Why do some Catholics lean politically conservative?

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thinkingkind said:
Catholics can never ever support a party or a candidate who endorses abortion. Full stop. So it can never be Democratic party and therefore will be either Republican or independent conservative. At the moment Catholics have the best President as he fights abortion as none before him.
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BEST of luck to you then.
Roe v Wade was decided by Supreme Court Justices that were appointed by a Republican president and had republican affiliation.
The vote on Roe vs. Wade was 7-2. Those justices supporting the case’s pro-choice outcome were as follows, including the president nominating each and the president’s party affiliation:
  • Harry Blackmun (Nixon, R)
  • Warren Burger (Nixon, R)
  • William Douglas (FDR, D)
  • William Brennan (Eisenhower, R)
  • Potter Stewart (Eisenhower, R)
  • Thurgood Marshall (LBJ, D)
  • Lewis Powell (Nixon, R)
Those dissenting on Roe vs. Wade — only two – and both were not Republican-president-nominated to the Court:
  • Byron White (Kennedy, D)
  • William Rehnquist (Nixon, R; chief justice under Reagan, R)
Knowledge can be your friend.
 
HarryStotle said:
I doubt the issue is poverty more than a fear of losing out on opportunity or an unwillingness to be burdened by having to care for a child. It’s more about a general moral failure of society and a reprioritizing of the value of human life relative to material goods, than it is about poverty.
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The correlation made by the Bishops is informative, enlightening, and offers common sense information shedding light on an oppressing problem, the fact that abortion and poverty can be a vicious cycle.

In doing so the Bishops of the Church have given many Catholics a stronger foot hold for standing in support of life through understanding the needs of many that seek termination.

I don’t find uninformed and unsupported opinions helpful when dealing with such an important topic.
 
I have moved from the “left” to the “right” because the right respects the individual as created by God. The left on the level of policy, does not respect religious freedom. The actions of the previous administration provide many examples and their support of abortion is Case #1. There is NO way to justify the murder of unborn children in the womb. Please note how the confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh are ALL about abortion. The left is corrupt and evil.
 
DENNYINMI said:
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HarryStotle:
I doubt the issue is poverty more than a fear of losing out on opportunity or an unwillingness to be burdened by having to care for a child. It’s more about a general moral failure of society and a reprioritizing of the value of human life relative to material goods, than it is about poverty.
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The correlation made by the Bishops is informative, enlightening, and offers common sense information shedding light on an oppressing problem, the fact that abortion and poverty can be a vicious cycle.

In doing so the Bishops of the Church have given many Catholics a stronger foot hold for standing in support of life through understanding the needs of many that seek termination.

I don’t find uninformed and unsupported opinions helpful when dealing with such an important topic.
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I am pretty sure the Bishops don’t want to politicize the abortion issue too much given the ire that would come down on their heads. In addition, they may not want to bait leftist politicians into removing charitable status from the Church for being too political. Poverty makes a convenient scapegoat for showing “concern” without doing much in the way concrete action to change the status quo.

When was the last time you heard the bishops put the finger on poverty for crimes like theft or murder? I am certain there is an equivalent case to be made – although a very weak one – correlating a significant number of criminal acts with poverty.

Just because a case can be made, however weakly, to correlate poverty with abortion, doesn’t mean a direct causal link exists.

Have you ever heard of the bishops advocating for the $500+ billion going to PP every year being rerouted to directly give poor women and families the choice to access that money to help them keep their unborn children?

I haven’t, but perhap you can locate such a document, being as well read on bishop statements as you are.
 
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DENNYINMI said:
Roe v Wade was decided by Supreme Court Justices that were appointed by a Republican president and had republican affiliation.
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But “Republican” =/= “conservative”.

The Republican platform pays lip service to conservative values… but anyone who’s been awake for the last 30, 40 years has been able to see that actual action promoting conservative values has been in very short supply. Republicans are more like slow-motion Democrats. Which is why a lot of people decided to give a billionaire private sector guy the presidency over the field of career politicians.
 
