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bluelake
Guest
You may refer to yourself as Catholic, but your ideas aren’t christian and the Church does not accept ot teach your views.
bluelake
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bluelake
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bluelake
Guest
Only the Lord calls us home when our days are over. See Ps.139:13-18. It’s lovely
God bless,
bluelake
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bluelake
Guest
Growing up during the depression (1929-39 taught me to work for what I needed to live. My father would not take welfare from anyone. He believed in earning for his family. I learned this from watching my Dad. My husband and I have always worked for a living and we brought up our family to do the same. And they do.
I have never been on welfare. with the Lords help, of course.Isn’t God great,
bluelake
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Swiss_Guy
Guest
You know, I am sadly still in the ELCA.
My parents want me to be confirmed in it. 
But, when I’m out the door and going to college, I’m gonna be a Catholic as soon as possible.
And believe me, there are many more problems with the ELCA.
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Contarini
Guest
Humpty Dumpty in the second part of Alice in Wonderland boasts that he can make words mean whatever he wants them to mean.
You seemed to be doing that with “liberal.” Defining it in terms of two “hot-button” issues doesn’t make a lot of sense to many of us. The word has a lot of historic meanings that have nothing to do with those two issues.
Edwin
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MillTownCath
Guest
I can’t stand the fact that many people who are pro-life, and vote based solely on that issue, think that means they must adopt every conservative position on economics, immigration, defense, etc by default. Think independently folks. Nothing wrong with being somewhat partisan, but square your views independently and shake up the establishment around you.
My overall point is that I cannot understand, for the life of me, as a Catholic, after reading the encyclicals that address obligations of governments, how on earth any of the faithful can swallow every line of the “Tea Party.”
There are people in the Tea Party that oppose any minimum wage laws. That’s clearly against Catholic teaching. There are people who would callously deport people with immediacy even if it means breaking up family. Again, the Catholic teaching on immigration and the primacy of family could not be more clear. Rick Perry brags about how many people he’s executed, and Ron Paul thinks its ok to just let uninsured die for want of treatment they can’t pay for.
My overall point is that I cannot understand, for the life of me, as a Catholic, after reading the encyclicals that address obligations of governments, how on earth any of the faithful can swallow every line of the “Tea Party.”
There are people in the Tea Party that oppose any minimum wage laws. That’s clearly against Catholic teaching. There are people who would callously deport people with immediacy even if it means breaking up family. Again, the Catholic teaching on immigration and the primacy of family could not be more clear. Rick Perry brags about how many people he’s executed, and Ron Paul thinks its ok to just let uninsured die for want of treatment they can’t pay for.
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St_Francis
Guest
Not every Catholic who votes Republican because of the democratic’s support of legalized abortion agrees with everything else the GOP has on its platform. Maybe even the same amount of people who vote for the Dems based on this support for social programs then turn around and start advocating homosexual marriage and the like.
Maybe because they have sufficient grasp of economics to know thatif we keep spending our children’s and grandchildren’s money we won’t have the wherewithall to continue provding the safety net because all the money will be going to service the debt.
And the Democrat Party has as a part of its platform the advocacy of a woman’s so-called right to kill her unborn child. So what if some of the conservitves advocate things you don’t like? Your bunch defends an intrinsic evil! And some of them also advicate homosexual “marriage”! And some of them are socialist! and so on and so forth.
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MillTownCath
Guest
Because Bush’s expensive wars and tax cuts were so fiscally responsible? Because cutting government jobs and other austerity measures are so good for the economy?
The ones who do not have any grasp of reality are the ones who think we can pay off the debt while simultaneously having the lowest tax rates since 1950 and still not damage the fragil economy.
But I don’t actually want to argue economics here. I’m just saying being pro-life doesn’t mean you have to support every war/death penalty/anti-immigrant/pro-rich proposal.
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St_Francis
Guest
I personally don’t think it’s a question of either/or when it comes to a lot of these economic policies. I think that we need to reassess a lot of it from many angles, from how to reduce the 77% adminstrative costs to how to help people while not discouraging stable married 2-parent households. I think both sides have questions to consider.
Yes, just like being pro-government-funded aid for the poor doesn’t mean you have to be against homosexual “marriage” and/or criminalizing abortion.
