Why do liberal Catholics stay in the Church?

[cmhmd]

“I understand what you mean, and relativism is seriously wrong; there is absolute right and wrong”

OK, I do not understand this thinking.

So, Jesus says he came to not change the law, not by one little jot. He says even if you lust, you have committed adultery. Then he shames the crowd into letting the adulterous woman off the hook.

If that is not moral relativism, I don’t know what is.

Everything is relative. When the Pope condemned the war in Iraq, was there no weighing of evidence, of moral imperatives and relative goods and bads? Grow up, please.

 

[KSU]

“I understand what you mean, and relativism is seriously wrong; there is absolute right and wrong”–KSU

OK, I do not understand this thinking.

So, Jesus says he came to not change the law, not by one little jot. He says even if you lust, you have committed adultery. Then he shames the crowd into letting the adulterous woman off the hook.

If that is not moral relativism, I don’t know what is.

Everything is relative. When the Pope condemned the war in Iraq, was there no weighing of evidence, of moral imperatives and relative goods and bads? Grow up, please.

If you understood even basic Catholicism you would know this:

First, God forgave her sin; He does that sort of thing, you know. There is no way to spin it as some form of relativism which liberals understandably admire so much.

Second, He used the occasion as one of many examples to demonstrate His teachings under the New Covenant; in this case it was that the old Jewish rules of dealing with adultery were not part of His teaching. Here’s what He thinks about relativism: “But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.”, which is precisely why I included that quote in my above post.

Third, the Church detests relativism. Here is just one of many hits if you Google relativism + pope:

telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8985322/Pope-to-renew-attack-on-moral-relativism-in-New-Years-message.html

And as for the false assertion that the “Pope condemned the war in Iraq”, hear this loud and clear: Pope John Paul II, contrary to the usual liberal attempts to misinform intellectually lazy and ignorant Catholics, never issued a moral condemnation of any US military action.

He was the Pope, for goodness sake. As such, it was his duty to try to persuade the two sides to continue negotiations, even though the entire literate world (except liberals) knew that the barbarous Iraqi regime lied every time it spoke. Every pope and every decent person is against war, until it can no longer be avoided, and the pope would have been the first to tell you that it was beyond his competence to make the final decision. It’s basic Church doctrine, so find a Catholic dictionary and look it up. It’s so basic I will not address it further; there are more than enough liberals on this board who will be happy to change the OP’s topic and further the Iraq war falsehood.

I really wish invincibly ignorant liberals finally had the courage of their convictions and officially joined Amchurch instead of pretending to stay in and snipe at the Roman Catholic Church.

 

[formerlysure]

I was asked by a well meaning relative how I can be a political conservative and also a Catholic trying to grow in my faith. They are of the Mindset and generation of the Kennedy family power and influence as the ideal for their generation of American Catholics.

The answer is simply that times change and our society changes too: years ago, civil rights would have brought me into the Democratic party - that issue alone. Today I think the key issue is personal responsibility. The greatest ill of society is the lack of values like responsibility, accountability, respect, integrity. The value of family is under attack with an anything goes attitude.

I don’t hate anyone but I do hate certain behaviors as I see them as detrimental to society overall. However, law will never eradicate sin and cannot replace the role church formerly had in strong hand in our society.

What government fan do is protect our constitution which has uniquely protected the right of faith to flourish for those who seek it.

I do not wish for a Catholic state in this country… Faith means nothing if it is dictated.

I do want policies that monitor the most serious of wrongs such as preventing and punishing against murder and rape.

However, I have realized that while short term help like unployment is essential, some entitlements like welfare, more often than not, become substitutes for personal behavior and can do more harm than good as currently managed. Government is bad at social problems.

I want poor mothers to be able to feed their children but think it is done better by charitable organizations which approach the whole situation with an eye to fostering independence.

Many liberals attack others as being uncaring about such problems but we really are seeing terrific waste in government service and want to shrink government, bolster business and industry, build our markets and jobs, and incent people to support charitable efforts. I don’t want the government to have money I’d rather give to Catholic Charities… The former will waste it, the latter wil get something done.

I do want to balance the liberal voice as well because their fights against religious views is itself a religious view. Our separation of church and state us meant to support religious freedom, not to mock religion of disregard collective community viewpoints that find their roots in faith.