RCIAGraduate said:
To be fair to the USCCB, I did find this. http://www.usccb.org/news/2015/15-119.cfm
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Okay, valid point.

Notice, however, that the timing was just after David Daleiden and the CMP released their undercover videos showing PP’s selling of human fetus parts. The outrage that followed certainly emboldened some bishops because trafficking in human body parts was and is illegal, and heinously inhuman.

The defunding call related to PP’s grossly immoral behaviour, not to its abortion business, per se.
 
DENNYINMI said:
t conservative. At the moment Catholics have the best President as he fights abortion as none before him.
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To be fair, however, in 1973 when Roe was argued and decided, the Pro Life issue didn’t belong to one party or another. Guys like Ted Kennedy and other unabashed liberals were actually pro-life for a short season.

In addition, the Supreme Court nominations weren’t nearly as politicized in the Pre-Bork era as they are in the modern era. It was easier to get a surprise , a pro-life justice when you were expecting and anti-life justice or vice versa, as opposed to nowadays where the SCOTUS is more of a legislative law-making body than just interpreting the law.
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I think alot of it depends on the fact that you kind of have to take a candidate, and his party, as a lump sum deal.

I don’t have a party right now. Haven’t for awhile. I agree with you that for many social justice matters the left is closer to Catholic social teaching. Until you get to abortion. The right is too married to the laffer curve and an almost know-nothing level of immigration resistance for me to support. I do trend conservative on most issues, but I’m not lock step that way. It’s just an aggregate of my positions. Right now, I send money to the American Solidarity party. I joke with my brother that what I really want is the ‘Good Governance party’: Balance the budget. Pay pensions. Raise taxes to try to eliminate the deficit over time. Fix roads. Don’t kill the unborn…

For the left, abortion makes them unelectable to me. For me, saying ‘Wow, that candidate really has a nice policy on immigration’ doesn’t out do that same candidate wants complete, unfettered access to abortion across the board. It would be like saying ‘Wow, I really like Bull Connor’s plan for school lunches for the poor, and his progressive tax plan. There is that segregation thing but you know, seamless garment and all. I’m voting for him!’. No current progressive I know would say that.

For the right; going after education, pensions, and immigration really annoy me. The also tend to allow themselves to fall into regulatory capture, thereby weakening needed restrictions. And their stance on big business seems to be ‘MORE is MORE!’ even when those businesses are shitty corporate citizens.

So, I go third party. My beliefs are more conservative. I’m not quite your target audience but I thought I would at least explain my position.
 
I grew up with an understanding that Catholics could only be politically Conservative. That there were “Liberals” calling themselves Catholic was of great shock to me. How that can be coincided with their Catholicism is absolutely beyond me. Many “Liberals” in fact may call themselves Catholic but actually be automatically excommunicated for beliefs contrary to the faith.
 
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thinkingkind said:
Catholics can never ever support a party or a candidate who endorses abortion.
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If you are in the US, I’d suggest the document from our Bishops:


In particular:

34. Catholics often face difficult choices about how to vote. This is why it is so important
to vote according to a well-formed conscience that perceives the proper relationship among
moral goods. A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who favors a policy promoting an
intrinsically evil act, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, deliberately subjecting
workers or the poor to subhuman living conditions, redefining marriage in ways that violate its
essential meaning, or racist behavior, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such
cases, a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter
should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or
inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.

35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position
even on policies promoting an intrinsically evil act may reasonably decide to vote for that
candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly
grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a
fundamental moral evil.
DENNYINMI said:
BEST of luck to you then.
Roe v Wade was decided by Supreme Court Justices that were appointed by a Republican president and had republican affiliation.
The vote on Roe vs. Wade was 7-2. Those justices supporting the case’s pro-choice outcome were as follows, including the president nominating each and the president’s party affiliation:
  • Harry Blackmun (Nixon, R)
  • Warren Burger (Nixon, R)
  • William Douglas (FDR, D)
  • William Brennan (Eisenhower, R)
  • Potter Stewart (Eisenhower, R)
  • Thurgood Marshall (LBJ, D)
  • Lewis Powell (Nixon, R)
Those dissenting on Roe vs. Wade — only two – and both were not Republican-president-nominated to the Court:
  • Byron White (Kennedy, D)
  • William Rehnquist (Nixon, R; chief justice under Reagan, R)
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This^^

Not to mention the famous Republican loopholes.
 