The problem I have with what you wrote is that you painted with this enormously wide brush one set of people while totally ignoring (at best) the same behavior on the other side, which happens to be your side.
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Swiss_Guy
Guest
I agree.
We could have welfare that makes people dependent upon themselves and not reliant on the government in order to get people out of poverty faster, resulting in less spending on welfare. And less money paid for taxes means more money that people can use to spend and support the economy.
I agree. and i think many people here are too partisan.
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AHapka
Guest
I’m very conservative and hated all of the money Bush spent. Just because a person is conservative doesn’t mean that they were a big fan of Bush…
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Pugnax
Guest
Well if you get some kind of pride out of denying rights to any human being (ie gay rights) then it is my belief that it is you who is a bad catholic.
I will never understand these people who think they have the divine right to strip basic equality from another person. Have these people ever met a gay person or couple in their life. They are genuinely good people with the same thoughts, feelings and faults as everyone else.
Also the emotional damage that has been put upon these group of people by Catholics is absolutely abhorrent. I have just had a gay friend commit suicide after years of being told he was less than human, that he would never be aloud to live like a normal person with the same rights as everyone else. My friend was an amazing person who had better morals and did more for his community than nearly every catholic I know. Yet he was constantly torn to pieces by people who didn’t even know him, all because of a few passages in the bible. Passages that are actively chosen to be followed while hundreds of other rules in the bible are ignored that are far worse.
Why don’t we strip many of the rights of women that the bible instructs us to do? Why don’t we kill any person in our family that doesn’t practice our same faith like the bible tells us to do? We don’t because we as a people know that to do this is morally wrong, and takes away a person’s living rights. But when it comes to homosexuals we have no problem trying to tear them down. Why is that? Is it really you just following God’s will or is it just a hatred for a class of people that you don’t understand. And if you just don’t like gay people, fine, but don’t cloak it in the shroud of religion to make yourself feel better. Be honest with your bigotry.
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St_Francis
Guest
I am very sorry for your loss.
Eternal rest grant unto Pugnax’s friend, O Lord; let Your eternal light shine upon him, and may he rest in peace.
J
Joe_5859
Guest
I think trying to fit all self-proclaimed “liberal Catholics” into one box simply is not possible. I think it can be too easy for us if we self-identify as “conservative” to create this caricature in our mind of the liberal Catholic as being the person who disagreess with us 100% on every single issue. That’s not accurate nor helpful.
I have known many Catholics at all places on the spectrum. I know some who self-identify as liberals and – surprise, surprise – they are not not pro-choice, they are not in favor of women’s ordination or gay marriage, and they do believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Some even go to daily Mass!
And some are more scandalized by various facets of popular media than I am.
We shouldn’t assume that RomanCatholicWomenPriests ™ represent all liberal Catholics anymore than we would want some sedevacantist group to represent all conservative Catholics. The vast majority of Catholics are not at the extreme ends.
I have known many Catholics at all places on the spectrum. I know some who self-identify as liberals and – surprise, surprise – they are not not pro-choice, they are not in favor of women’s ordination or gay marriage, and they do believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Some even go to daily Mass!
And some are more scandalized by various facets of popular media than I am.We shouldn’t assume that RomanCatholicWomenPriests ™ represent all liberal Catholics anymore than we would want some sedevacantist group to represent all conservative Catholics. The vast majority of Catholics are not at the extreme ends.
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Swiss_Guy
Guest
I agree.I think trying to fit all self-proclaimed “liberal Catholics” into one box simply is not possible. I think it can be too easy for us if we self-identify as “conservative” to create this caricature in our mind of the liberal Catholic as being the person who disagreess with us 100% on every single issue. That’s not accurate nor helpful.
I have known many Catholics at all places on the spectrum. I know some who self-identify as liberals and – surprise, surprise – they are not not pro-choice, they are not in favor of women’s ordination or gay marriage, and they do believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Some even go to daily Mass!
We shouldn’t assume that RomanCatholicWomenPriests ™ represent all liberal Catholics anymore than we would want some sedevacantist group to represent all conservative Catholics. The vast majority of Catholics are not at the extreme ends.
I mean, if being a liberal Catholic meant going against Church teaching, then there would be no Catholics in states like Massachusetts.
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kama3
Guest
Not true.
