"Social Justice" vs. the Sanctity of Life

[Hereiam]

I’ll restate it: Prolife encompasses more than just probirth. Pope Francis, also has been very clear on this.

 

[gcshapero]

I’m totally in agreement with you – but would you say that, for example, joblessness is just as egregious as murder?

 

[Hereiam]

My post had nothing to do which was more egregious.

Rather it had to do with the how a prolife stance encompasses the sanctity and dignity of all stages of human life, from the womb to the tomb.

My own thoughts are that their are souls in Hell saying to each other, “My mortal sin was not as bad as yours, and here I am!”

 

[gcshapero]

I am in full agreement that life, from womb to tomb, is equally precious. I don’t mean this facetiously, but I’d recommend going through the discussion in here. The concern addressed is more confusing prudential matters that are not intrinsically evil (like lack of healthcare, gun control, immigration issues) vs. magisterial matters like abortion, euthanasia, or the sanctity of marriage.

Jack may support strong gun bans, while Jill supports legal gun ownership. Both believe each position will save more lives are equally value lives, but simply differ on how this value can be achieved. This is a prudential subject.

However, Jack supports abortion while Jill doesn’t. There is no argument for Jack’s case that it will value life because his position is in direct opposition to it and proposes murder. This is a magisterial matter because it violate direct divine law. That’s an example of the subject we’re discussing.

 

[Maximilian75]

We built the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas.

Don’t doubt the US

 

[gcshapero]

Hey folks, let’s stay on track. I know we all have our own opinions on immigration. It’s a good conversation, but it’s not the focal point of this one. It was used as an example – I think we’re getting off topic a bit much.

 

[Hereiam]

You’re mixing apples and oranges…perhaps to make a complex issue easy.

In the reality of the sanctity of life, both Jack and Jill are not fully committed, or on board…its not a Chinese Menu, you can’t pick one item from column A and another from column B.

Jack and Jill, because they are not all in, quite simply, are both out…and either claiming to be pro-life, because it is a non-negotiable proposition, are out.

 

[gcshapero]

That’s my point – you cannot pick and choose magisterial matters. We are either Catholic or we are not.

However, with matters that are NOT magisterial, we can disagree and still remain in good standing with the Church. Two Catholics who disagree on how to address gun violence (with more ownership or less ownership) are still in good standing. The Church doesn’t take an official dogmatic role on whether we should or should not legislate for more or less guns. But a Catholics who believes same-sex marriage is OK or that abortion is acceptable is not in good standing.

If a Catholic says “You don’t support more gun ownership? You aren’t really pro-life because more people will die,” is just as erroneous as saying “You don’t support banning more guns? You aren’t really pro-life because more people will die.” Of course one is a better option than an other, but the Church holds no direct position on this because it’s not a divine matter.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I suspect this priest’s focus on open boarders, for which I don’t believe he is advocating literally no boarder control, might be about the matter of our sense of material wealth and even safety. Why do maybe 20% of the world’s population control maybe 80-90% of the world’s wealth and power?

For the most part because 80-90% of the world’s population is governed by thieves.

 

[PetraG]

Well, as our Peace and Social Justice group liked to say, “If babies had guns, they wouldn’t be aborted!”

If you think about that in a way that is even remotely literal, that’s truly disturbing.

For the most part because 80-90% of the world’s population is governed by thieves.

How did you arrive at that number, pray tell?
I’ll just say if it is the rest of the world who are the thieves, they are gross amateurs at it.

We built the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas.

Don’t doubt the US

Hoover Dam and Las Vegas, LOL…please tell me you did mean that as a joke.

I’m totally in agreement with you – but would you say that, for example, joblessness is just as egregious as murder?

Well, no one would give someone a job as a hitman in order to keep the poor fellow from being unemployed. What is your point, though?

This is not a problem with the Church, but rather with the American 2 party political system forcing Catholics to choose between the lesser of two evils.

I cannot shake the impression that both political parties have some candidates and elected officials being very cynical about putting voters in this position. They are recalcitrant on one set of matters but try to pretend they have the moral high road because they say the right things about the other set of matters. After the elections, with some of them (the ones I would call cynical), the more they held up a matter as their moral high ground the lower it goes on their priority list.