HarryStotle said:
Just because a case can be made, however weakly, to correlate poverty with abortion, doesn’t mean a direct causal link exists.

Have you ever heard of the bishops advocating for the $500+ billion going to PP every year being rerouted to directly give poor women and families the choice to access that money to help them keep their unborn children?

I haven’t, but perhap you can locate such a document, being as well read on bishop statements as you are.
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What I had offered was an informative statement from the Catholic Conference of United States Bishops that included demographic statistics as well as informative, empathetic information that correlated very well the link between poverty, abortions AND it’s Vicious Cycle!~

And, I offered it up to the group ad nauseam with a link. If someone chooses to add their opinion as Gospel at that point all I can say is I have chosen the statement of the Bishops.
 
DENNYINMI said:
BEST of luck to you then.
Roe v Wade was decided by Supreme Court Justices that were appointed by a Republican president and had republican affiliation.
Click to expand...
The only thing pertinent today is this:
  • Every justice nominated by a Democrat president supports the constitutionality of abortion.
  • Every justice who opposes the constitutionality of abortion was nominated by a Republican,
  • even though not all Republican nominees opposed it.
If there is any hope of SCOTUS ever reversing Roe et al, it will only happen if enough justices are put in place nominated by Republican presidents. There appears to be no possibility that this could ever happen with any justice nominated by a Democrat.
 
Jimbo said:
I agree with you that for many social justice matters the left is closer to Catholic social teaching.
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It is reasonable to claim that you believe the social solutions of the right won’t help the poor as much as the proposals from the left, but there is no justification for asserting that therefore the left’s proposals are closer to Catholic social teaching. There is nothing whatever in any social teaching that suggests the best solution to social problems, so there is no possibility of saying this proposal is closer to what the church teaches than that proposal. There is no way to make a moral distinction between (reasonable) proposals.

The church expects us to help the needy, but she assuredly does not tell us how to go about it.
 
HarryStotle said:
Have you ever heard of the bishops advocating for the $500+ billion going to PP every year being rerouted to directly give poor women and families the choice to access that money to help them keep their unborn children?

I haven’t, but perhap you can locate such a document, being as well read on bishop statements as you are.
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worth repeating
 

General Mission Goals of the USCCB​

The Gospel of Christ and the teachings of his Church guide the work of the USCCB. The work of the Conference is rooted in three general mission goals and organized into three key areas of responsibility.
  • To act collaboratively and consistently on vital issues confronting the Church and society
  • To foster communion with the Church in other nations, within the Church universal, under the leadership of its supreme pastor, the Roman Pontiff
  • To offer appropriate assistance to each bishop in fulfilling his particular ministry in the local Church

2017-2020 Conference-wide Priority Initiatives​

In addition to these long-term mission goals, the bishops choose four to five priority goals for each planning cycle. The priority goals for the 2017-2020 planning cycle are as follows:
  1. Evangelization: Open wide the doors to Christ through missionary discipleship and personal encounter.
  2. Family and marriage: Encourage and heal families; inspire Catholics to embrace the sacrament of matrimony.
  3. Human life and dignity: Uphold the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death with special concern for the poor and vulnerable.
  4. Vocations and ongoing formation : Encourage vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life, and provide meaningful ongoing formation to clergy, religious and lay ministers.
  5. Religious freedom: Promote and defend the freedom to serve, witness and worship, in the U.S. and abroad.
I believe their statements to be noteworthy of the faithful!~
 
What this document does is to allow us to focus on all of the issues. Pro life is all life.
 
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