When did Catholics shift this far towards the right/conservatism?

[Methodist]

My guess is that you know more about this than I do, but yes, that is what I was thinking of. Basically, if that scandal had not taken place, there is every chance that devolved government would simply have continued as it had done for the previous decade, in which case the abortion question would have been settled (or left untouched) by the Stormont Assembly, not the Westminster Parliament.

Indeed, going back even further, one might note that Arlene Foster first rose to prominence as a potential First Minister in the wake of an earlier scandal involving Peter Robinson’s wife, Iris, having an extramarital affair with a teenager for whom she procured a £50,000 loan and the tender to operate a restaurant owned by the borough on whose council she served. Had this not happened, Foster would quite possibly have never become First Minister. I mean, maybe she would have become First Minister anyway, but, equally, maybe someone else would have emerged as the leading candidate had she not had that earlier boost.

Thus, Section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 really could not have been foreseen by any British voter when we voted on 8 June 2017. Not only was abortion in Northern Ireland not top of my list of priorities when choosing my MP in 2017, it was not something that was even on my radar. Also, if anybody cares to read the whole Act, they will see that the section concerning abortion is only a small part of rather complicated Act which includes provisions such as:

If, as a result of Parliament standing prorogued or adjourned, a Minister of the Crown cannot comply with the obligations in subsection (2) or (3), a proclamation under the Meeting of Parliament Act 1797 shall require Parliament to meet on a specified day within the period within which compliance with subsection (3) is required and to meet on the five following days (other than Saturdays, Sundays or a day which is a bank holiday in the United Kingdom or in any part of the United Kingdom) to allow for compliance with subsection (3).

He can be very crude, but in general, most (not all) of his policies were good.

Well, that is an admirably moderate position. Certainly there are those who either try to explain away Trump’s crude behaviour (not just the sexual comments, but also, for example, mocking a disabled journalist) and there are even those who seem to somewhat revel in it (not so much the crude sexual comments as his tendency to be deliberately rude, insulting, and offensive about, well, anyone who isn’t 100% on board with Team Trump).

 

[Methodist]

No, but having looked it up, it sounds familiar from some threads here. There certainly seems to be a subset of Catholics who have a vision of rolling back the Enlightenment, the purported influence of Freemasonry, the American and French Revolutions, democracy, republicanism, the emergence of nation states, etc and returning to a golden age of absolute monarchy, imperialism, feudalism, crusading, etc.

 

[Rozellelily]

Support for harsh treatment of criminals (inhumane prison conditions, life without parole, death penalty, corporal punishment, humiliation as punishment).

I like in Australia and this is not the mentality here, neither among Catholics not “secular” people.
If these views exist, then it is nation specific for countries like the USA and Philipines. We don’t have the death penalty in Australia, and the vast majority of people do not support it.

Even with Christianity, I think that nations still have their own “personalities”. For example: Americans are sterotyped as loud and opinionated, Australians are stereotyped as laidback, Filipinos as sweet but a bit extreme minded in regard to religion and government rule, etc.
Of course not everyone fits the stereotypes, but generally, I think these “national identities” also influence how Catholic religion is expressed in each individual country.

Supporting inhumane, humiliating, or undignified prison conditions is not Christian. Actually, it is not the right mentality of anyone of good will. When a person starts thinking along those lines they either become indifferent as a human, hypocritical, or even like an animal.

I am a huge supporter of changing the prison conditions to be much more humane. Not as in “luxuries” of course though.

Life without parole is not necessary always based on inhumane mentalities or emotional reactions. In some cases. life without parole is very necessary to keep public safe from people who’s mentalities can’t change. There have been serial killers who have even themselves stated they don’t feel safe to be released.

false claims about Biden (e.g. dementia);

False claims or health claims in a derogatory manner about any politician (Biden, Trump, etc) are just downright uncharitable and wrong to do.

Praise for Putin; denial of interference in western democracy.

Christians are not just western. Democracy is not the only form of governing that is effective. As long as a countries citizens do not feel it is a dictatorship government and the citizens are genuinely happy with that system, then they should be free to have whatever system they choose.
The western media often pushes that democracy is the only right way.

Some people may feel they have praise for Putin, but perhaps what they are really feeling praise for are traditional values, where political correctness, and “wokeness” does not have power and rule the day.
Perhaps those people are not drawn to Putin himself so much, but are rather drawn to Russia which -for all it’s own problems -is still associated with traditional family values.

 

[Rozellelily]

It seems like they’re so used to surrounding themselves with only people who think exactly the same way they do, that the mere presence of a different opinion horrifies and alarms them, and they consider it some kind of existential threat.

