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Luigi_Daniele
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Google it. And see Ridge’s post above yours. I will grant you that Stupac and Co. could have just been monumentally stupid.
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qui_est_ce
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Very astute post.
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CMatt25
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Thank youThank you, CMatt.
By the way, I’m a long time admirer of your posts.
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CMatt25
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What would happen if the Church did actually say who Catholics could or could not vote for?Do you think it would specifically say ‘Do not vote for Obama’ in the Magisterium or elsewhere in Catholic teaching? I don’t think it is legal for the Catholic Church to specifically say who or who not to vote for
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rlg94086
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My guess is that the same Catholics who ignore the Magisterium’s guidance when it comes to voting would ignore the Magisterium if they gave a specific answer.
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captainmike
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every day at noon, the names of 3,000 americans are randomly chosen. the people whose names are chosen are summarily executed. this happens each day, every day, without end. everybody has lost family members and friends to the slaughter.
one political party promises to stop the killing.
the other party does everything it can to keep the killing going. but it does lots of other good things, such as helping the poor, making sure our air is really clean, giving us mass transit, etc., etc.
which party would you support? anybody who says they wouldn’t support the party that promises to stop the killing can’t be taken seriously.
anybody who tries to distinguish my hypothetical from abortion is not, i submit, taking seriously what our church teaches on abortion. if we really believe what our church teaches about abortion–i.e., that it is the taking of innocent human life–then we must vote for the party that will stop it. until we stop the slaughter, nothing else matters.
one political party promises to stop the killing.
the other party does everything it can to keep the killing going. but it does lots of other good things, such as helping the poor, making sure our air is really clean, giving us mass transit, etc., etc.
which party would you support? anybody who says they wouldn’t support the party that promises to stop the killing can’t be taken seriously.
anybody who tries to distinguish my hypothetical from abortion is not, i submit, taking seriously what our church teaches on abortion. if we really believe what our church teaches about abortion–i.e., that it is the taking of innocent human life–then we must vote for the party that will stop it. until we stop the slaughter, nothing else matters.
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Scott_Lafrance
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Executive Orders are ALWAYS trumped by statutory law. If the Executive Order was ever challenged as being in conflict with the wording of the Law as written, the SCOTUS will opine in favor of the Law every time. Its called separation of powers. It right there in the Constitution.
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CMatt25
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Abyssinia said she thinks it is illegal for the Church to do so. So what I was asking was what would be the consequences to the Church if She told Catholics they could or could not vote for a candidate like Barack Obama? Not your guess in regards to what individual Catholics might or might not ignore.
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CMatt25
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Concerned, yes the pro pedophila question was I think a first for me. But sometimes they’ll try to link the Holocaust or ask if you would be pro slavery too. But I think an orange is still orange the last I checked and apples are not. Peace.
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colmywaykurtz
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I did, and I read about the Kagan-Tribe email (’ Tribe stated, “And with the Stupak group accepting the magic of what amounts to a signing statement on steroids!” '). Admittedly, that story is all over the internet, repeated verbatim endlessly.
Then I actually read the Executive Order itself whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-patient-protection-and-affordable-care-acts-consistency-with-longst
While it is true that signing statements and executive orders don’t amount to new legislation, they certainly don’t have the power to detract from existing legislation, either—especially when they explicitly reaffirm the existing legislation. Such would be the case, I would say, with regard to Executive Order 13535 vis a vis the Hyde Amendment, as well as Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. 300a-7, and the Weldon Amendment, section 508(d)(1) of Public Law 111-8). Section 3 also sets forth such restrictions with regard to community health centers.
This non-mitigating quality of the executive order upon existing law is especially apparent when you consider that Section 4, Item B of this executive order explicitly points out that it is subject to the limitations of “existing appropriations.” A built-in, self-apparent failsafe, in other words, should Congress (currently under Republican control) find it necessary to suspend implementation.