 

[Maximilian75]

What? Both major multimillion construction projects in the middle of the desert.

 

[gcshapero]

Well, no one would give someone a job as a hitman in order to keep the poor fellow from being unemployed. What is your point, though?

I used this analogy because it was precisely what Cdl. Cupich and many others have said comparing things that aren’t intrinsically evil or magisterial to things that ARE intrinsically evil and magisterial.

Cdl. Cupich wrote for the Chicago Tribune:
“While commerce in the remains of defenseless children is particularly repulsive, we should be no less appalled by the indifference toward the thousands of people who die daily for lack of decent medical care; who are denied rights by a broken immigration system and by racism; who suffer in hunger, joblessness and want; who pay the price of violence in gun-saturated neighborhoods; or who are executed by the state in the name of justice.”

By no means would I say “abortion is more important, so let’s not even concern ourselves with those without a job,” – that would be drawing a false dichotomy. But of course one is worse than the other. We don’t treat a scrape from tripping and a stab wound from an attacker as the same.

 

[PetraG]

Anyone who tries to tell someone that they cannot both oppose abortion and also support health care for the least of our brothers and sisters is trying to gaslight with a false dichotomy. Can it be difficult to for any candidate who both opposes abortion and supports care for the destitute to gain political traction? Heaven help this nation of Christians, but yes it is. Well, we weren’t given absolute power by Providence. We’re left with casting our votes the best we can and then whoever wins pressing the public officials like Our Lord’s persistent widow pressed her case. Even the callous can be won over by persistence.

 

[gcshapero]

With all due respect, you’re missing the point. Of course Catholics should care for those who, for example, don’t have healthcare. However, one Catholic may support one way of having it provided while another may support another way.

This doesn’t now mean one is a better Catholic than another – HOW healthcare is implemented is not magisterial teaching.

 

[PetraG]

With all due respect, you’re missing the point. Of course Catholics should care for those who, for example, don’t have healthcare. However, one Catholic may support one way of having it provided while another may support another way.

This doesn’t now mean one is a better Catholic than another – HOW healthcare is implemented is not magisterial teaching.

What is this alternative way to broadly provide decent medical care that is being proposed? You are right that it is totally fine and maybe necessary to say, “let’s do this a different way.” If we’re going to shoot down one way to do a necessary thing, though, then we are duty-bound to come up with something better.

 

[gcshapero]

The way that I prefer healthcare to be implemented and how it can best benefit everyone is not really the subject at hand. The subject at hand is recognizing official Catholic teaching based on a dogmatic subject from a practical approach to something that isn’t official within the Church, but it being treated as official Catholic, magisterial teaching. And if it is being taught that way, consequences being that official Catholic teachings get violated.

Here’s another example.
Joe is Catholic. Joe supports welfare for certain people who are in need. Joe sees Sen. X running. Sen. X supports welfare for certain people who are in need. Sen. X also supports abortion, euthanasia, public funding for contraception, and same-sex marriage. Joe gives his vote to Sen. X because even though he doesn’t support those other things, Sen. X supports the welfare part. Joe has now voted for things that specifically go against Catholic teaching, but Joe feels it’s OK because that’s not WHY he voted for Sen. X.

 

[SuperLuigi]

For example: if a priest continues to push for gun control and open boarder policies for immigration (two subjects often supported by Liberal parties), could Catholics misinterpret these as being magisterial and therefore on the same level of importance as abortion or the sanctity of marriage? And if they do, could it lead to more Catholics voting in favor of abortion and same-sex marriage – even if it is indirect?

Catholics already do misinterpret them. They do it in many cases to keep voting for liberals and sometimes the reasons are very selfish as they really just trying to impress their “friends” or their liberal relatives. You’ll notice how this is often a one-way street.

