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vern_humphrey
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It means “to do nothing is neither heroic or meritorious.”
A lot of things “seem to you” that are at odds with reality.
Just about any group you associate with.
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SoCalRC
Guest
Actually, you are the one professing that your moral choices are superior, not me. You have openly derided people who disagree with your political choices as not even be “real” Catholics. Though, normally you contain your criticisms to deriding them as “sideline” and “do nothing” Catholics.So just how did you get to be so much holier than the rest of us?
Forgive me for taking you at your word. You have repeatedly asserted that abortion trumps all other issues. This is not what the Church teaches. As of 2002 the Church teaches that there are at least nine moral principles on which we should not compromise because doing so attacks the “essence of moral law”.
You normally respond to this by satying that it is “nonsense”, just because it is, oh, a Doctrinal Note, promulgated by the Church, prepared by our current Pope as prefect, and signed by our last Pope…
What about ‘Cardincal Ratzinger’s comments?’ you say. We can look at those and find that I and Jimmy Akin are wholly in agreement about what the Cardinal was saying - he was addressing the question on why some teachings fall under a particular Canon law and others, however strongly held by the Church, do not (see Jimmy’s CA article on the death penalty). Besides, a Cardinal is not the Pope.
But fine, we can agree to disagree. You think it is wholly acceptable to collapse Catholic voting down to a single principle, I side with Rome and the US Bishops. So lets judge your actions by your own stated values, not mine.
If you collapse Catholic voting to one issue, and then compromise on that issue, there are only two interpretations. First, that voting Catholic just isn’t that important, or second, that even the most important issues can be compromised in the pursuit of ‘good’. The CCC tells me that I am supposed to try to interpret your words and actions in the most favorable light. So let’s go with the second.
If compromising principles that the Church says are non-negotiable is acceptable to you, then the previous poster’s question is legitimate. If you are compromising to do good, then Catholics voting for pro-choice candidates should be able to make the same assessment. In fact, measurable reality would seem to be on their side. Abortion dropped dramatically under a ‘pro choice’ president and congress, and the impact of pro-choice voting is indirect at best appointments->overturn->elliminate states rights->secular law, and hope that prohibition works.
On the flip side, tangibles like peace vs. war, poverty rates, availability of healthcare, etc. Issues that are directly raised in Matt 25 with regards to a nation’s worthiness for salvation seem to be very directly effected by elections.
Personally, I think you are both incorrect. Compromising on core moral principles does attack, as the Church says, the “essence of moral law”. So I strive not to compromise.
However, I recognize that we are all sinners and we all make moral compromises, so I do not judge others for choosing differently from myself. In fact, I feel sympathy for individuals who want to end things they see as great evils. I simply point out that, having collapsed your faith to a single issue, and then compromising on it, perhaps you should be more cautious in professing your moral superiorty for people who, in essense, use the same application of faith (compromise for ‘good’) as you.
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vern_humphrey
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SoCalRC
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I can’t change your words. Nor can an emoticon change the fact that I have pointed out we are all sinners making moral compromises at least 300 times in the past. Most importantly, I can’t change the fact that you and pro-choice voting Catholics use the same reasoning to rationalize your voting.
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vern_humphrey
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But that doesn’t keep you from trying, does it?
And yet you railed at me when I pointed out it is permissible to vote for the pro-life candiate even if he is not completely in accord with Catholic positions on life. You accused me of violating the non-negotiables!
Most importantly, what you can’t change is your tendency to attack everyone else who doesn’t agree with you in every jot and tittle.
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SoCalRC
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I think you are confused. There is a difference betwen altering your statements and simply holding you accountable to them. You’ve said that one issue trumps all others and you’ve said you compromise on it. So, by your standards, compromising even critical teachings is ‘licid’, I disagree. But, more importantly, I think it is incorrect for you to criticise other Catholics for similiar thinking.But that doesn’t keep you from trying, does it?