Absent the enabling factor of appropriations for this executive order, the previously-reaffirmed provisions of the Hyde, Church, and Weldon amendments would continue in effect by default. There’s nothing in this executive order OR in the Affordable Care Act that supersedes or negates these previous laws. This sounds to me like a pretty iron-clad way to ensure the continuity of existing legal provisions.
So, my conclusions about the validity and effectiveness of what this executive order aims to achieve have to differ from yours and Ridgemaster’s.
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ConcernedApathy
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Honestly, I was thunderstruck. Not simply because such a baffling link was trying to be advanced but then to have it parroted by so many others as though it were a legitimate question. It was a rhetorical H bomb, dropped to make rational discussion scatter and for the most part it worked.
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rlg94086
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The point, which liberals never get, is that abortion is just as awful (worse, in the case of slavery and pedophilia) as those other things. Your shock is due to the fact that you are morally numb to the taking of an innocent life. If you ever were to actually wake up and see abortion for the horror it is, you wouldn’t cavalierly shrug and say “it’s a personal, private decision.”
I pray that you eventually have the same epiphany I did and understand that making it illegal is a logical conclusion…it’s the only moral conclusion one can make.
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rlg94086
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Ah, you don’t care how Catholics would react. Why would you?
From a governmental standpoint, they would lose their tax exempt status. That is all, and it is only because of the perversion of the first amendment by secularists. We have freedom of speech and religion, so it isn’t illegal for a Church to direct her adherents in things political.
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CMatt25
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Saying liberals “never” is painting with a rather broad brush. I’ve seen some right here on this thread, including some Catholics, saying they believe abortion is wrong but have other reasons for voting for Obama. Or other liberals might personally believe abortion is wrong but perhaps on this issue take an approach on the order of the first and thus far only Catholic POTUS when it comes to public policy:
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote…
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials…
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal… where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division…
That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office…
I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment’s guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test…
This is the kind of America I believe in, and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe… And in fact ,this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died, when they fled here to escape religious test oaths…
I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.
Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates."
John F Kennedy
npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600
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CMatt25
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Well if that is all, then if it were true that faithful Catholics are not allowed to vote for Barack Obama or other Democratic Party candidates sharing his views, I have a hard time believing Christ’s Church would withhold that truth and not come out and clearly say “You must vote for the GOP nominee and can not vote for Barack Obama” just to avoid paying taxes.
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rlg94086
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A) What does Kennedy’s quote have to do with abortion - the killing of innocent human life?
B) Kennedy’s attitude toward the Church is classic liberal. He believed in the false understanding of conscience - that an Catholic’s properly formed conscience can be at odds with the Church on dogmatic teaching. The idea that a Catholic, or anyone for that matter, can individually decide that killing an innocent human being is acceptable is abhorrent.
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ishii
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Here is what you’re saying, Cmatt:
“Yes, I believe pedophilia is wrong too. But we need to understand that others have different beliefs and not everyone thinks pedophilia is bad. We live in a pluralistic democracy. So I will vote for the pro-pedophelia candidate because I agree with him on other issues and I am not a one issue voter. There are other issues besides pedophilia. Where did the catholic church specifically say I can’t vote for the pro-pedophilia candidate? I am against pedophilia, but I don’t want to force my morality on others.”
Or, you could really be saying: " I am Christian, but don’t ask me to vote according to Christian moral principles. I don’t take them seriously enough."
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rlg94086
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In regards to your non-Kennedy section, the same reasoning could be applied to pedophilia, genocide and slavery. You haven’t brought any new information to light - just the same, tired trivialization of the killing of innocent human beings.
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CMatt25
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With what a democracy of plural beliefs on the issue attempts to come up with for it’s public policy for the land.
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rlg94086
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Ishii,
How dare you compare something as terrible as pedophilia to the killing of an innocent human being! How callous! Everyone agrees that pedophilia is wrong (except the NAMBLA folk, of course). Not everyone agrees that ripping a human being to pieces is wrong.
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