A lot of Catholics already are fine with abortion or so-called gay “marriage” because as you can clearly see in this leadership example you provided, Catholics no longer lead a global culture but instead have ridden a wave of Protestant arguments from authority that are no match for today’s mass information secular society. Today, some Catholics just follow the post-modern flavour of the month—whether its immigration, gun control or social justice.

It would be different if Catholics were leading the charge, but we’re not. In fact a lot of Catholics and Catholics don’t have a clue what is going on in the culture. That’s how we got abortion and so-called gay “marriage” throughout a good chunk of the West. Not to mention the arrogance of the Church for not reaching to GLBTQ folks before the post-modernists made them into another group to be victims.

Is there a line to be drawn? Could clerics blurring the lines lead to more deaths of the unborn and more souls being lost to Satan

It already has. I would point that Pope Francis, whom may think should be blinded followed because their left-wing media says he’s liberal, directly said that to put the environment on the same moral as abortion is an aberration.

I would also add that a lot of Catholics who talk about wanting to help immigrants don’t have Clue Uno as to what is really going on. In Germany refugee girls whom the left supposedly cares so much about sleep in jeans and sweaters to avoid being sexually assaulted. In Italy Sicilian and African mafia groups are having field day and West African girls are being trafficked. We are also seeing a return of the organized African chattel slave trade in the Mediterranean. But you don’t hear about that on the 5 PM news; all you hear about is what Donald Trump tweeted and what sad little soul it offended or Russia, Russia, Russia.

 

[gcshapero]

I agree entirely.

 

[PetraG]

Joe is Catholic. Joe supports welfare for certain people who are in need. Joe sees Sen. X running. Sen. X supports welfare for certain people who are in need. Sen. X also supports abortion, euthanasia, public funding for contraception, and same-sex marriage. Joe gives his vote to Sen. X because even though he doesn’t support those other things, Sen. X supports the welfare part. Joe has now voted for things that specifically go against Catholic teaching, but Joe feels it’s OK because that’s not WHY he voted for Sen. X.

I think the question is (a) whether, if elected, Mr. X would give material support to procuring abortions and, if that is not likely then (b) whether, if elected, there is any chance whatsoever that Mr. X is going to change his stance and quit normalizing an egregious state of affairs.

When deciding these things, one has to be practical. What is the chance that either of two less-than-satisfactory candidates is going to change? What sort of harm is likely to be done if they don’t? Is there a possibility that a societal ill could be tended in a different way in the meantime? And so on.

It isn’t just abortion-vs-feeding-the-poor. It is also, “we can get the poor fed without the government while they dink around about making society more just, but we cannot do anything for the children, if the government does not act to recognize their rights.” Voting is about what you believe the candidates are actually going to do and what is actually going to happen after they are elected. If someone says they oppose abortion but their track record says they are going to do next-to-nothing to stop it, then that weighs less in their favor. If someone says they are pro-abortion but are in actuality not a supporter, then weighing what they actually do takes a bit different weight.

We can’t make this a matter of “write the right thing in your pamphlet, and you can cynically put our vote in your pocket.” If that is the way it works, that is what they will do…that is, they will be anti-abortion in such an impotent way that it doesn’t offend any of their pro-choice supporters who have other fish to fry, such as perpetuating injustices having to do with the poor in order to enhance their own wealth. When that happens, no child is saved, the culture does not change–and in fact opposition to abortion is scandalously associated with disdain for the plight of the poor!–and the poor go without on top of it.

Really, I have voted for write-ins that have no chance of winning because I feel my vote is supporting a cynical and really scandalous status quo. The people in politics can count votes. If there is enough discontent registered, maybe someone will say, “hey, you know, maybe we have enough supporters that we do not have to force them into this false dichotomy.” Really…why should two tenets of Christian morality be constantly at odds? Why shouldn’t a third party be encouraged? How is this situation ever going to change, if we keep voting as if these two parties are going to be the only game in town for the rest of political history?

 

[Vonsalza]

Well, the souls of the unborn go to God, IMO.

Additionally, all of these issues play into the same issue- The inherent dignity of the human person from conception to natural death.

This is not a problem with the Church, but rather with the American 2 party political system forcing Catholics to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Yes! Yes! Yes!