Should there be a new political party based on Catholic Social Doctrine and Pro-Life Doctrine?

[TheRealJuliane]

The current problem is too much thinking about other things than the message of Jesus Christ and acting on it.

I do not find the state has “meddled” in my Church or is trying to.

What about Obamacare?

 

[Julia_Mae]

Who are these people “who die because they lack the financial means of necessary medical treatment?” .

Living under overpasses in a city near you. Also in cheap housing and shelters.

In the United States, people die from dental problems. (That’s personal witness, so don’t ask me for a link.)

 

[Julia_Mae]

What about Obamacare?

You need to start a thread if you want to discuss it so this one is not derailed. It doesn’t interfere with the Catholic Church in America or any other religion as far as I can see.

If you start a thread, please include the language from The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that you think does.

 

[Filii_Dei]

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes, but it needs to be accompanied it with the necessary structural changes in the political system, such as an electoral system that is not biased towards fulfilling Duverger’s law. Catholics need to stand up for their own values and morals, and stop letting their views be shaped by party agendas and their associated organisations (media, ‘grassroots’, lobbyists, et cetera).

 

[St_Francis]

The current problem is too much thinking about other things than the message of Jesus Christ and acting on it.

I do not find the state has “meddled” in my Church or is trying to.

I don’t know wher you live, but in the US, the government wants Catholics to pay for abortifacient drugs.

 

[St_Francis]

Living under overpasses in a city near you. Also in cheap housing and shelters.

In the United States, people die from dental problems. (That’s personal witness, so don’t ask me for a link.)

Sounds like there is room here for someone to organize a clinic like this one in DC,

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

Pope Benedict on non negotiables

Pope Benedict spoke to the European People’s Party in a speech March 2006, said, ‘as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable.’

2007 in Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis the Pope said of the ‘not negotiable’ values as being of key concern to politics, ‘respect for human life, its defence from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one’s children and the promotion of the common good in all its forms.’

2011 Pope Benedict said, ‘no one can claim to speak ‘officially’ in the name of the entire lay faithful, or of all Catholics, in matters freely open to discussion. On the other hand, all Catholics, and indeed all men and women, are called to act with purified consciences and generous hearts in resolutely promoting those values which I have often referred to as ‘non-negotiable’.’

2004 letter to the US Bishops on Catholic politicians and Communion then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote, ‘while the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment… 'there may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.’

Thank you. I learned from that.

Yet, Pope Benedict XVI has written three encyclicals so far, and none of them have been focused on Catholic Pro-Life Doctrine, and two of them did focus on Catholic Social Doctrine: Caritas in veritate (June 29, 2009), and Deus caritas est (December 25, 2005).

Therefore, Catholic Social Doctrine must be viewed as important to Pope Benedict too. If it was insignificant in the face of ongoing horrors of abortion, why would he write two and publish two encyclicals about Catholic Social Doctrine and none about Catholic Pro-Life Doctrine. That seems like a valid consideration.

My view it that when Catholics are required to be “split,” required to support leaders to spit on Catholic Social Doctrine in order to fight abortion, the end result is that no progress is made on ending abortion or in promoting greater social justice. When the Powers-That-Be (or either the left or the right) force us Catholics to be “split,” they compromise us and manipulate us and use us, and continue on down the path of pursing the Mammon Agenda (right wingers) or the Golden Calf Agenda (left wingers). The agenda of God is tossed aside.

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

The problem with the premise of this thread is that it is based on a invalid assumption. The fact is that even in a perfect world there could never be a Catholic political party because, as far as the social teachings are concerned, the solutions represent prudential choices. The Church tells us that abortion is wrong in all circumstances but she does not tell us anything about the minimum wage.

Forgive me for disagreeing, but the popes and the bishops have written a lot about the need to provide workers with a Just Wage and that the government can have a legitimate in making sure that workers get a Just Wage.

 

[kellerk]

Come on guys, get back to the Word! We should say the serenity prayer.