Perhaps it is Twitter’s fault? It seems to have created a bit of an atmosphere where people just preach to the choir.
Not only do some people perceive it as some kind of existential threat, but some will actually become aggressive in mannerisms when a person displays a difference of opinion.

Your comment about equilibrium is very insightful. Whenever the pendulum swings too far one way, it will swing far the other way to try to re-balance itself.

Why is humanity like this?
Why is it so difficult for people to just come from balance in the first place?

 

[MNathaniel]

Why is humanity like this?
Why is it so difficult for people to just come from balance in the first place?

Sin and error are funny things. I think at the very root of it, it comes down to the mystery of individual free will… but then there is a statistically describe-able macro level where it’s actually predictable which direction the momentum of a large portion of people will move, given [XYZ] factors. Even if individuals can freely do something else, a certain number of people will tend to move with [XYZ] factors at a certain given time.

There are all sorts of answers (most of them incomplete) about why humans tend to swing from imbalance to imbalance. They can be interesting to consider (even fruitful, especially if one is positioned to take a corrective action in some sphere of life), but at the root I think the primary thing we must each do about it is attend to ourselves. Check our own balance and how we’re affecting the balance of those around us. And take accountability for ourselves, and start conducting ourselves more carefully. And of course always pray, pray, pray, and ask God to balance us along His narrow path.

I fail at this plenty. But it’s what I think the most important ‘answer’ is. Jesus, and everything we can do to invite people closer to Jesus in their own personal lives, one-on-one with him, so he can teach us each, individually, to walk with him as properly balanced people, in a world so continually imbalanced.

 

[po18guy]

Honestly, I flagged this thread the moment I saw it. There is no intention to have an honest discussion, because the thread is based on demonstrably false premises. EWTN, Catholic Answers and many other apostolates appear “right wing” because the rest of the world has fallen prey to the siren song of the left wing. And, some of the litany of names is just plain ignorant to even mention.

Take Methodism for example. There is scarcely anything left of what John Wesley believed. From questions posed on the web, it is clear that Methodism has made itself largely irrelevant.

 

[Kaninchen]

I am seeing on CAF a dramatic shift to the right:

I’m a (non-American) Jew who has been on CAF since 2006 and I agree with you to some extent but I’d suggest that a lot of it has happened since the transfer to the new board format (the old boards were relatively well moderated) a few years ago - I very much doubt that the political centre of gravity of the boards now has much relation to the political centre of gravity of the average Catholic in the pew (even in America ).

World News, for example, was always something of a (very busy) battleground but moderation kept it ‘honest’, now it’s just a few people talking/shouting at one another.

 

[Johann_du_Toit]

Catholics didn’t shift to the right. Labour, Amnesty International, Howard League for Penal Reform, etc shifted to the Far Left and started adopting policies and positions antiethical to Catholic teaching (abortion, euthanasia, gender ideology, racial identity politics, Marxism, abolition of private property, Radical Statism, defunding the police and abolishing the criminal justice system).

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

can understand people who cut ties with the organisation in 2007, but if you were opposed to its work before 2007, I can only assume that you do not have a problem with the death penalty, torture, and other human rights abuses.

You are aware that a person can be against political oppression but not feel like joining a particular group?

 

[sealabeag]

What I was referring to was the somewhat hysterical and paranoid way in which many people on CAF talk about leftism, socialism, communism, and Marxism as if they were (1) all the same thing and (2) actually manifested in major political parties in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. It was clarified back in 1931 that British Catholics were permitted to support the Labour Party. Back in 1931, the Labour Party was an actual socialist party, committed to the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange (a policy abandoned in 1995). If Catholics were permitted to support the Labour Party, then they can definitely support parties such as the US Democratic Party and the Canadian Liberal Party.

Ah, ok, I’m beginning to understand where you’re coming from…

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Why is it so difficult for people to just come from balance in the first place?

Because balance means you’re constantly in motion, correcting here, correcting there.
It’s a lot of effort.

Drifting (either to the Right or to the Left) is dreamily easy.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

I didn’t say that. Either you didn’t read what I said or you are deliberately twisting my words. What I was referring to was the somewhat hysterical and paranoid way in which many people on CAF talk about leftism, socialism, communism, and Marxism as if they were (1) all the same thing and (2) actually manifested in major political parties in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. It was clarified back in 1931 that British Catholics were permitted to support the Labour Party. Back in 1931, the Labour Party was an actual socialist party, committed to the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange (a policy abandoned in 1995). If Catholics were permitted to support the Labour Party, then they can definitely support parties such as the US Democratic Party and the Canadian Liberal Party.