 

[cmhmd]

Wow.

Stay inside that cocoon.

 

[lynnvinc]

The main problem I have with conservatives (which includes, it seems, most people who consider themselves “orthodox” Catholics) is their lack of environmental concern/awareness; I don’t hate them, I am just grieved by their wrong thinking – which poses threats to life on planet earth, so it’s not just being wrong, but being dangerously wrong.

I think the problem is a wrong view of the environment – as being something on the fringes of human society, the wild places and species, the rainforest and polar bears – while in fact it is also the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the chemicals that permeate through our skin, the materials with which we build our buildings and produce our products.

It is God’s good creation, which we are to use for our material sustenance and well-being in lives dedicated to building up the kingdom of God and its righteousness – not in destroying the life-sustaining base of others. In this day and age in which we live in seemingly hermetically sealed human-made constructions, there is a tendency to think that we are autonomous, self-sufficient, and apart from the rest of God’s creation (Enlightenment concepts of man carrried to an extreme).

There have been conservatives in the past who were not so limited and wrong in their thinking – Teddy Roosevelt and Nixon, to name two. And the saints of old had profound sensing and appreciation of God’s creation, and found it to inspire contemplation of God.

Nowadays when the environmental threats are extremely serious – there are at least 9 such threats to life on earth, AGW just being one of them (see stockholmresilience.org/planetary-boundaries ) – humans have all the more withdrawn into a shell of disregard for the environment, esp when it comes to acknowledging their part in harming it and the life that depends on it, includes fetuses and born humans and other living creatures.

I find today’s conservatives (religious and political) to be morally bankrupt on this issue, just as liberals are morally bankrupt on other issues (and also on the environment, which they do not focus on hardly at all, but at least are not antagonistic toward it). The conservatives in the current politics seem to be getting worse and worse and worse. I myself used to be a conservative in the 1950s and 60s – it was not so bad then. They were reasonable and moderate. I could vote for a Nixon or a Teddy Roosevelt . They would be so much better than anyone in the field today, including Obama (whom I consider to the right of Nixon, or at most only very slightly to the left).

I think we really need to put life first, and that means putting the environment first (without which life would be impossible). All else (the economy, rejecting gay marriage, making abortions illegal) is just arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and putting some in the brig for violating ship rules. Without life (without a sustainable environment), all these issues are completely moot points.

After first insisting on a sustainable environment that supports life, and giving serious and due focus to it, then we can make all sorts of other rules and laws to restrict bad and evil behavior. Killing everyone to solve social problems it not an option with me. Here’s an image that could perhaps help:


Anyway, that’s why it is very hard for me to support any candidate, especially conservatives, and why I have problems with most of my fellow Catholics who consider themselves orthodox. They are not dealing with fundamental life issues, only secondary and limited life issues (which appears to me a mask for their true aim of dismantling social programs – like social security, medicare, medicaid, Obamacare, and welfare that help people survive – and they are certainly against increasing these, so they can get more taxes back in their pockets for their own selfish pursuits).

Life with me is a non-negotiable. I’m digging my heels in on this one.

Let the conservatives get into conservation, conservancy, co-service, as stewards of God’s creation, keeping the garden, as God commanded us in the Garden of Eden, certainly not destroying it. Let them acknowledge the legitimate science of environmental and climate scientists, rather than deny it and assissinate the character of those good and decent scientists. Then they will have moral legs to stand on, and the liberals will wither away, and everyone will become a conservative and an orthodox Catholic.

Anything short of full support of life is a support of death.

 

[KSU]

Good post, formerlysure. Please allow me to ease your mind even more about Republicans. First, however, note that it is only because of my love for the Church and the great, unique American Experiment that I prefer the GOP over the Socialistic anti-Church, anti-freedom, anti-life, anti-truth Democrat Party.

The GOP establishment is hardly a community of angles and saints, but when you say “that times change and our society changes too: years ago, civil rights would have brought me into the Democratic party - that issue alone”, you seem to have bought into one of the liberal’s favorite falsehoods about their political opposition.

Please consider this:

It was the Republicans who freed the slaves, and at cost more horrible than you and I can imagine today.

