Who will you be supporting in the U.S. presidential election with our Catholic values in mind?

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LeafByNiggle said:
Even when the person denies he needs to be forgiven anything?
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If you believe you’re forgiven, you believe you’re forgiven. Some protestants believe in what I think of as the “blanket” theory of salvation; that Jesus’ sacrifice “threw a blanket” over our acts, automatically removing them from God’s sight or concern. I think some of the subgroups of Lutherans once believed that. Probably others still do.
 
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But there is an all out assault on regs is my point. Arbitrary deregulation business lobbyists are getting in their stocking. In that one example from experience( there are many), I point out how a simple requirement omitted via regulation withdrawal results in someone paying. In our lifetime whole towns of families have been wiped out by Benzine ( love Canal) . Ok am old enough to recall acid rain destroy lakes in a whole region. ( Pertinent to a current Trump attempt at deregulation being blocked).
 
Maximus1 said:
In that one example from experience( there are many), I point out how a simple requirement omitted via regulation withdrawal results in someone paying
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Except that I don’t think you did. WOTUS did not require guard rails around lakes to prevent people from driving into them. Nor did any such reg under WOTUS get removed because it wasn’t there to start with.

Maybe you’re talking about some other regulation, but we don’t know what it is.
 
Two new categories of Conservative evangelicals seem to have emerged.
Ones that give Mulligan’s and ones who don’t.
 
Maximus1 said:
Why does the choice begin with the need to forgive. When you vote for it, you are forgiving yourself. Like sin then hit the confessional
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Isn’t that how everyone’s supposed to live their lives - aka sin and than hit the confessional? Not trying to encourage sin, but saying that we naturally sin (like little children) and thus should hit the confessional regularly. Makes sense to me. I’m thinking of the prodigal son in this case.

There was a priest that was very wise. He said: isn’t it strange that the communion line is so large yet the confession line is so small? We’re all terrible people whom can get God’s grace.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is like the kid who gets in trouble with his parents over and over again and that this parent perfectly understands why they keep continuing the same sins. Going to confession also is supposed to keep us from despair. Going to confession can help us become and more importantly, remain holy. To me though I struggle with the purpose of amendment - aka the ability or at least the desire to not commit the same sin over again. Temptation can be a difficult thing to overcome or even be aware of since it’s hard to know when thoughts have crossed the line from ones you dismiss to the ones you contemplate.

Control of one’s thoughts and control of one’s decision making seems so critical to living a Holy life. I also think that Satan loves to distract us from a Holy life in any way possible. Sin is SO DANGEROUS because it involves wanting OUR WILL instead of God’s will.
 
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You might hope the thought is NOT, " let me indulge and I will handle it I the confessional." A bit less premeditated. Otherwise practically we sin and periodically confess. Hopefully not with an MO that one can sin all they want because they can confess. So I see your point, I hope you see my nuance. Ultimately,God is not sitting there with an abacus on a cloud , the sin is behovely as Julian of Norwich says and the process of confession is supposed to help transform us. At least as to maintaining boundaries of ethics and behavior. Otherwise why bother?
 
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Maximus1 said:
You might hope the thought is NOT, " let me indulge and I will handle it I the confessional." A bit less premeditated. Otherwise practically we sin and periodically confess. Hopefully not with an MO that one can sin all they want because they can confess. So I see your point, I hope you see my nuance. Ultimately,God is not sitting there with an abacus on a cloud , the sin is behovely as Julian of Norwich says and the process of confession is supposed to help transform us. At least as to maintaining boundaries of ethics and behavior. Otherwise why bother?
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Absolutely. Of course, I struggle to be a conformist so I tend to be the type of person that likes to break the rules whenever possible. As a child, I was cooperative to a degree, but I also was disobedient and rebellious. In other words, I had respect for authority but struggled to not question it - not argumentatively but trying to politely avoid doing as I was asked, all in a very hyperactive and impulsive way. That said for work and especially for God, I desire not to break the rules but it’s a hard habit to break. But it is definitely easy to have the attitude of let me commit the sin or let me think lustfully of someone (including my wife) and than I can go wash my hands of it. I had an almost 25 year habit (from age 11 to 35) of self-pleasure with that attitude. I definitely try to do this but I can definitely see the temptation is there to be presumptuous. I love St Michael as he confronts evil and don’t know if he’s my guardian angel but I feel his strength. I think what helps to curb it is when I surrender control to God.
 
