How can we meaningfully compare, say, 30 years of abortions to the holocaust and the 50 million lives lost world wide as a result of WW-II? Like the millions of Soviet POWs starved and tortued to death in just 18 months of that horrific piece of history, comparisons only work if we stop even pretending to multiply each loss by the love we hold for ourselves.
Just attempting that simple multiplication would tell us that we are talking about evils that are well beyond our capacity to understand, let alone meaningfully rank. So I have no intention of standing in judgement and arguing that my support of, say, modern slavery and forced aboritons in Saipan was offset by my desire to change secular law and possible reduce abortions (despite growing scientific evidence to the contrary).
Likewise, I am not going to embrace laws that allow euthansia be inflicted on the poorest among us. Comparing the number of deaths with any other grave, absolute evil would be to abandon the true nature of each individual act.
And I am not going to turn my back on hundreds of thousands of deaths, created poverty and desperation, and millions of Christian refugees because I can come up a with some form of creative accounting when comparing a “grave evil” (to quote Pope Benedict) to another horrific act.
The comparisons are doubly suspect to me because even in secular terms they are often quite dishonest. For example, Holocaust to 30 years of Roe is dishonest in that it compares two dramatically different time scales to get the desired result (the evil of the Holocaust was checked at a great cost to humanity). Likewise, when we trivialize things like active efforts to disenfranchise the poor and minorities in the democratic process we ignore that we are taling about undermining an entire system of governence that effects hundreds of millions of people.
Roughly 10,000,000 children starve to death around the world each year. If we argue that 10,000,000 is less important because 25,000,000 (possibly as high as 35,000,000) children are killed through aboriton then we are ignoring all the evidence that we have suggesting that there is a strong link between poverty and aboriton. Further, that secular laws, like all past prohibtiion efforts, have little or no measurable effect.
An honest accounting reaffirms the Church’s teaching that our Faith is not a collection of individual teachings, but a coherent and cohesive whole. Jesus’ instructions on the mount and on the plain are just as relevant to the problems that we face today as the problems we faced millenia ago.
When we embrace evil as a pragmatic means, we become evil. When we reject evil with every fiber of our being, as Jesus did, we move at least one small step closer to God.
How many innocent lives are we willing to sacrifice before we realize that democracy has been sacrificed along with them?One can always dream up scenarios where it would be appropriate ina given case to vote a single issue. I’m not against anyone voting a single issue, I merely raised what i consider a tension between doing so and one’s responsibilites in a representative democracy. If you don’t see the tension, then fine, you have no problem. I do.
About 1.2 million children are killed though legal abortion each year in the US. About 200,000 of those are not considered ‘direct’ abortions by many (most?) Catholics.So?
If abortion is literally the killing of (what is it now 40 million, 50 million, 60 million in the USA) innocent human lives, what other issue out there begins to compare with it?
Church teaching couldn’t be clearer. Some make it subservient to their political views. And that’s sad.It seems you confuse proportionalism with proportionate reasons?
I am not asking for a numbers game. I am saying that not every political issue is of the same moral magnitude.
Yes, I think it is clear. Applying it may be difficult.Church teaching couldn’t be clearer.
In a 2003 letter to the US Bishops’ Conference, then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in a bracketed afterthought: “When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”…
In his article, Bishop Galante writes: “Note that this does not mean simply weighing a wide range of issues against abortion and euthanasia and concluding that they cumulatively outweigh the evil of taking an innocent life. Rather, for there to be proportionate reasons, the voter would have to be convinced that the candidate who supports abortion rights would actually do more than the opposing candidate to limit the harm of abortion or to reduce the number of abortions.”
But your context was infallible teachings. They are all gravely immoral under our faith. You then asked if they were all occuring at the same magnitude.It seems you confuse proportionalism with proportionate reasons?
I am not asking for a numbers game. I am saying that not every political issue is of the same moral magnitude.
Assuming your figures are correct for the sake of argument, do you seriously propose there is a connection between deaths from abortion and refugees in Iraq?About 1.2 million children are killed though legal abortion each year in the US. About 200,000 of those are not considered ‘direct’ abortions by many (most?) Catholics.
No one disputes that abortion is a serious moral problem. But does the 1 million negate the suffering of the 4 million refugees in Iraq alone?
There is no valid, peer-reviewed study that shows a correlation between health insurance and access to health care.Or the 2.6 premature deaths related to poverty in the US (47,000,000 Americans have no health insurance, millions more are under insured).
Particularly since the Holy Grail of overturning Roe v. Wade does not have much in the way of evidence suggesting it would be effective. For example:Yes, I think it is clear. Applying it may be difficult.
I guess it can be difficult when trying to compare who would do the least harm with pro-abortion candidates but not difficult at all when we have pro-life candidate running against a pro-abortion candidate, you either vote for the pro-life candidate or you don’t vote. Or as an alternative you could vote for a third-party candidate or write in a candidate’s name. I’m not one to give a politician a free pass just because they’re poor a lot but there are no circumstances under which I will vote for a abortion candidateYes, I think it is clear. Applying it may be difficult.
The other fallacy is the idea that pro-abortion candidates would be better on these issues than those whose support life. It takes a lot of mental masturbation to rationalize voting for pro-abortion candidates while maintaining you are pro-life.Assuming your figures are correct for the sake of argument, do you seriously propose there is a connection between deaths from abortion and refugees in Iraq?
If we killed more children, would there be fewer refugees?
There is no valid, peer-reviewed study that shows a correlation between health insurance and access to health care.
No, what I am saying is that abortion is more important than how healthcare is funded, or whether we need certain social programs. Prudential issues are one thing. Killing innocent people is quite another.But your context was infallible teachings. They are all gravely immoral under our faith. You then asked if they were all occuring at the same magnitude.
No, that is not the issue. The issue is mischaracterizing the non negotiables. It is elevating prudential issues to dogma and attempting to bind conscience in a way the Church does not bind.I am saying that when non negotiable teachings are involved, proportional comparisons are meaningless. It is just the rationalization of embracing evil.
How does making political distinctions violate the value of each person?I am also saying that even making the comparisons involves rejecting the underlying premise of the teachings themselves. You cannot truly be pro-life in a Catholic sense unless you adopt the Catholic belief about the true value of each individual person.
Take torture and murder. We have several documented examples where we have tortured prisoners to death in Iraq. For example, a 50 year old man was bludgeoned to death in a sleeping bag and another suspect was tortured and then killed through crucifixion. Although the perpetrators are known, no charges or disciplinary actions were ever pursued.
Which candidate supports murder of prisoners?What is two deaths? But murder is an infallible teaching. Similiarly, there is an absolute prohibition on torture in Catholic Just War tradition. Encouraging torture, then thwarting justice makes them official acts of the state. The acts themselves also inspired more evil and violence. For example, the torture crucifixion body was stored at Abu Graihb where some guards were photographed with it in mocking poses. A picture of the man’s wife sitting next to their young son who, in turn, was holding the photo of the mocking young female US soldier and the body, was used as a recruiting tool for violent resistance against US forces. The protracted cover ups just made us collectively more complicent and led to more death, resentment, and violence…
Again, I fail to see the connection you assert?Further proof that the Church is right, accepting evil, even on a small scale supposedly for greater good, is a false path which just leads to more evil.