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Ender
Guest
If that document said nothing more than “As Catholics we are not single-issue voters.” (#42) it would be enough to eviscerate abortion as the pivotal choice facing voters.
Ender
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Ender
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rlg94086
Guest
Okay. So, when faced with more than one pro-life option in the primaries, you don’t consider Catholic teaching at all to help you decide between those candidates? Do you roll the dice? Flip a coin? What’s your method?
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rlg94086
Guest
I find it sad that you and irishpatrick can’t walk (consider abortion the most important issue) and chew gum (apply Catholic teaching to other issues) at the same time.
I can’t be a single issue voter, since there are many important issues that require our Catholic voices. That said, I wouldn’t vote for a pro-choice candidate over a pro-life one. Period.
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AnotherVoice
Guest
I agree and if there are no pro-life candidates then I will start supporting the best of the worst.
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irishpatrick
Guest
Of course, if there is more than one pro-life candidates, I will I consider the rest of where they stand on the various positions. Yet, abortion is always a single issue for me (and I believe should be for every Catholic and every Christian for that matter).
I wonder, if slavery was still legal, would banning it be enough for people to be single issue voters?
I wonder, if a foreign nation was slowly bombing the USA into oblivion, would that be enough to be a single issue voter?
What does it take to get people to realize that there is only one way to stop the killing of the innocent babies? We must stand together as one unified body until our leaders overturn the scourge!
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irishpatrick
Guest
Exactly.
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irishpatrick
Guest
It seems, then, that the Bishops agree very much with your view (or perhaps vice versa). Therein lies the reason for my being so upset. To stop the evil of abortion, we must be united, and we are not even remotely close to being united. I cannot conceive of any issue that rises to the level of slaughtering thousands of babies every single day.
A house divided leads to what?
Have a good night.
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Elizabeth502
Guest
Well I hope when you come back you will clarify if I seemed to imply that you “should not cocern yourself [with primary issues].” That is not what I meant. I did not mean to discourage. I meant that those who are determined to manipulate, will continue to manipulate. Those who are determined to rationalize will continue to do so. I didn’t mean that because of that apparent reality, we shouldn’t hope for clarification (in some form) in the Statement. Sorry if I came across that way. I am for a vigorous clarification, but it’s my position that the most important clarification is that official Church documents should be taken seriously by serious Catholics, and not dismissed or considered as optional instruction. It’s all instruction. It’s the 3-legged stool mentioned so often by the current teachers in the Church: Sacred Scripture, Tradition, Magisterial teaching.Perhaps I should not care.
Perhaps I should just trust the Bishops and let all this go.
Perhaps I should just trust God.
Perhaps this is all part of God’s plan.
Perhaps I should not concern myself with the fate of the unborn.
Perhaps I have overreacted here.
Perhaps – perhaps
It is all just so hard, and I feel we need definitive help for this struggle. Yet, I am just a lay Catholic, I am really nothing in the scheme of God’s salvific plans for His children.
God bless to all. I apologize if I offended anyone, and I especially ask the Lord to forgive me if I have made any wrongful or damaging statements about His Bishops.
I have to leave now--
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Elizabeth502
Guest
Well I can’t be a single-issue voter for the reason that so few candidates stand firmly for anything in the Life (anti-intrinsic-evil) category, it seems. They seem tentatively committed to some Life issues, and rarely strongy committed to any of them, or they waffle on all of them, depending on the constitutency they’re addressing.
To backtrack, I agree with whoever it was who said that the document could have been, should have been, shorter. Framing the distinction between intrinsic evil and not, should have been the primary focus, perhaps with the social justice issues in a separate document?
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Rence
Guest
I think so too. And it makes sense. There are many issues to consider because many issues affect citizens at every stage of life, and they all need to be cared for. None are more or less important than the next. So I can understand them saying not to focus on just one stage of development and ignore all the rest. It would be best to find a candidate who can take care of everyone, not just focus on one demographic, or at least the one who will cause the least damage to as many as possible.
