Trump v. Clinton matchup has Catholic leaders scrambling

[estesbob]

Its not my personal view. Its what the document says:

I have been saying exactly the above. Your position appears to be that a voter must determine who is the most pro-life candidate and vote for that person, and that only if candidates are tied in that regard should a voter look to any other issue. That position cannot be found in any Church document.

Again can you provide a quote from a single member of the maglestrium that backs up your interpretation of this document? How do you reconcile your interpretation with the numerous quotes from bishops, cardinals and popes I have provided. For instance how do you reconcile your opinion with this?

“No, you can never vote for someone who favors absolutely what’s called the ‘right to choice’ of a woman to destroy human life in her womb, or the right to a procured abortion,”

“You may in some circumstances where you don’t have any candidate who is proposing to eliminate all abortion, choose the candidate who will most limit this grave evil in our country, but you could never justify voting for a candidate who not only does not want to limit abortion but believes that it should be available to everyone”

Cardinal Burke

 

[Bataar]

I think my main objection is to being a one issue voter when it is not likely that the candidate will influence established law. I will not support Hillary but nether can I support Trump.

Either candidate will likely have 2 or 3 supreme court nominations. That will have a great deal of impact on established law. Do you really want someone making appointments to the Supreme Court who said this:
“And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed. As I have said and as I believe, the advancement of the full participation of women and girls in every aspect of their societies is the great unfinished business of the 21st century and not just for women but for everyone — and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States.”

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

There is no likelihood at all that he will switch Supreme Court candidates and suddenly serve up pro-abortionists. He has nothing to gain and much to lose by doing it.

But even if one wants to speculate about it, there’s no speculation about Hillary Clinton appointing pro-abortion judges. She has promised it, and there is nothing at all for her to gain in failing to do it, and much to lose if she does fail.

And this business about Trump changing positions is getting very over-used. What has Hllary Clinton NOT switched on? She was for the Iraq War until it became unpopular. She was against tax increases until she was for them.

Trump, as I have said before, is not an ideological person. He probably doesn’t have strong personal beliefs about abortion. After all, he’s a Presbyterian and that church doesn’t condemn abortion. But he knows he has to provide prolife justices or he would have no constituency left for re-election. Hillary Clinton knows if she does NOT appoint pro-abortion justices, she would have no constituency for re-election.

Nothing difficult in figuring that one out.

I’m not sure he’s thinking about reelection. He’ll be seventy in a few weeks. And back in 2012 he was gushing on how he liked Hillary, and liked Bill, they were his friends, she was a hard worker. He hosted Bill Clinton at Mar a Lago.

Does it matter to him to get reelected? He’ll still be rich when this is done. He favors a very liberal view of eminent domain. Is he the type to act against his own interests?

 

[Ridgerunner]

So Trump as you stated can change positions at any moment, on anything, yet your willing to take that chance bc of the conservative constituency?

Any politician can change his/her mind and do something other than what he/she promised. But they rarely do it when it’s political suicide.

I am certainly willing to take that chance because Hillary Clinton has always been a consistent supporter of abortion on demand, including partial birth abortion, and she cannot be otherwise because her party stands for virtually nothing but abortion on demand anymore.

So, on Trump’s end of it, there is an extreme likelihood he will appoint the exact kinds of judges he said, and on Hillary Clinton’s it is almost a metaphysical certitude she will appoint pro-abortion judges.

Not being willing to impose that certitude on future generations, or have non-opposition to abortion on my conscience, I will vote against her. So should every Catholic and for the same reason.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m not sure he’s thinking about reelection. He’ll be seventy in a few weeks. And back in 2012 he was gushing on how he liked Hillary, and liked Bill, they were his friends, she was a hard worker. He hosted Bill Clinton at Mar a Lago.

Does it matter to him to get reelected? He’ll still be rich when this is done. He favors a very liberal view of eminent domain. Is he the type to act against his own interests?

This assumes he has a firm commitment to abortion as an issue. Personally, I doubt he does. Remember, he’s a Presbyterian. Look up where the Presbyterian church is on abortion. It’s basically no stand at all.

But whether he thinks he could handle two terms as president is unknown to anyone but him. Ronald Reagan was 69 when he was elected the first time.

One doesn’t have to be an abortionist or even a liberal to have a “liberal” view of eminent domain. I’m conservative on most things other than aid to the truly poor, (and both parties should hang their heads in shame on that score), and I’m “liberal” on eminent domain myself. I have seen enough of the harm done to communities when authorities won’t exercise it when they should.

