Were All Issues In This Past Election Of Equal Moral Weight?

[flameburns623]

WERE ALL THE ISSUES IN THIS ELECTION OF EQUAL WEIGHT?

Victim of Abortion- No chance to live.
Poverty- a chance to live even if destitute

Victim of Abortion - No Chance to live.
War - A chance to live

Victim of Abortion - No chance to live.
Environment - Can be changed

Victim of Abortion - No chance to live.
Economy - can be bettered.

Poverty: can’t fix it if you starve or die of exposure.

War: can’t fix it if you’re shot or bombed to death

Environment: can’t fix it if you’re poisoned to death

Workplace injustice: can’t fix it if you’re killed in an industrial accident or shot to death by company goons or driven out of the workplace and starved to death for organizing for better conditions

Criminal injustice: can’t fix it if you’re executed for a crime which is later proven to have been committed by someone else.

Yes yes yes, we need to speak truth to power about the abortion issue. We should NOT vote for pro-abortion candidates nor support stem-cell research using fetal tissue, nor forget the life issue in any other respect.

But other issues also have life-denying consequences, and while we can’t work on every problem all at once–we can work once in awhile on each of them, some of the time. Just a reminder.

 

[elts1956]

Poverty: can’t fix it if you starve or die of exposure.

War: can’t fix it if you’re shot or bombed to death

Environment: can’t fix it if you’re poisoned to death

Workplace injustice: can’t fix it if you’re killed in an industrial accident or shot to death by company goons or driven out of the workplace and starved to death for organizing for better conditions

Criminal injustice: can’t fix it if you’re executed for a crime which is later proven to have been committed by someone else.

Yes yes yes, we need to speak truth to power about the abortion issue. We should NOT vote for pro-abortion candidates nor support stem-cell research using fetal tissue, nor forget the life issue in any other respect.

But other issues also have life-denying consequences, and while we can’t work on every problem all at once–we can work once in awhile on each of them, some of the time. Just a reminder.

Of course they are life denying. But the difference is they aren’t “deliberate” and can be allievated while abortion for the individual child is a “definite” end and cannot be alleviated once enacted.

 

[flameburns623]

Of course they are life denying. But the difference is they aren’t “deliberate” and can be alleviated while abortion for the individual child is a “definite” end and cannot be alleviated once enacted.

I’m more than willing to concede that for most Catholics living in a Western democratic republic, where we can make serious impact on the political order by organizing, speaking out, supporting appropriate candidates, run for office ourselves, and/or voting–that in such places, life issues such as abortion, stem-cell research, euthanasia, should generally be our first priority in how we spend our time, talent, and treasure in changing the social order.

But I still want to keep before people’s awareness here that it does not have to be the ONLY thing we do on behalf of social justice issues. If I have $100.00 of discretionary funds to give to a cause or causes, after supporting my family and the ordinary work of my parish–it may very well be appropriate that at least $50.00 of that money go towards pro-life causes. But there is no reason that I cannot also give $25.00 to a local pantry for food for the poor, and another $25.00 to Pax Christi in order to work for peaceful solutions to conflicts. Or however I want to divvy-up the other $50.00.

AND, we should recognize that some folks will feel a definite and strong calling to focus their energies and resources on some issue other than the life issues… There is no reason we have to pit one or two social issues–abortion, euthanasia–against all others. We are making one cause somehow the enemy of all other causes we ought to support.

Hope that’s clear.

 

[elts1956]

I’m more than willing to concede that for most Catholics living in a Western democratic republic, where we can make serious impact on the political order by organizing, speaking out, supporting appropriate candidates, run for office ourselves, and/or voting–that in such places, life issues such as abortion, stem-cell research, euthanasia, should generally be our first priority in how we spend our time, talent, and treasure in changing the social order.

But I still want to keep before people’s awareness here that it does not have to be the ONLY thing we do on behalf of social justice issues. If I have $100.00 of discretionary funds to give to a cause or causes, after supporting my family and the ordinary work of my parish–it may very well be appropriate that at least $50.00 of that money go towards pro-life causes. But there is no reason that I cannot also give $25.00 to a local pantry for food for the poor, and another $25.00 to Pax Christi in order to work for peaceful solutions to conflicts. Or however I want to divvy-up the other $50.00. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
AND, we should recognize that some folks will feel a definite and strong calling to focus their energies and resources on some issue other than the life issues… There is no reason we have to pit one or two social issues–abortion, euthanasia–against all others. We are making one cause somehow the enemy of all other causes we ought to support.

Hope that’s clear.

The biggest problem as I see it, if people support all issues of a lesser moral level to the detriment of battling the “culture of death” as Pope John Paul II called it, the death culture will keep embedding itself into the warp and weave of U.S. Culture.

I have never believed any of the other issues are to be ignored, but it appears from the results of the election, many people have ignored the Intrinsic evils of abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell reasearch, cloning and homosexual marriage and held all other lesser issues such as War, Environmental issues, economy and such on the same MORAL level as those of the level if an Intrinsic Evil… We may disagree on any issue of a PRUDENTIAL level such as war etc., but we may NEVER support an Intrinsic Evil. Also the support of an Intrinsic Evil should never be done either in a direct, or indirect level, such as voting for a Presidential Candidate who we know has the issue of abortion as one of his main targets. Many Bishops have stated this also, so it is just not me.

Why people cannot fight for both the life of the unborn and changing the status of the lesser evils is beyond me.

 

[flameburns623]

The biggest problem as I see it, if people support all issues of a lesser moral level to the detriment of battling the “culture of death” as Pope John Paul II called it, the death culture will keep embedding itself into the warp and weave of U.S. Culture.

I have never believed any of the other issues are to be ignored, but it appears from the results of the election, many people have ignored the Intrinsic evils of abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, cloning and homosexual marriage and held all other lesser issues such as War, Environmental issues, economy and such on the same MORAL level as those of the level if an Intrinsic Evil… We may disagree on any issue of a PRUDENTIAL level such as war etc., but we may NEVER support an Intrinsic Evil. Also the support of an Intrinsic Evil should never be done either in a direct, or indirect level, such as voting for a Presidential Candidate who we know has the issue of abortion as one of his main targets. Many Bishops have stated this also, so it is just not me.

Why people cannot fight for both the life of the unborn and changing the status of the lesser evils is beyond me.

Working people with families have to triage their time and money to some extent. They need some true time to relax, and they need time to study and to ponder as well as making time to act.

Recognize that life issues are the biggie and then pick one or two or three others that one can spend some time or give some money to. Over a two or three year cycle one could do a number of different things in a number of different areas. If all Catholics were spending a bit of their free time and their spare cash to work towards a few issues, it would be surprising how much would happen.

But no one would have interests or time enough to try to work on all issues at once or probably even over a lifetime. We have a three-year cycle of readings from Scripture and still don’t read the entire Bible all the way through in that period.

 

[christmary4ever]

Is the chance of escaping poverty very high? Or will there be a significant chance that allowing the fetus to live will lead to a life of misery, adversity, and suffering for it?

Who can Say?

Poverty is always a possibilty, both material and spiritual.

But a civilized society does not kill people on the possibility

that the circumstances of their birth will most likely bring them

hardships or misery. Experts say that in the near future there
will be natural disasters that will take the life of millions of
people. Shall we determine who they are and end their lives
to spare them the agony?