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Sin is a struggle for everyone whether they admit it or not.
In terms of conformist, I plead guilty to difficulty myself but I also like to understand why, rather than just because. And this is a tension among believers.
I forget which Gospel has Jesus telling his Apostles at the last supper that prior to his coming, Jews viewed the law as slaves. That we are friends now. And so as friends he imparted all he knew of his father’s," why."
( paraphrasing).
I wonder if non conformity sometimes is often simply following the gift of why, being friend.
When a slave is ordered to obey, the slave has no thought of why he is obeying. At that point righteousness is limited to complying well with the task elements. The compliance itself has limited value except dumb obedience. Why you are asked to do something creates a different dynamic. You embrace the why, not the task for task sake. I find this thinking sometimes is viewed non conformist.
Remember, Jesus and everything we know about him was non-conformist to the authorities of his day. His entire ministry was a giant paradox that mocked conformist ideas.
Example: In religion ( non Christian) the gods are invariably outwardly triumphal in human terms. Strong, clad in gold , they shoot lightning at their enemies and ," my God is stronger than yours," is the idea. Sacrifice I made to them and they are appeased and hopefully satiated consuming it.
Jesus came as a humbled forgiving victim. Who died naked hung on a tree.
Jesus doesn’t consume sacrifices he is the sacrifice we consume. Literally.
 
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Some historian or other remarked that, compared to those living during the Renaissance or High Middle Ages, moderns “neither sin well nor repent well”. Might have been Kenneth Clark, but whoever. And there is some truth to that. In our own era we’re awfully busy excusing ourselves from having committed sin. The historian added that folks in those older times sinned wholeheartedly and in full knowledge and intent of their sin. But they repented just as energetically and honestly.

Since we moderns don’t admit to our sin in the first place, we don’t think we have anything to repent and, as a consequence, don’t, or excuse ourselves that because we dropped a $100 bill into the collection basket at Christmas or voted for someone who promises everything and delivers nothing, that we have fully atoned.

Now, does protestantism partake of that in many of its concatenations? Certainly. In fact, they have “formalized” it into various doctrines. We Catholics are presently in the process of doing the same thing but in a slightly different way.
 
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Self pleasure is a sin I know, and it begins a giant temptation in youth and the one perk of moving into decrepitude and getting married, is it becomes less a temptation. I am not yet old enough to imagine a burden. Lol.
Love one another as I have loved you seems to be where God’s love is spread in the world making it , at least to me, a greater challenge and reward with a job well done. And as it turns out it is never perfected and requires every effort.
 
Maximus1 said:
Self pleasure is a sin I know, and it begins a giant temptation in youth and the one perk of moving into decrepitude and getting married, is it becomes less a temptation. I am not yet old enough to imagine a burden. Lol.
Love one another as I have loved you seems to be where God’s love is spread in the world making it , at least to me, a greater challenge and reward with a job well done. And as it turns out it is never perfected and requires every effort.
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Thanks for patiently replying to me. It’s interesting because the self-pleasure did not come out of a habit of pornography but simply wanting control over my life rather than surrendering it to God. Of course, the more we try to control our life, the more (with sin), we lose control.

That does not mean I haven’t seen naked artwork or people attempting to show me pornography, but it is something I haven’t actively sought out. That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought of people naked because of the fear and allowing desire to take over.

The other big sin I have struggled with is reincarnation, instead of one life. I think I confused dreams with reality when I was a very young child (age 2-4). I don’t think I believed in reincarnation, but the dreams made me feel that it was part of a past life.
 
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Good luck. Turn your Christian energy outward. It is hard frankly, but it is “the way.” Setting moral boundaries for ourselves personally is only foundational. After, the true path involves others and our relationship with them. We are the body. AND SO IS EVERYBODY ELSE.
 
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I think you are right on a lot of things. We try to justify our actions and conceal our motives and thus confuse ourselves in the process. We are also far more distracted with all the media available.

We don’t like to take ownership for our actions, which in going with your logic about the Middle Ages was something our ancestors had no problem doing.
 
whichwaytogo47 said:
We are also far more distracted with all the media available.
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They’re not really helpful. They have their own point of view and, unfortunately, think it’s their duty (or at least their desire) to impart their beliefs on us. Unfortunately, we listen to them a lot because a) they’re more present in our lives than those who would impart Catholic morality to us, and b) too many of our churchmen are afraid to be confrontational with the Church’s message. Part of that is due to genuine fear of government reprisal, some is due to fear of reprisal in the collection basket, and some is weak faith on their part.

But regardless, the “first teachers” are parents. We can’t really excuse ourselves by complaining that formal catechesis by churchmen is weak. It is weak, but it’s not an excuse for parents.
 
Cruciferi said:
Then you’ve excluded 98% of all politicians.
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I am cynical, but not that cynical. I don’t believe all politicians are immoral, lying, power-hungry, womanizing egoist, even if most are. I try to stick to the good ones, are at least the better ones. But then I am not some evangelical, or am I looking for a religious state. Unlike most Trump haters, and Trump adorers, I understand the attraction to some of the policies he proposes. I also understand nationalism is always an attractant.
 
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Ginsberg & Breyer are the only SCOTUS judges in their 80s. Thomas is 3rd oldest at 71.
 
Yes, but back when I posted that…

Just kidding! Thanks for correcting my mistake 🙂
 
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