And why do you think he truly likes Bill and Hillary? Just because he says so? There are a lot of people with whom I’m cordial or even friendly, but whom I do not like at all. Possibly, like me, Trump is a man who keeps his own counsel when it comes to personalities.

 

[TMC]

Again can you provide a quote from a single member of the maglestrium that backs up your interpretation of this document? How do you reconcile your interpretation with the numerous quotes from bishops, cardinals and popes I have provided. For instance how do you reconcile your opinion with this?

“No, you can never vote for someone who favors absolutely what’s called the ‘right to choice’ of a woman to destroy human life in her womb, or the right to a procured abortion,”

“You may in some circumstances where you don’t have any candidate who is proposing to eliminate all abortion, choose the candidate who will most limit this grave evil in our country, but you could never justify voting for a candidate who not only does not want to limit abortion but believes that it should be available to everyone”

Cardinal Burke

Again, simply read the document. Nothing in the document says that Catholics should be single issue voters. It actually says the opposite. You have decided to be a single issue voter, which is your choice, and you have found some quotes that you believe back up that position. I rely on Church documents, which make very clear that the Church does not teach single issue voting.

 

[Vouthon]

And why do you think he truly likes Bill and Hillary? Just because he says so? There are a lot of people with whom I’m cordial or even friendly, but whom I do not like at all. Possibly, like me, Trump is a man who keeps his own counsel when it comes to personalities.

Perhaps you’ve discovered his one and only endearing quality…

…or, maybe, he is just a buttlicker when he feels he could personally profit from a 'friendship?..

Or maybe I dislike him so much I’m just too cynical…Who knows

 

[Ridgerunner]

Again, simply read the document. Nothing in the document says that Catholics should be single issue voters. It actually says the opposite. You have decided to be a single issue voter, which is your choice, and you have found some quotes that you believe back up that position. I rely on Church documents, which make very clear that the Church does not teach single issue voting.

Nor do Church documents use the term “baby killer”. “Single issue voter” is an American epithet used to castigate people who oppose abortion on demand, not a Church concept.

No surprise there.

 

[TMC]

Nor do Church documents use the term “baby killer”. “Single issue voter” is an American epithet used to castigate people who oppose abortion on demand, not a Church concept.

No surprise there.

“Single issue voter” is the precise term that the bishops use. The exact quote from the document is " As Catholics we are not single-issue voters."

 

[estesbob]

Again, simply read the document. Nothing in the document says that Catholics should be single issue voters. It actually says the opposite. You have decided to be a single issue voter, which is your choice, and you have found some quotes that you believe back up that position. I rely on Church documents, which make very clear that the Church does not teach single issue voting.

I have. And it doesn’t say what you say it does. Again if you can find a single member of the magisterium that backs up your interpretation please post it

 

[TMC]

I have. And it doesn’t say what you say it does. Again if you can find a single member of the magisterium that backs up your interpretation please post it

I will stick with the plain language of the document written by the magisterium.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Perhaps you’ve discovered his one and only endearing quality…

…or, maybe, he is just a buttlicker when he feels he could personally profit from a 'friendship?..

Or maybe I dislike him so much I’m just too cynical…Who knows

With all due respect, Vouthon, and you know I like you as a person, I think your last sentence hits it on the head. I do think, for one thing, that European ways of speaking might be different from American ways.

(This is really hard to explain, and I’m not sure I can. But I’ll try.)

Among some, but not all Americans, there is a sort of cultural affinity for making bluff, confrontational statements that have more implied content than stated content. I think that’s more common in certain geographical areas and among certain classes of people than in others.

So, for example, if you express a “politically correct” statement to an American Southerner, he might just comment that’s just what one would expect from a “Commie” or even a “Commie pinko b----rd”. Now, that doesn’t mean he really thinks the speaker is a communist, or that he thinks communists are all over the place. It isn’t even necessarily intended as an insult. It’s just an expression of distaste for a type of discourse and political worldview.

Working class people almost everywhere in the U.S. are given to the same kind of bluff expression. (there are a lot more expressions, but some of them I can’t say on here)

Where I live, it’s extremely common, and among all classes of people who, for whatever reason, have not adapted their modes of expression to that extremely mannerly understatement to which society now seems so intent on requiring of everyone. Tell an Ozark hillbilly, for example, that you think homosexual marriage is just one more human right, he’s just as likely to say you’re “hell-bound” as not. That doesn’t mean he literally think you will inevitably go to hell. It’s his way of saying vehemently that it’s an immoral belief, and if you want to talk about it any more, you already know where he stands, and that he won’t budge.