Because you don’t understand my point. We are all sinners and we all make moral compromises because we are not Christ. But there is a difference between striving to follow God’s path (as outlined by the Church) and failing, vs. intentionally intentionally leaving the path.And yet you railed at me when I pointed out it is permissible to vote for the pro-life candiate even if he is not completely in accord with Catholic positions on life. You accused me of violating the non-negotiables!
Let’s look at what the Church actually teaches about voting:
vatican.va/roman_curia//congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html
I take this at face value and try my best to wholly vote all nine examples that follow, as well as the seven issues highlisged by the USCCB position paper (www.usccb.org/FaithfulCitzenship)). However, some of the issues are nuanced and complex. For example, the secion on the family mentions the effect of divorce, but does that automatically disqualify candidates with a divorce? What if their spouse left them? Etc. So, I try, but inevitably fail.
You contend that the Church is wholly incorrect and that we should focus on a single issue in voting our faith. Further, even though that issue is among the list of “moral principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation” identified by the Church, you believe that it is suitable to compromise.
So, we both sin and compromise, and it is not correct for me to make a moral comparison between us. But, there does remain a distinction. I consider my compromises a personal failure, you consider your compromises a morally superior, rightous, path.
Perhaps you are projecting. I am not troubled that we do not agree. Ultimately each of us must listen to our concience and answer to God. I am just troubled when you present your views as “true” Catholicism, particularly when they are at seeming direct odds with the written instructions of the Magesterium.Most importantly, what you can’t change is your tendency to attack everyone else who doesn’t agree with you in every jot and tittle.
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vern_humphrey
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No, I haven’t – that’s your vivid imagination again.
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SoCalRC
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You see, there are many differences between us. Confronted with a statment like this:No, I haven’t – that’s your vivid imagination again.
And instructions like these from the Church:
vatican.va/roman_curia//congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html
I would feel compelled to explain the glaring contradiciton. Something along the lines of ‘I disagree with the Church because…’
A response of ‘Nuh Uh!’ or ‘No I didn’t!’ simply wouldn’t occur to me, at least not since the 2nd grade. Likewise, professing that dissent is better Catholicism than obedience is something that would never even cross my mind.
And, the fact remains that your quote is the reasoning of pro-choice voting Catholics…
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vern_humphrey
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The contradiction is in your imagination. You attribute to me positions I do not hold.
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BamaRider
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SoCal quotes this from Church guidelines, without checking the links, (I trust my fellow Catholic) I’ll concede it as accurate.-
OK, I tried hard, but this loses me. But I don’t read anything in all that legal tawk, that contradicts anything Vern adheres to concerning his Faith, his abortion stance, why he believes what he does. Which just so happens to be the view of most Catholics IMHO.
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Ridgerunner
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It began with the McGovern “takeover” of the Dem Party. McGovern was (and remains) a very leftist fellow. The Viet Nam War was still going on. There were a lot of young people, particularly students, but not exclusively students, who had adopted extreme leftism, largely as a reaction to the war, but also as a result of a sort of “generational revolt” in which middle-class kids who had little knowledge of the working world but much of privilege, rebelled against the values of their parents, considering them greedy, worldly, hypocritical, etc.
Many of the young studied Marxism, but Leninism even more. (Bear with me.) Marxism is about theory. Leninism is about gaining and keeping power. It is difficult to express to anyone who was not involved in it how knowledgeable a lot of those people were, and how brilliant. I recall, for example, being at meetings in Chicago where some of most brilliant young leaders you ever saw made alliances with inner-city gangs to disrupt the Dem convention to discredit the “Old Party” people, ensure Hubert Humphrey’s defeat, and generally to create chaos in pursuit of “the revolution” they really intended to bring about.
McGovernism was the culmination of it. The McGovernites, who were largely the young and intellectual, learned the political process better than anyone gives them credit for. At that time, most of the state party convention delegates (and, depending on local subdivision populations) some few delegates to the national convention were chosen in a caucus-style manner. The McGovernites flooded the unsuspecting local caucuses (and thus the state conventions as well) with their people, which then gave them the delegates with which to elect McGovern as the party presidential candidate.