It was the Republicans who fought the anti-Catholic, anti-African American KKK established and peopled by Democrats. Do you think the people who compose the current remnants of that sickness love the GOP?

It was the Republicans, led by Everett Dirksen, who overcame Democrat opposition to JFK’s landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. Listen to Democrat Senator Richard Russell, who told the Senate: “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states.” Russell organized a group of Democratic senators to filibuster the bill.

In 1963 Republicans met the challenge by proposing a legislative initiative to revise Senate rules to make it easier to pass a civil rights bill which would cut off federal funds to programs that discriminated against African Americans. After one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the Congress, Republican Everett Dirksen became the man of the hour. The fate of civil rights legislation had rested on him and the Republican Party.

After the Republican victory, however, guess which party got the credit with African Americans and have kept it to this day? Right, the Democrats. Such is the ability of liberals (in and out of the Church) and their captive media to spin the truth. In fact, since 1933, Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights than the Democrats. In the twenty-six major civil rights votes since 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 % of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 % of the votes. congresslink.org/print_basics_histmats_civilrights64text.htm

So, my friend, don’t ever be brow-beaten by the unending drumbeat of liberal claptrap designed to confuse you. Just rely on Church teaching (as opposed to politically correct opinion and insult). Have you seen this: renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/101009

 

[Matilda_Bennett]

Please keep in mind that we do not allow political discussions in this forum. Thank you.

 

[andrewstx]

I am completely amazed. I started my post stating that I am an orthodox Catholic and ploitically MODERATE. Then just a couple posts further on I find myself called a liberal.

I guess itn all depends on the individuals point of view.

 

[KSU]

“I am completely amazed. I started my post #666] stating that I am an orthodox Catholic…Then just a couple posts further on I find myself called a liberal. I guess it all depends on the individuals point of view.”–andrewstx

Well, andrew, my mama always said liberal is as liberal does.

Seriously, my friend, few if any orthodox Catholics believe, as you indicated in your post #666, that they are being told by the Church (or by orthodox Catholics) that to be a Catholic one must vote for a particular group of people. That is a liberal Catholic mantra.

Catholic bishops, it is true, reiterate Church teaching and hope that such teaching and common sense prevail. The Church does not consider that to be the same as telling someone who they must vote for. The so-called bishops’ guide actually is so timid a document that liberal Catholics use it as their excuse to vote for abortion supporters.

Moreover, an orthodox Catholic would not imply in private, much less on a public forum, that the Catholic pro-life agenda winks at “people who murder abortion doctors”, and at “those who turn their heads”, and at “those who stand outside planned parenthood and scream ‘baby killer’”. But you sure did in your post #666.

In fact, no orthodox Catholic I ever knew, or heard about, would repeat the offensive liberal talking points you did in that post.

Hopefully, that will mitigate your amazement.

 

[formerlysure]

Please keep in mind that we do not allow political discussions in this forum. Thank you.

I’m not meaning to come off challenging in any way, but can you tell me please why we cannot discuss politics in this forum? The initial question brings politics into the discussion as the term “liberal Catholics” does conote a particular political agenda and mindset.

I personally think this is a very relevant discussion for modern Catholics - how to reconcile politics and religion, particularly for Americans who advocate separation of church and state. Is such discussion meant for a different forum? And how can we have a meaningful discussion about the question at hand without including politics in the discussion?

 

[Jerome_Fan]

“I am completely amazed. I started my post #666] stating that I am an orthodox Catholic…Then just a couple posts further on I find myself called a liberal. I guess it all depends on the individuals point of view.”–andrewstx

Well, andrew, my mama always said liberal is as liberal does.

Seriously, my friend, few if any orthodox Catholics believe, as you indicated in your post #666, that they are being told by the Church (or by orthodox Catholics) that to be a Catholic one must vote for a particular group of people. That is a liberal Catholic mantra.

Catholic bishops, it is true, reiterate Church teaching and hope that such teaching and common sense prevail. The Church does not consider that to be the same as telling someone who they must vote for. The so-called bishops’ guide actually is so timid a document that liberal Catholics use it as their excuse to vote for abortion supporters.