Trump is full of those kinds of things; “lyin’ Ted”, “crooked Hillary”, “little Marco”. And to those who, either culturally or politically feel constrained in their expression to expressing themselves only in “acceptable” ways, it seems much worse than it really is.

A lot of people are put off by Trump. For the most part, I truly do think it’s his way of expressing himself. Add to that the fact that he hasn’t spent a lifetime training in the urbane forms of political lying that is so common anymore that a person like me finds it not only almost nauseating, but a kind of imposition on my personal freedom.

It extends outside the political arena more and more all the time. There are more and more things we “can’t say” . There are more and more constraints masking as “good manners”. There are more and more things we “have to accept” that we really don’t accept, but are almost compelled to affirm that we at least give them deference. And one has a niggling suspicion that if we become well enough trained in our language, we are simultaneously training our minds, even our souls along paths set for us by those who would like to control us to our very depths.

I am often put to mind of some of Solzhenitsyn’s observations, probably because I have read and re-read so many of his writings. One of the things he said that sticks in my mind is his elucidation of how one’s speech became more and more limited in the Soviet society, out of fear. As time went on, there were more and more things one couldn’t say; more and more things one had to say. He compared it to having our mouths sewn shut, stitch by patient stitch.

At some point, one simply feels like shouting something deemed outrageous just to jar people out of their torpor. I think Trump (instinctively?) understands that, and I think that’s a big part (though not all) of his appeal. He says a lot of things people would like to say, but don’t dare to say. No, the thoughts are not completely elucidated and are often overstated. But they have meaning. And the meanings are almost never what the politically correct societal “schoolmarms of speech” take them to be, or represent them to be.

 

[GaryTaylor]

What the Church does teach is the truth that the first and foremost issue is that of human life. It is the central issue of human living, and it is the most important measure of a healthy society. How we treat all human life, but especially vulnerable human life whether in the womb or at the last moments of earthly life, does determine whether or not we will have the moral vision to guide the choices we make in our families and communities, in our nation and the world.

We, United States bishops, address many issues, but we insist as the teachers of the Church that the priority task of every Catholic is to form one’s conscience correctly by attending to the teaching of the Church as an integral and necessary component in a well informed conscience. The Church teaches that “human life is sacred.” Following the clear teaching of Pope John Paul II, the U.S. bishops echoed his teaching saying that “abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human life and dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental good and the condition of all others. Abortion, the deliberate killing of a human being before birth, is never morally acceptable and must always be opposed.” Bishop Murphy

 

[Ridgerunner]

…or, maybe, he is just a buttlicker when he feels he could personally profit from a 'friendship?..

This reminds me of something from some time ago. It is my practice, at Christmas, to give gifts to business clients. I try to make them very interesting, if not always expensive. I always try to make them something the client has never heard of, or would not consider buying for himself/herself. Certain things, you see, are “too expensive” because people would never spend that kind of money on the object itself, even though the object is not all that expensive, objectively.

Anyway, one time I gave the representative of a very significant client her gift. I could tell she was pleased, but she giggled and said “…Oh, I know you’re just kissing a-- here”.

“Well” I heard myself respond “If not yours, then whose am I supposed to kiss?” She laughed until I thought she was going to choke.

Maybe I’m just a barbarian, but kissing up has never bothered me. People know you’re doing it unless they’re just fools. But when it comes to people who benefit me or might, (on the assumption I treat well those who have a claim on me) then the question arises “Then to whom should I kiss up?”

But you know, people like it even when they know you’re kissing up. I remember once giving a business client a really neat box of the most outrageously ornate and exotic candies anybody ever saw. Well, that was that. A few weeks later, I saw him again and he volunteered that his children really enjoyed those candies.

“Ah!” I thought. I really hit it that time. He brought those home and gave them to his children. His children probably asked him where he got them, and if so, he would have told them a man he does business with gave them to him. To him. And so, his stature in the eyes of his very own children went up a fraction. “Wow! Daddy’s friends think so well of him that they give him gifts like this!”

Kissing up, to me, isn’t low-end. It can be a high art.