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rlg94086
Guest
How are we divided? I, and the Bishops, agree with you on abortion. If our division is because you don’t care about anything else, then I hope you start reading your Catechism and praying a lot.It seems, then, that the Bishops agree very much with your view (or perhaps vice versa). Therein lies the reason for my being so upset. To stop the evil of abortion, we must be united, and we are not even remotely close to being united. I cannot conceive of any issue that rises to the level of slaughtering thousands of babies every single day.
A house divided leads to what?
Have a good night.
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1holycatholic
Guest
A national bishop’s conference does not constitute the Magisterium (CCC #880-896).Isn’t the USCCB the organization that we are to be wary of, not being magisterial and all?
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Robert_Bay
Guest
MODERATOR NOTE
Please discuss the issues and not each other
Please discuss the issues and not each other
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1holycatholic
Guest
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St_Francis
Guest
Neither the document nor the letter work as a voter’s guide in US politics.
This is because we have a two-party system and each party has claims tothe moral high ground on different issues: the Democrats on care of the needy and the Republicans on the life issues.
The 2 documents can be and are used to justify voting for either party for this exact reason. The Democrats say we will help the poor, get out of wars, and ensure racial,'gender, etc, equality. The Republicans will say, we will reduce and work on eliminating abortiin, stand against homosexual “marriage,” etc.
If we consider the Faithful Citizenship as a guide to something else, maybe we can do something different. If instead of allowing the parties and swirling political ideas to divide us, maybe we can all work together to pressure politicians to do all that is morally good: be against abortion, euthanasia, etc and for helping poor people and people who are being unjustly discriminated against.
Because the guide is much more a guide of on which side of the various issues Catholics should fall than anything else. Catholics should be for helping poor people (altho they can differ in their ideas on how best to accomplish that), and Catholics should be against the further derioratiin of marriage in oir society.
Catholics should be on the forefront of proposing how best to deal with these problems instead of just fighting over the Dems and Reps. The problem is that we have Catholocs following leftits and libertarians and everything in between instead of first choosing Catholic goals and then figuring out how best to attain them. Neither US political party is anywhere near entirely right right–they are each wrong in many areas. For the most part, they have the wrong goals, the wrong intentions, the wrong solutions.
This is because we have a two-party system and each party has claims tothe moral high ground on different issues: the Democrats on care of the needy and the Republicans on the life issues.
The 2 documents can be and are used to justify voting for either party for this exact reason. The Democrats say we will help the poor, get out of wars, and ensure racial,'gender, etc, equality. The Republicans will say, we will reduce and work on eliminating abortiin, stand against homosexual “marriage,” etc.
If we consider the Faithful Citizenship as a guide to something else, maybe we can do something different. If instead of allowing the parties and swirling political ideas to divide us, maybe we can all work together to pressure politicians to do all that is morally good: be against abortion, euthanasia, etc and for helping poor people and people who are being unjustly discriminated against.
Because the guide is much more a guide of on which side of the various issues Catholics should fall than anything else. Catholics should be for helping poor people (altho they can differ in their ideas on how best to accomplish that), and Catholics should be against the further derioratiin of marriage in oir society.
Catholics should be on the forefront of proposing how best to deal with these problems instead of just fighting over the Dems and Reps. The problem is that we have Catholocs following leftits and libertarians and everything in between instead of first choosing Catholic goals and then figuring out how best to attain them. Neither US political party is anywhere near entirely right right–they are each wrong in many areas. For the most part, they have the wrong goals, the wrong intentions, the wrong solutions.
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rlg94086
Guest
That is pretty much what the document says.
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irishpatrick
Guest
Would you feel the same if we replaced “abortion” with “slavery?” Would the existence of slaves in our nation be enough to rise to the level of importance to make you a one issue voter?
[note: one issue voting simply means that abortion is the single driving force, it does not mean the single issue voter does not care about or consider the other issues]
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markomalley
Guest
Canon 455 §4. In cases in which neither universal law nor a special mandate of the Apostolic See has granted the power mentioned in §1 to a conference of bishops, the competence of each diocesan bishop remains intact, nor is a conference or its president able to act in the name of all the bishops unless each and every bishop has given consent.
My questions in regard to this document are:
To the best of my knowledge, there are very, very, very few issues where there is a 100% vote on ANYTHING.