As the national presidential candidate, McGovern and his people had the power to reorganize the manner by which delegates were to be chosen in the future. Desiring to maintain the power gained as aforesaid, they re-wrote the rules. One half of the national delegates had to be women. Initially, those slots were filled with very left-wing feminists who, according to their ideology, were abortion supporters. Keeping in mind that the national party leadership had been swamped with radicals other than the feminists as well as the latter, it has to be remembered that, at the time, abortion was a “left-wing” cause.
When Roe vs. Wade and their progeny became the law of the land, immense resources opened up to the pro-abortion forces. Planned Parenthood, for example, which was, until then, essentially an advocacy group, went into the abortion business directly, gaining an immense amount of money as a consequence. And, of course, having the resources, the “abortion lobby” maintained, and still maintains, a radical feminist lock on at least half the Dem convention delegates. It’s a self-perpetuating thing. The abortion business contributes huge sums in political campaigns, so even those who are not radicals became “fellow travelers” at minimum, because there is so much abortion money coming into the Dem campaigns, it is hard to fight. Anyone who files for office as a Dem is told right away that he can expect money and organizational support if he toes the line, but can expect contribution to his adversary, even a Repub adversary, if he does not support the agenda. That seems strange, but it isn’t. Supporting the Repub (more likely primary) adversary of a Dem who breaks ranks on abortion keeps the party “pure” from the abortionists’ standpoint.
Since the McGovern revolution, the Dem party has driven out the “Old Party” Dems, and now follows the money. The money is in the hands of leftist radicals like the Hollywood crowd and George Soros and in the hands of the abortion lobby. There are other sources, many of them foreign in origin, that also support a leftist agenda. Since money and power are now the real games, the “leftist agenda” of the old left; programs for the poor and underprivileged, have been almost totally abandoned. True leftism is really about gaining and keeping power, of which money is a necessary ingredient. Charity is not even on the agenda, except as a slogan. Of course, many who consider themselves Dems still believe in the “Old Party” values, and don’t realize that the party elites have long since moved on from that, though they still pay lip service to “Old Party” values.
The far left, which was always allied to abortion rights, and the abortion lobby control the Dem party totally. The interest of the abortion lobby is “one issue”, though most of their people are also radical in other ways.
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Ridgerunner
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(continued)
Anymore, the Dem Party is as allied with big business as is the Repub Party; the only major difference being that the Dem Party business alliances tend to have a more international flavor to them. It is no accident that a former Dem president has been paid tens of millions of dollars by Dubai, and by Chinese interests, as well as American business interests. It is no accident either that the Dem party has done nothing at all for the poor in this country or any other, for decades. It’s all middle class “vote buying” now. It’s really a shame that most “grass roots” Dems still think they’re voting for “Old Party” values. The reality is that they’re voting for abortion rights, elite privilege, and not much else.
I was present at the McGovern takeover and the radicalization of the Dem Party. I was privy to the planning and the restructuring. I saw the results and knew the people. I understood Leninism quite well, and power-taking, and “spoke the language” of the “hard left”. I was there when abortion rights became the litmust test for acceptability in the power structure of the party. I have talked to Dems from the “Old Party” whom I once supported, but now no longer do. They will tell you that you can’t buck the “party line” on abortion and survive as a Democrat. And they’re absolutely right about that.
Anymore, the Dem Party is as allied with big business as is the Repub Party; the only major difference being that the Dem Party business alliances tend to have a more international flavor to them. It is no accident that a former Dem president has been paid tens of millions of dollars by Dubai, and by Chinese interests, as well as American business interests. It is no accident either that the Dem party has done nothing at all for the poor in this country or any other, for decades. It’s all middle class “vote buying” now. It’s really a shame that most “grass roots” Dems still think they’re voting for “Old Party” values. The reality is that they’re voting for abortion rights, elite privilege, and not much else.