Bribery, on the other hand, is something else entirely. It is, to kissing up, what swamp water is to Chateau Petrus.

 

[estesbob]

I will stick with the plain language of the document written by the magisterium.

So how do reconcile you interpretation with what Cardinsl Burke stated?

 

[pnewton]

Holy cow is this thread really still dragging on?

Seems like it’s still just going on in never-ending circles. :yawn:

The year is still young! it is amazing how many of the posts are identical with literally the same quotes. The good thing about the internet, is the older posts are still there. There is no need to repeat.

 

[Crossbones]

Oh, not at all.

“Faithful Citizenship” is not contradictory to what the Popes, Burke, Chaput, Galante and others have said; not even to what Kicanas has said. They’re all consistent with one another. What is sometimes said to justify supporting abortion on demand is that “F.C.” somehow embraces moral relativism, which it doesn’t. It does not place all issues on an equal footing. It does the opposite.

Estesbob has challenged all Hillary supporters on here to show that there is any bishop or pope who says it’s okay to support one who supports abortion on demand in the absence of an equally grave or greater evil to be prevented in doing so.

So far, nobody has. And they haven’t because they can’t.

There are more than 400 bishops in the U.S. Remember, there are auxiliary bishops in a lot of places as well as retired bishops. All of them get to vote. Nobody has yet explained why fewer than half voted for this document.

Forming Consciences clearly places a great deal of emphasis on abortion, but it stops short of saying that one cannot vote for a pro-choice politician. 221 bishops voted for it. You somehow want to discredit it by pointing out that there are more than 400 bishops in the US, but at the meeting where the vote took place, 221 bishops voted in favor of the document, 21 against and six abstained. So, perhaps the other 200 bishops were not present at the meeting, but they did NOT vote against it.

You then claim that three bishops state that a Catholic cannot vote for a pro-choice politicians. This is beyond the scope of Forming Consciences, but as leaders of their individual flock, they certainly have the right to do so. It is worth noting that this is three against 221, so for the vast majority of Catholics, their individual bishop probably supported Forming Consciences.

We then have evidence of bishops suggesting a more nuanced approach as we find in Forming Conscience, but this isn’t good enough for you, for unless a bishop directly says that it’s ok to vote for a pro-choice politician, it doesn’t count. Of course, the vast majority of bishops seem to lean on Forming Consciences and wish to avoid that direct of a comment, so it is as unlikely that you’ll get a quote from a bishop saying that it is ok to support a pro-choice politician as you will get one that says it’s ok to support a politician that targets noncombatants or supports torture.

So, it is your personal interpretation of Church teaching that says that a Catholic cannot vote for a pro-choice politician, as it is your personal interpretation that Trump did not say he would target noncombatants and your personal interpretation that Trump does not support torture. Catholics who are reading this forum should keep this in mind and instead of depending on the personal interpretation of an individual, they should review the available Church documentation and determine for themselves how to vote.

 

[lynnvinc]

…And what makes you think he wants to kill anybody? What has he done to make you think that?

Climate change denial. It is more a point of the de facto impacts than whether or not Trump understands that his policies or lack thereof would lead to grave harms to life on earth.

I figure many Trump and Cruz supporters perhaps subconsciously wish to harm their progeny. No one would ever admit or acknowledge it, of course, since it is totally unacceptable and they may not even realize that is their wish. But deep down they really have some perverse hatred for their children and people in general (the real Freudian complex…if anyone is familiar with Oedipus Rex or Gilgamesh or many other ancient stories). It’s just the other side of the abortion coin.

I don’t like Hillary or Bill much (I was for Jerry Brown in 1992 and am now for Sanders), but to me Hillary is the lesser of two evils and a veritable saint compared to Trump (or Cruz, or any other Republican=life-annihilator). If I vote for her it will be because I believe she would be better on life issues in general, though not nearly as good as Sanders would have been.

ALL human lives matter, not just the unborn faced with medical abortions from distressed mothers whom society has shunted aside, but the unborn also faced with environmental toxins and other human-caused harms that would kill them, as well as people who are already born and the future generations for 1000s of year to come.

My conscience will not allow me to vote for such a death-monger as Trump, even if he is totally clueless that he is such…which makes it all the worse re him and Cruz and others.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

Rather than “Pro Life”. They are “Pro Birth” because there is a great deal more to life than just being born.

 

[Darryl1958]

I am pro birth for sure.