Moreover, an orthodox Catholic would not imply in private, much less on a public forum, that the Catholic pro-life agenda winks at “people who murder abortion doctors”, and at “those who turn their heads”, and at “those who stand outside planned parenthood and scream ‘baby killer’”. But you sure did in your post #666.

In fact, no orthodox Catholic I ever knew, or heard about, would repeat the offensive liberal talking points you did in that post.

Hopefully, that will mitigate your amazement.

Have to agree wholeheartedly with you KSU. ‘Wolves in sheep’s clothing’ comes to mind.

 

[Jerome_Fan]

I’m not meaning to come off challenging in any way, but can you tell me please why we cannot discuss politics in this forum? The initial question brings politics into the discussion as the term “liberal Catholics” does conote a particular political agenda and mindset.

I personally think this is a very relevant discussion for modern Catholics - how to reconcile politics and religion, particularly for Americans who advocate separation of church and state. Is such discussion meant for a different forum? And how can we have a meaningful discussion about the question at hand without including politics in the discussion?

Fact is, there is separation between Church and state. That is how Catholics like it. For an example of an opposite stance, see any Muslim country! Vive la difference!!!

 

[graceandglory]

I recently read (can’t remember where) that the reason most dissident Catholics stay in the Church is because they realize that if they left then their influence would weaken (i.e. no one would really care what they think). I think this seems reasonable enough with respect to Catholic politicians who support abortion, gay marriage, etc. It also could apply to dissident priests. And even those people in charge of organizations like Catholics for Choice.

But my question is, what about the average layman? The man or woman who attends Mass weekly, yet his opinion on many things is not in accord with the Church. Why do these folks remain in the Church? You can’t really say that they stay for reasons of influence or power. So what is it?

Thanks.

you mean the ones who call the rest of us fundamentalist bigots?

 

[Joe_Hill]

This is all very political.

I thought we were asked NOT to dicuss politics on this part of the forum.

I’m a newcomer, so please correct me, if I am mistaken.

 

[Jerome_Fan]

you mean the ones who call the rest of us fundamentalist bigots?

There is a lamentable lack of catecheses about all things Catholic. Most Catholics, regrettably, are deplorably ignorant about our wonderful Catholic faith. Much of this lack is down to our shepherds. However, it is really up to every Catholic to learn about the faith that is handed down to us from Jesus and His apostles. The scriptures and documents of the Magisterium are there for everybody! Fundamentalist, orthodox… whatever, the most important thing to be is a good and faithful Roman Catholic.

 

[formerlysure]

Fact is, there is separation between Church and state. That is how Catholics like it. For an example of an opposite stance, see any Muslim country! Vive la difference!!!

Yes… I phrased my comment poorly… I meant that as American catholics it can be hard… Living the faith when there must always be compromise in voting in that each option might forward one Catholic doctrine bur disregard flagrantly another. I agree with your post.

 

[Jerome_Fan]

Yes… I phrased my comment poorly… I meant that as American catholics it can be hard… Living the faith when there must always be compromise in voting in that each option might forward one Catholic doctrine bur disregard flagrantly another. I agree with your post.

Simple - never do an evil in the mistaken belief of ‘the end justifies the means’. If you have no candidate due to the evil of candidates, don’t vote for any of them! This is the way I do it in England. If they are corrupt, I don’t want it on my conscience that I voted them into power.

 

[Joe_Hill]

Simple - never do an evil in the mistaken belief of ‘the end justifies the means’. ** If you have no candidate due to the evil of candidates, don’t vote for any of them! **This is the way I do it in England. If they are corrupt, I don’t want it on my conscience that I voted them into power.

:clapping:

Absolutely

Enough people not voting for them and they might just get the message.

 

[Jerome_Fan]

:clapping:

Absolutely

Enough people not voting for them and they might just get the message.

Of course, you could put yourself up as a candidate. Not doing something that is evil is not always enough. Sometimes we have TO DO something ourselves.

 

[andrewstx]

Have to agree wholeheartedly with you KSU. ‘Wolves in sheep’s clothing’ comes to mind.

I said I am a moderate and not a liberal. But I am not a tea=party member either.

This “liberal” plans on voting Republican, some liberal I am!

I converted from a radical fundamentalist sect that saw everything as %100 black or %100 white. But real life is not that way.

When I became Catholic I abondoned that mindset, and I am not ashamed.