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

I think that it’s difficult to find any candidate who supports Catholic moral priorities for a healthy society while not also worshipping corporations. Neither party does a good job of that. The symbiotic relationship among the financial system, lobbyists, Congress, and political campaigns is very corrupt, in my view, and feeds into maintaining the status quo as far as corporate power goes. I.m.o., the unbridled capitalism in this country – including the greed, the corruption, the fraud, the manipulation of the stock market (still operative long after the '08 meltdown), the relationship between U.S. corporations and the international monetary power brokers is very, very un-gospel. It most certainly does not affect only certain classes of people or certain origins of people, but all of American society, including the middle class.

I applaud your statement.

My basic view builds on what you’ve said.

I perceive that many professedly pro-life elected officials or wannabe elected officials are actually tricksters who don’t care one bit about abortion one way or the other, but have figured out how (or were coached by consultants) to use the issue of abortion to get into office so they can do and get what they really do care about.

Quite a few people who’ve worked in the White House and in political organizations have written memoirs in which they reveal their disenchantment and shock at what was discussed and decided. So I think the evidence for this view is there if anyone wishes to seek it out.

The real issue, to me, is how are we ever going to end this ongoing abortion Holocaust? What we’ve been doing since 1973 clearly has NOT been working. More of the same seem unlikely to work. We must find a peaceful solution that works. The bloodletting is going on and on and on. We can’t just keep waiting for one party to finally deliver the end of this monstrous murderous rampage. If we just keep waiting, then are we really pro-life at all? Can we really let this go on another 40 years? Is that really acceptable?

Those babies being murdered in abortion are our brothers and sisters, and they are screaming out for us to save them and stop the brutality. Can we keep trusting politicians who, election cycle after election cycle say, “Vote for me, and I’ll end abortion”? They never do it, and they never even act like it is really much of a priority for them. I just think we should do something different.

 

[St_Francis]

I applaud your statement.

My basic view builds on what you’ve said.

I perceive that many professedly pro-life elected officials or wannabe elected officials are actually tricksters who don’t care one bit about abortion one way or the other, but have figured out how (or were coached by consultants) to use the issue of abortion to get into office so they can do and get what they really do care about.

Quite a few people who’ve worked in the White House and in political organizations have written memoirs in which they reveal their disenchantment and shock at what was discussed and decided. So I think the evidence for this view is there if anyone wishes to seek it out.

The real issue, to me, is how are we ever going to end this ongoing abortion Holocaust? What we’ve been doing since 1973 clearly has NOT been working. More of the same seem unlikely to work. We must find a peaceful solution that works. The bloodletting is going on and on and on. We can’t just keep waiting for one party to finally deliver the end of this monstrous murderous rampage. If we just keep waiting, then are we really pro-life at all? Can we really let this go on another 40 years? Is that really acceptable?

Those babies being murdered in abortion are our brothers and sisters, and they are screaming out for us to save them and stop the brutality. Can we keep trusting politicians who, election cycle after election cycle say, “Vote for me, and I’ll end abortion”? They never do it, and they never even act like it is really much of a priority for them. I just think we should do something different.

Like start another political party?

I have thought for several election cycles that a new party would appear on the right and split the Republicans into New Party members or to their rightful Democrat party membership.

While people complain about the lack of progress wrt abortion, progress has actually been made. We now have more laws restricting access to abortion than ever before, but more importantly, we have more people in this nation who are against abortion, to at least some extent, than ever before. This is fertile ground on which to plant more education about what abortion really is.

As to the social justice issues… I distrust people who say they are on the side of the little guy but who defend abortion? I look at what has happened in this country (US) since the War on Poverty started, and it seems like all that’s happened is *trillions *spent with no or *worsening *results.

As I have learned more about Catholic social justice, I have changed my political views, but in a more wholistic way. Rather than seeing a need to run and get the government to tax us more and do more, I see much more the need for *us *to do more. Giving people in need money is *insufficient. *People in need need more than a few hundred dollars a month. They need a society which values them as more than economic or political units.