This is a solid point. There is a paranoid, conspiratorial thread running through the World News sub forum.

All I can say is that remember that CAF posters are not representative of Catholics generally.

 

[Johann_du_Toit]

AI started out as a Human Rights Organization. Now, they are a SJW Activist group dedicated to supporting Gender Ideology, Abortion, Euthanasia, open borders, Antifa etc. The rights they champion are the rights of criminals, radicals and perverts.

 

[Sarcelle]

Depends on how you define universal healthcare.

It does not have to be government provided. The government has proven its incompetence over and over again, so I can’t blame people who don’t trust it to provide healthcare. Medicare comes to mind. A lot of tax dollars spent on it, paid for by taxpayers most of whom aren’t eligible for it.

However, I think there is nothing wrong with a vast majority having access to affordable quality healthcare. It doesn’t have to be from the government but through private means.

We can start with transparency in pricing.

https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2019...lower-healthcare-costs-for-all-americans.html

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

The rights they champion are the rights of criminals, radicals and perverts.

There’s a distinction here, though. What AI used to champion, and I used to support, was the rights of criminals. Meaning, that people accused of crimes have a right to a fair process and not simply to be thrown into a cell and forgotten about. It’s been sad to see AI become just another far left advocacy group.

 

[Methodist]

universal healthcare tends to support abortion, less quality care, and assisted suicide.

I am not sure on what you base this. The US does not have universal healthcare, but it does have abortion in all states and assisted suicide in several states. Indeed, many US states, and the District of Columbia, have abortion laws that are more liberal than those in, for example, the UK. Poland, on the other hand, has a public healthcare system, and guarantees access to healthcare in its Constitution, but has some of the most conservative abortion laws in the world. Malta has a healthcare system that is more similar to the UK (although much better), i.e. government healthcare free at the point of use, and also has extremely conservative abortion laws.

As for assisted suicide, it is only legal in three countries in Europe. Arguably, it may be legal in Scotland, but this is a grey area due to a quirk of the Scottish legal system (namely, that Scots law never criminalised suicide and therefore assisting a person committing suicide was not a crime; however, if you do assist somebody in taking their own life in Scotland you could quite possibly just end up being charged with murdering them). You would therefore have to explain why assisted suicide is legal in nine states and DC, but is illegal in countries with universal healthcare such as the UK and Ireland. Indeed, assisted suicide is also illegal in China, which has the largest universal healthcare system in the world.

In fact, just look up a list of countries that have single-payer healthcare, and you will see the names of some of the most conservative regimes in the world, such as Saudi Arabia, Brunei, and Malaysia.

 

[MikeInVA]

What you are seeing isn’t a shift in Catholics to the right; you are seeing a shift in America to the left. Not that long ago, keeping illegal immigrants out of the US was not an issue of debate.

 

[RhodesianSon]

It’s insane that having a secure border and immigration laws that benefit our country are somehow controversial.

 

[Peeps]

I work in a hospital.

No one is turned away. No one, even “illegals.”

Medicaid pays for those who have no health insurance.

I’ve seen premie babies born to poor women (with no health insurance)–and these little ones are admitted to the high-level NICU and spend weeks there–thousands of dollars a day (more than that). These health-care professionals have some of the most specialized skills of any of us, and an education that took years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to acquire–and they are there caring for that poor woman’s premie–and she doesn’t pay anything.

As for regular health care (annual physicals, etc.) EVERYONE is entited to a physical exam with various screens (blood pressure, etc.) and EVERY woman is entitled to an annual mammogram (after age 50, and in many cases after age 40). And if these screens are positive, they aren’t told to go away–they receive the same care that someone with comprehensive health care insurance gets.

I know that not all the hospitals in our city accept Medicaid, but ours does, and we are a Top Hospital in the inner city–we’re not a crumbling ancient building with ghosts and rats running around and with under-educated semi-professionals doing the work. Far from it.

I just don’t get it when people say that they can’t get health care in the U.S.–yes they can. It’s there. I’ve never seen anyone turned away from our hospital who needed care.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

I just don’t get it when people say that they can’t get health care in the U.S.–yes they can. It’s there. I’ve never seen anyone turned away from our hospital who needed care.

The problem is that people without insurance often turn up at the emergency room. They won’t be turned away, but the condition might have become acute, and if they had had insurance, they might have been able to nip it in the bud during a routine visit.

But yeah, generally, the people who get the raw deal as far as healthcare in the US are not the destitute. It’s the lower middle class; they aren’t poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but they tend to work jobs that don’t offer health insurance.