I was present at the McGovern takeover and the radicalization of the Dem Party. I was privy to the planning and the restructuring. I saw the results and knew the people. I understood Leninism quite well, and power-taking, and “spoke the language” of the “hard left”. I was there when abortion rights became the litmust test for acceptability in the power structure of the party. I have talked to Dems from the “Old Party” whom I once supported, but now no longer do. They will tell you that you can’t buck the “party line” on abortion and survive as a Democrat. And they’re absolutely right about that.
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BamaRider
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That was quite insightful Ridge, and helped me understand what/and is happening in the dem party.
I recall Southern Democrats (called the Yellow Dogs) from the 60s and early 70s. They were dems but very conservative. They toed no strict party line of either the GOP or Dems, they were conservative first, and after that, read it and weep.
Theyt often voted against their President, and fellow members in the House and Senate. Elitist from both sides called them renegades. To pass any legislation you were gonna need the “Yellow Dogs” and as long as they held power, pro choice was never gonna see the light of day in the Dem platform.
But alas the scenario RidgeRunner described came to pass, and the Yellow Dogs were purged from the Democrats. Many of them fled to the GOP. The south was heavily demoractic till the 1980s.
Not a single GOP governor elected to office for 100 years in Alabama. But those days are now long gone.
I recall Southern Democrats (called the Yellow Dogs) from the 60s and early 70s. They were dems but very conservative. They toed no strict party line of either the GOP or Dems, they were conservative first, and after that, read it and weep.
Theyt often voted against their President, and fellow members in the House and Senate. Elitist from both sides called them renegades. To pass any legislation you were gonna need the “Yellow Dogs” and as long as they held power, pro choice was never gonna see the light of day in the Dem platform.
But alas the scenario RidgeRunner described came to pass, and the Yellow Dogs were purged from the Democrats. Many of them fled to the GOP. The south was heavily demoractic till the 1980s.
Not a single GOP governor elected to office for 100 years in Alabama. But those days are now long gone.
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SoCalRC
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Well, first of all, it isn’t ‘legal tawk’, it is instructions from the Mother Church on the proper application of our faith in voting.
Since we profess to be one, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church each Mass, it would probably behoove most Catholics to listen to what we refer to as the Magesterium, with its gift of authority, and its undisputed leader, the one Vicar of Christ.
Granted, the Church does not distill it’s teachings down to the simplistic banter of a televangelist (or a talk radio host) but, as Catholics, we are supposed to listen and obey.
Well, it lists abortion as something on which we cannot compromise, because comrpomising attacks the essence of moral law. Vern just argued that it is irresponsible not to compromise.
Further, it lists 8 other examples of things on which Catholics should not compromise. Vern has previously argued that those are of secondary importance and can be ignored.
I’d say that is a pretty big difference. But, the obedience part of Catholicism is also an area where he differs. With regards to some issues, like the death penalty, Vern has argued that prudential teachings from the Pope are optional, and of no consequence to disagree with. But the Dogmatic Constitution of the Faith disagrees:
The term “ex cathedra” means ‘from the chair’, or ‘speaking infallibly’. So, “even when he is not…” means ‘even when he is speaking prudentially’.
Well, that I wouldn’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised. A lot of Catholic here seem to spend a lot of time listening to right wing talk radio, which is, by and large, an Evangelical Protestant point of view. If you spend a lot of time listening to the thinking of folks like James Dobson, or even Bob Jones, who has openly described Catholicism as a non-Christian cult, some seperation from Rome and the Magesterium is probably to be expected.
Me, I’m of Irish descent and a Roman Catholic. I have no interest in being a WASP-lite. That heavy handed discrimination was alive and well when I was growing up (and based on what they teach at Bob Jones univerity, alive and well today - aren’t we glad that the GOP is loading the Justice Department up with graduates…
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EB4304
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Maybe if the republican were Satan?