Durex Global Survey 2000, page 9 lists how many times per year on
average people have sex:
Poland - 91, Czech Republic - 99, Hungary - 110, global mean - 96 [this doesn’t have Slovakia unfortunately]
Poland is slightly below the average, but the difference is not that dramatic.
Now, some data from Durex Face of Global Sex Survey 2009.
Contraceptive use, % of married women: Poland - 49%, Czech Republic - 67%, Hungary - 77%, Slovakia - 74%
Fertility rate: Poland - 1.27, Czech Republic - 1.25, Hungary - 1.34, Slovakia - 1.34
And finally some data from:
johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/wrjp334pd2.html
Abortion rate: Poland - 0.09% (official), Czech Republic - 15.8%, Hungary - 30.8%, Slovakia - 24.3%
So: with much lower use of contraceptives than the neighboring countries, about the same incidence of sexual activity, and no official abortion Poland somehow manages to get the same fertility rate as neighboring countries – where ca. 20% of pregnancies are aborted.
For me, that suggests an underground abortion rate of roughly 20%. (I could probably arrive at a better estimate using heavy artillery such as Markov chains, but that’s beside the point here. )
If you can provide an alternative explanation for this phenomenon, I am all ears.
20% of pregancies end in a clandestine abortion. Demographic data clearly shows that. Pro-lifers are busy trying to outlaw the 0.09% of cases where abortion is still legal – such as forcible rape or ectopic pregnancy.
That’s like trying to kill an ant while ignoring an elephant in a room.
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St_Francis
Guest
Lack of evidence is not evidence.
You present no evidence that any abortions are occurring illegally among Poles except a lot of meaningless numbers, because the numbers differed greatly before Poland criminalized abortion, being between 1/2 and 1/4 the rate of Slovakia.
If fewer Poles had sex, but those who did had it twice as often, that would explain your differential, btw.
[quoye]For me, that suggests an underground abortion rate of roughly 20%. (I could probably arrive at a better estimate using heavy artillery such as Markov chains, but that’s beside the point here. )
Well, that’s nice for you, that you just pull a number out of thin air that does not even reflect the rate in Poland while abortion was still legal, but again, this is not evidence.
Poles are better at using birth control? Poles are more likely to be using NFP?
Twenty percent where? Poland? You have offered no wcidence for this at all.
Would you kill the mother who was raped? No, because she is innocent. Why would you kill the unborn child, who is also innocent?
Do you know, I have met abortion supporters in the US who are against the death penalty; they would oppose killing the perpetrator of the crime but allow the killing of the innocent child.
In the case of etopic pregnancy, there are two ways of treating the problem. One is moral, according to the Catholoc Church. The other is immoral. Either the people of Poland are trying to outlaw the immoral treatment or they are confused and do not realoze that the one treatment is moral.
No, more like trying to kill a black widow spider while ignoring a child’s imaginary friend.
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Don_Machiavelli
Guest
I am by no means a Liberal, but I will go ahead and answer this hear.
We need a government that allows us to exercise free will. God gave us free will because of his ultimate love for us, and when we commit sins, we are supposed to be judged and punished by God, not be judged and punished by the government.
The government should allow people to do whatever they want, as long as it harms nobody else. And the people, themselves, should privately deal with each problem on a case by case basis. It is not just a right, but a citizen’s responsibility to stay informed on all issues, and defend his family with force.
Homosexuality and drug use are two particular instances where many Catholics support draconian laws that interfere with the free will of others. Two homosexuals are consenting adults, if they want to have a mortgage on a piece of property, it’s not the government’s job to ban them from paying the same price on the mortgage as two heterosexual consenting adults would. The Catholic Church may call their union an abomination, but the government cannot.
If an adult chooses to buy drugs from a drug dealer and put them in his body, that’s his right. That doesn’t mean it is not a sin, but it shouldn’t be a law. Drugs are just like alcohol or junk food.
As for being a Republican, Republicans in recent years (Neo-Cons) have made some very unethical decisions, such as the War on Terror, which has gone on for a decade now and has been one trillion of tax money dumped. How is that ethical? That money could have been spent on huge projects like renewable energy or space exploration. What enemies have we crushed? People in countries thousands of miles away who lead a 12th century life, with primitive weapons, up in the mountains. We can’t go to their countries and tell them how to live.