I’ve written about this before, but here goes again: before the Protestant Revolt led the people in charge (kings, princes, etc) to dissolve the monasteries and convents which had provided the “social safety net,” we had people who were more wholistically helping those in need *for the love of God. *The religious engaged in this work had given themselves to it, and those who were helped knew that they were valued as human beings.

Now, I’m not saying that everything was perfect, but it was a system which engendered virtue rather than vice. It was very *human. *Now we have bureaucrats who take the job because of the job security, who are overwhelmed with work, and the whole set-up is like a factory, including production quotas.

Do you not think that a situation which ensures the needy are housed and fed but which *promotes vice *indicates a problem? Doesn’t that make you suspociois?

 

[jeannetherese]

Re post 48 “I do wish, however, that fully-assembled and breathing human beings were given an equal priority of keeping alive relative to embryos and fetuses.
I mean, of course, those who are killed by the death penalty or armed violence, or those who die because they lack the financial means of necessary medical treatment.”

The notion of value being tied to stage of ‘assembly’ has been consistantly challenged by many who are committed to defending life. Privileging those who ar fully assembled seems to exclude those marginalized by birth defects or injury. Biologicaly, at the point of conception, the human being is complete.

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

Like start another political party?

Yes, exactly. We should do something different that seems like it might really end the abortion holocaust in a year or two. We should be willing to look at any option, so long as it is nonviolent, and done in the spirit of love for God and love for neighbor. We should act like a gigantic, horrible, murderous, cursed, filthy CRIME AGAINST GOD and MAN is occurring on a massive scale in the USA and in the Western nations as a whole. We shouldn’t be so happy, content, placid, and sanguine.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Thank you. I learned from that.

Yet, Pope Benedict XVI has written three encyclicals so far, and none of them have been focused on Catholic Pro-Life Doctrine, and two of them did focus on Catholic Social Doctrine: Caritas in veritate (June 29, 2009), and Deus caritas est (December 25, 2005).

Therefore, Catholic Social Doctrine must be viewed as important to Pope Benedict too. If it was insignificant in the face of ongoing horrors of abortion, why would he write two and publish two encyclicals about Catholic Social Doctrine and none about Catholic Pro-Life Doctrine. That seems like a valid consideration.

My view it that when Catholics are required to be “split,” required to support leaders to spit on Catholic Social Doctrine in order to fight abortion, the end result is that no progress is made on ending abortion or in promoting greater social justice. When the Powers-That-Be (or either the left or the right) force us Catholics to be “split,” they compromise us and manipulate us and use us, and continue on down the path of pursing the Mammon Agenda (right wingers) or the Golden Calf Agenda (left wingers). The agenda of God is tossed aside.

Catholics are split politically all their own without much help from with the Republican party or the Democrat party because there are many Catholics who do not go to Church regularly, are not formed in the Catholic faith etc. they tend to vote Democrat. More religious Catholics tend to vote Republican.

 

[St_Francis]

Yes, exactly. We should do something different that seems like it might really end the abortion holocaust in a year or two. We should be willing to look at any option, so long as it is nonviolent, and done in the spirit of love for God and love for neighbor. We should act like a gigantic, horrible, murderous, cursed, filthy CRIME AGAINST GOD and MAN is occurring on a massive scale in the USA and in the Western nations as a whole. We shouldn’t be so happy, content, placid, and sanguine.

I was on the side of those who wanted to immediately excommunicate Catholic politicians who supported abortion… til I was explaining this to someone and realized that if we do what we can and we pray a lot, then God can do what needs to be done, and it will rebound more greatly to His glory!

So the most important thing we can do is to pray. Each and every one of us should do this, and we should pray for conversion as well as an end to legal abortion. But only some of us are in a position to do other things, like pray at abortion clinics and talk with people.

God had Joshua go to war with only 30 men so that the victory would be clearly God’s. Imagine how much the men left behind were praying! And this is what we should do. We should not go nuts and get angry; we have to be calm and patient so God can do His work.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Re post 48 **“I do wish, however, that fully-assembled and breathing human beings were given an equal priority **of keeping alive relative to embryos and fetuses.
I mean, of course, those who are killed by the death penalty or armed violence, or those who die because they lack the financial means of necessary medical treatment.”

