So why is the Catholic church so political these days

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kmcicco2000
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Is it that the Church has suddenly become political, or is it that politics has invaded everything?

Many moral issues are also issues on which political parties have taken stands. If you’re against abortion or in favor of helping migrants, are you taking moral stands or political positions?
 
How do you know that? I believe how you go about choosing whom to vote will factor in at your judgement. And people do show love via their voting too.
 
It’s not as political in other countries. In the UK it’s a real mix with people all over the spectrum.
 
It’s a mix in US too. The conservatives tend to dominate Internet forums, but there are tons of liberals and moderates if you just talk to a cross section of folks.
 
I wonder if those sorts tend to keep quiet to avoid an ear bashing from the right wing conservstives.
 
I’m not anti-American although if I were to move to the states this is something I would probably find difficult as I’m pretty left wing for a Brit.
 
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This is pretty specific to the U.S. and the current political climate. I remember it was starting to get worse over time, like Catholics starting to become divided over George W. Bush. I can imagine it’s much worse now since I moved away.

The relationship between politics and religion in other places is very different, especially in Europe and the U.K. I regularly attend a pretty traditional church and talking to the priests there who are traditional but they do not get into politics at all. They will be very critical of the secularization of Europe and the direction society is going in but they don’t comment on parties or politicians. I didn’t even see anything said about Brexit, just general petitions and prayers for God’s guidance in the prayers of the faithful. Whenever I’ve been involved in church activities here I don’t recall politics being discussed at all among parishioners.
 
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Even that is variable.
Facebook denizens are overwhelmingly liberal.
At least in my friends list
 
Most parish priests in USA try to stay out of political discussions of candidates, how to vote etc for legal reasons. However, if they have a huge group of a certain demographic, like recent immigrants, in their parish, then they tend to be friendly to their political issues.
The priests from certain orders like Jesuits tend to be much more outspoken and activist.

When I grew up, many if not most of the younger priests and religious were big activists. Most of them also seem to have left the religious life. The ones I know who are still priests and sisters from that generation are still big activists.
 
My Facebook f list is almost all liberals too, but that’s primarily because I friend almost exclusively people involved with music and arts. If I wanted to friend 100 Trump supporters, they’d be easy to find.
 
I would guess that my list is probably about roughly split, but the liberals tend to be more vocal.
And I rarely post. I use it more as a means for group chat and private message.
 
When it comes to the Church, I’m getting real confused. Fr. Heilman has one post up defending conservatism and in the next post he’s quoting Blessed soon-to-be Saint Oscar Romero.
 
I think it’s because things that were universally considered to be moral truth, have now become questioned or disregarded in certain circles. The moral integrity of our society is degrading. Bill Clinton opened the door for it to be okay for a president to be unfaithful to his wife. Trump is making it okay to lie on a daily basis. I think the other issue is when people align with a political ideology and make their faith follow suit, instead of the other way around. I am neither Democrat or Republican. I can’t follow either one. They both have serious moral flaws.
 
To badly quote gk Chesterton, I only talk about religion and politics. Nothing else matters
 
Kmcicco2000 said:
remember when it wasn’t. In the 90’s i belonged to a church group for years. We never talked politics. We met every 2 weeks and talked about the readings for the upcoming week. Whoever’s turn it was would write discussion questions about how to apply the readings to our own lives. I don’t even know who was Republican and who was Democrat. Miss these times
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Well, the Democrats have caved to the culture of death and openly support intrinsic evils as a matter of public policy. This will lead to divisions and members of the Church taking sides.
 
I think it happened when society turned moral issues into political issues. The issues of abortion, euthanasia, same sex marriage are now conflated with political issues rather than moral ones to a surprising number of people.
 
I don’t know. I see slavery as a moral issue but to many in the Civil War, it was a political and economic issue. I think the there has always been an overlap.
 
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