If the answers to each and every one of the above is not “yes,” then the document is not authoritative unless your Ordinary says it is normative within **his diocese. (the meaning of the statement (the meaning of the phrase, the competence of each diocesan bishop remains intact).
The Holy Father has spoken numerous times about conferences of bishops overstepping their bounds.
And, per John Paul II’s Motu Proprio, Apostolos Suos,Taking into account that the authentic magisterium of the Bishops, namely what they teach insofar as they are invested with the authority of Christ, must always be in communion with the Head of the College and its members,(83) when the doctrinal declarations of Episcopal Conferences are approved unanimously, they may certainly be issued in the name of the Conferences themselves, and the faithful are obliged to adhere with a sense of religious respect to that authentic magisterium of their own Bishops. However, if this unanimity is lacking, a majority alone of the Bishops of a Conference cannot issue a declaration as authentic teaching of the Conference to which all the faithful of the territory would have to adhere, unless it obtains the recognitio of the Apostolic See, which will not give it if the majority requesting it is not substantial. The intervention of the Apostolic See is analogous to that required by the law in order for the Episcopal Conference to issue general decrees.(84) The recognitio of the Holy See serves furthermore to guarantee that, in dealing with new questions posed by the accelerated social and cultural changes characteristic of present times, the doctrinal response will favour communion and not harm it, and will rather prepare an eventual intervention of the universal magisterium.
My questions in regard to this document are:
- Is there someplace in universal law where the USCCB or the President of the USCCB has been given the competence to issue this document in the name of the US Bishops?
- Is there a special mandate of the Apostolic See authorizing the USCCB or the President of the USCCB has been given the competence to issue this document in the name of the US Bishops?
- Did each and every bishop give his consent for this document to be issued in his name?
To the best of my knowledge, there are very, very, very few issues where there is a 100% vote on ANYTHING.
If the answers to each and every one of the above is not “yes,” then the document is not authoritative unless your Ordinary says it is normative within **his diocese. (the meaning of the statement (the meaning of the phrase, the competence of each diocesan bishop remains intact).
The Holy Father has spoken numerous times about conferences of bishops overstepping their bounds.
And, per John Paul II’s Motu Proprio, Apostolos Suos,Taking into account that the authentic magisterium of the Bishops, namely what they teach insofar as they are invested with the authority of Christ, must always be in communion with the Head of the College and its members,(83) when the doctrinal declarations of Episcopal Conferences are approved unanimously, they may certainly be issued in the name of the Conferences themselves, and the faithful are obliged to adhere with a sense of religious respect to that authentic magisterium of their own Bishops. However, if this unanimity is lacking, a majority alone of the Bishops of a Conference cannot issue a declaration as authentic teaching of the Conference to which all the faithful of the territory would have to adhere, unless it obtains the recognitio of the Apostolic See, which will not give it if the majority requesting it is not substantial. The intervention of the Apostolic See is analogous to that required by the law in order for the Episcopal Conference to issue general decrees.(84) The recognitio of the Holy See serves furthermore to guarantee that, in dealing with new questions posed by the accelerated social and cultural changes characteristic of present times, the doctrinal response will favour communion and not harm it, and will rather prepare an eventual intervention of the universal magisterium.
- The very nature of the teaching office of Bishops requires that, when they exercise it jointly through the Episcopal Conference, this be done in the plenary assembly. Smaller bodies —the permanent council, a commission or other offices—do not have the authority to carry out acts of authentic magisterium either in their own name or in the name of the Conference, and not even as a task assigned to them by the Conference.
The first sentence from the *Forming Consciences *document states:The Catholic Bishops of the United States are pleased to re-propose to our people Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, **our teaching document **on the political responsibility of Catholics.
In light of Canon Law (Can 455 §4) and the above Motu Proprio, I question whether this document has the authority of a teaching (a/k/a magesterial) document, either on behalf of all the US bishops or even on behalf of the conference itself…
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JRRTFAN
Guest
The 2007 document was and is a lousy piece of penmanship! The Bishops need to mean what they say and say what they mean. This equivocating hoo-har is what got us the current administration.
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1holycatholic
Guest
“A bishops’ conference as such does not have a mandatum docendi. This belongs only to the individual bishops or to the College of bishops with the pope.”
- Cardinal Ratzinger
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