The notion of value being tied to stage of ‘assembly’ has been consistantly challenged by many who are committed to defending life. **Privileging those who ar fully assembled seems to exclude ** those marginalized by birth defects or injury. Biologicaly, at the point of conception, the human being is complete.

Equal priority. Equal does not mean “privileged.” When “right to life” also means “right to live,” and there is the same amount of hype to keep the 25,000 people who starve to death each day alive, then we’ll see that the concern for all human life is equal.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Equal priority. Equal does not mean “privileged.” When “right to life” also means “right to live,” and there is the same amount of hype to keep the 25,000 people who starve to death each day alive, then we’ll see that the concern for all human life is equal.

I cannot believe you are seriously equating the abortion, the murder of an innocent baby who has never drawn a breath, to someone who is alive but can’t figure out a way to get food.

25,000 people starve to death every day? Where are these people? In countries torn by tribal and civil war, where food aid cannot get to them, I’ll wager. It’s not for lack of trying, but some humanitarian aid can’t overcome corruption and war in the country. We can only do so much to reach hungry people in other countries. It’s not like China will let us adopt the babies who are left to die by the side of the road. It’s not like we can keep the savages in the Sudan from slaughtering each other.

If anyone starves in THIS country, it’s because they are too lazy to get off their arses and go apply for food stamps and welfare, or go to a food bank for assistance. Heck, you can dumpster dive and stay quite healthy in the US!

 

[Filii_Dei]

25,000 people starve to death every day? Where are these people? In countries torn by tribal and civil war, where food aid cannot get to them, I’ll wager.

Many of these countries are not fighting any current wars.

It’s not for lack of trying, but some humanitarian aid can’t overcome corruption and war in the country. We can only do so much to reach hungry people in other countries.

Don’t mind me, but as somebody who has embarked upon a humanitarian trip in such a country before, I believe you are simply speculating. Corruption and war is not a impediment to aid. It makes effective aid difficult, but still possible. You just have to be willing to follow through on the aid shipments beyond just giving it to the incompetent government and expect them to distribute it fairly.

It’s not like China will let us adopt the babies who are left to die by the side of the road. It’s not like we can keep the savages in the Sudan from slaughtering each other.!

This is not the hope and perseverance that God has taught us to practice. To give up simply because we complain that it is “too difficult”? I don’t believe this is what you’re intend to put forward, but that’s how it appears to me.

We should be doing both saving the born and unborn, for crying out loud, not either. Don’t listen to those politicians who only care about one and spit on the other. Good Catholic sense should be the rule, not party agendas.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

I’ll add torture to Party “A” and excessive taxation to Party “B”.

Oh the list could get quite long. By the by. Could you define “torture”, and “excessive”.

ATB

 

[GEddie]

Nope. Many of these countries are not fighting any current wars.

Don’t mind me, but as somebody who has embarked upon a humanitarian trip in such a country before, you’re just speculating. Corruption is not a impediment to aid. It makes effective aid difficult, but still possible. You just have to be willing to follow through on the aid shipments beyond just giving it to the incompetent government and expect them to distribute it fairly. Only a fool of an NGO would do such a thing.

And it’s not like the Democrats will let us stop abortions. Can you see where this line of argument is going?

Is this it? Is this the hope and perseverance that God has taught us to practice? To give up simply because we complain that it is “too difficult”? Oh, joy. One wonders how we ever won the war.

By the way, the ‘savages’ include fellow Christians on the side of South Sudan. I suppose they’re ‘savages’ too?

We should be doing both saving the born and unborn, for crying out loud, not either. Don’t listen to those politicians who only care about one and spit on the other. Good Catholic sense should be the rule, not party agendas.

Savage is as savage does.

I am not familiar with the Sudanese war so I won’t say anything about it. But those who drop the name of our LORD are just as capable of savagery as anybody else. It’s in the genetic material of these animal bodies.

ICXC NIKA