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SoCalRC
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Isn’t the Vice President still holding all that Haliburton stock he once said he would divest? Seems to me that I read something about tons of no bid contracts (along with serving rancid food to troops) in Iraq. Then there were those massive no bid contracts after Katrina…
Oh, and Haliburton moved to Dubai to avoid paying US taxes on all that money. But that’s OK, Dubai is who Bush and Cheney wanted to turn over all our port security to…
The whole dixiecrat thing clears up a lot. Here I was assuming that it all boiled down to Dems and LBJ passing civil rights. Silly me. Just because GOP national hopefuls still have to make the right noise to overtly racist holdouts, I up and figured there was a connection!
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BamaRider
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I hope this posts doesn’t mean you think the GOP is racists and anti Catholic?
I can’t tell you there are no such individuals in the ranks, but if called out on it, he’ll be dealt with, but you better have more then hearsay. Talk radio is akin to Evangelical?? Owell everyone can opine here.You should really becareful of generalizations brother. The diocese of Mobile is probably one of the most conservative dioceses in the country as led by Our Most Excellent Archbishop Lipscomb, raised and educated in Mobile, he even “tawks” as opposed to "toiks. " I’m sure they kid him in the Bishop Conferences. But he runs the diocese by the rule book, no rogue parishes etc. You’d never see a a guy allowed Communion dressed like he just got off a Mardi Gras float (like in San Francisco that time) in one of his parishes.
I was educated through 6 th grade in Catholic schools, Pre Vatican II. By the 3rd grade I could tell you the Popes of the last 100years, and could write the chain of command down all the way from Rome to the Msgr. in charge at Christ the King. I was taught and drilled Church doctrine by nuns whose sole purpose in life was to educate folks like me. It was a priceless education. So I know *mostly *whats goin on.
My faith came from my fathers side. I’m one generation removed from Quebec. Grandparents came to NY in the early 1900s, my dad married a southern girl (WASP, ohhhhhhhhhh shiver). Only say all that cos I don’t use hypens before anything. I’m not French Catholic, I’m *American Catholic *but Catholic American is prolly better term, and after that I’m southern. My travels have taken to Quebec several times (check my blog to read about my adventures) I don’t have a thing in common with those folks, outside of name.
Where did you encounter your anti Catholic problems? You lived/live in the south? Been here my entire 52 years, and never a problem outside the usual stuff-( hey how come y’all worship Mary?) In fact in a city of 40k, we have less than 200 Catholic families. I’m probably the only Catholic within 100 houses of my home.
But I think all these Evangelicals in my neighborhood like me cause I keep my yard cut and picked up really well .
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Ridgerunner
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Conservative
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Bravo, Deb !
Yes, abortion is genocide - a genocide of convenience for some, while they’ll seldom admit the tears they shed later (I’ve heard about it - and watched it in a co-worker’s case). What some Catholics / Christians / decent-minded voters don’t realize is that no matter how great the views of a pro-abortion candidate, their pro-abortion stand, in and of itself, renders them useless by reason of that stand. Would you want someone running your country who’s in favor of murder? Most don’t want to use that word based on the unborn infant’s size or development - but maybe the question is - What’s happened to Catholics, who are taught the rules - and then make their own?
Yes, abortion is genocide - a genocide of convenience for some, while they’ll seldom admit the tears they shed later (I’ve heard about it - and watched it in a co-worker’s case). What some Catholics / Christians / decent-minded voters don’t realize is that no matter how great the views of a pro-abortion candidate, their pro-abortion stand, in and of itself, renders them useless by reason of that stand. Would you want someone running your country who’s in favor of murder? Most don’t want to use that word based on the unborn infant’s size or development - but maybe the question is - What’s happened to Catholics, who are taught the rules - and then make their own?
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mikew262
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You are confused. It’s been well documented that the tax cuts have generated more revenue than before they were implemented. The national debt has increased due to spending more than we take in; with the war being the main culprit. We are taking in more revenue, but the spending has outpaced it. Pretty simple concept to understand.
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