Republican Neo-Cons bring out a new form of colonialism, establishing a global military presence and building huge international corporatiosn wherever they go. This is similar to the Romans, the Imperial British, etc… It is basically a form of policing and bullying all other countries in the world, boasting a cultural superiority, and creating tension. Despite all the money the US donates to these little countries, they hate hate hate the US, and one can’t really blame them either.
Alot of Catholics mistakenly choose the Republican Party because they believe it supports “conservative values”. The Republican Party is all about using military force to establish the same fast-paced, cutthroat, amoral, impersonal, self-serving, promiscous, materialistic culture that one finds in atheist, urban, liberal areas (Hollywood, Manhattan, etc…) all over the world, in hopes that the newly converted citizens become mass consumers of corporate products.
We need a government that allows us to exercise free will. God gave us free will because of his ultimate love for us, and when we commit sins, we are supposed to be judged and punished by God, not be judged and punished by the government.
The government should allow people to do whatever they want, as long as it harms nobody else. And the people, themselves, should privately deal with each problem on a case by case basis. It is not just a right, but a citizen’s responsibility to stay informed on all issues, and defend his family with force.
Homosexuality and drug use are two particular instances where many Catholics support draconian laws that interfere with the free will of others. Two homosexuals are consenting adults, if they want to have a mortgage on a piece of property, it’s not the government’s job to ban them from paying the same price on the mortgage as two heterosexual consenting adults would. The Catholic Church may call their union an abomination, but the government cannot.
If an adult chooses to buy drugs from a drug dealer and put them in his body, that’s his right. That doesn’t mean it is not a sin, but it shouldn’t be a law. Drugs are just like alcohol or junk food.
As for being a Republican, Republicans in recent years (Neo-Cons) have made some very unethical decisions, such as the War on Terror, which has gone on for a decade now and has been one trillion of tax money dumped. How is that ethical? That money could have been spent on huge projects like renewable energy or space exploration. What enemies have we crushed? People in countries thousands of miles away who lead a 12th century life, with primitive weapons, up in the mountains. We can’t go to their countries and tell them how to live.
Republican Neo-Cons bring out a new form of colonialism, establishing a global military presence and building huge international corporatiosn wherever they go. This is similar to the Romans, the Imperial British, etc… It is basically a form of policing and bullying all other countries in the world, boasting a cultural superiority, and creating tension. Despite all the money the US donates to these little countries, they hate hate hate the US, and one can’t really blame them either.
Alot of Catholics mistakenly choose the Republican Party because they believe it supports “conservative values”. The Republican Party is all about using military force to establish the same fast-paced, cutthroat, amoral, impersonal, self-serving, promiscous, materialistic culture that one finds in atheist, urban, liberal areas (Hollywood, Manhattan, etc…) all over the world, in hopes that the newly converted citizens become mass consumers of corporate products.
C
Contarini
Guest
use of contraceptives than the neighboring countries, about the same incidence of sexual activity, and no official abortion Poland somehow manages to get the same fertility rate as neighboring countries – where ca. 20% of pregnancies are aborted.
For me, that suggests an underground abortion rate of roughly 20%.
That is an interesting preliminary hypothesis that needs further testing.
You have not discussed the possibility that people are practicing NFP. I will grant that it seems unlikely that NFP could account for the 20% gap in question, but it’s a factor you haven’t even considered, and that’s a serious flaw in your argument as it stands.
Edwin
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Contarini
Guest
Does the Catholic Church uphold either of these positions? The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage–I have not heard that it opposes the kind of civil provisions you’re talking about. Nor does the Catholic Church today generally use the word “abomination” about homosexual unions. The more correct term is “intrinsically disordered.” That means that it’s a bad thing for society to recognize such unions as equal to marriage, but I think that Catholic bishops and theologians would generally agree with you that people shouldn’t be punished for engaging in such unions.
I am also puzzled by where you get your ideas about the Catholic stance on drug use.
I understand that you’re speaking of “many Catholics,” but “many Catholics” do a lot of things
I agree. I see the Democrats and Republicans like Weston and Devine from Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet. The Democrats are bent (their understanding of equality and individual autonomy has led them to ignore the humanity of the unborn, and to some other less seriously distorted positions), but the Republicans are broken–like Devine, they have nothing left but their greed
Edwin
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