Posted on 06/03/2008 3:19:42 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Communion aside, there is a Catholic-Obama problem. Many Catholics, beyond Fr. Pfleger, will vote for Obama. It's not a problem of Communion-denying magnitude, but one they should at least know going into Election Day. McCain may be imperfect, but for me, even if I didn't have a laundry list of why I'm opposed to abortion, the pope explained why a Catholic cannot vote for a candidate like Obama long before most of us ever thought Obama would be a candidate for the presidency. In a 2006 address, B16 (Benedict XVI)said:
"As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable. Among these the following emerge clearly today: the protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family — as a union between one man and one woman based on marriage…; and the protection of the rights of parents to educate their children."
Hasn’t this been the case for 35 years?
What’s going to be different this time? All orthodox Catholics have already made the move.
“The Pope doesn’t mince words, does he?”
No, he doesn’t. Thank God!
Faith sharing bump.
The Church is kind of stuck — having declared Iraq to not be a just war, to vote for either candidate with a chance of winning is to advance one or the other grave sin.
Good! Now why in the heck isn’t there a Jewish-Obama problem? I’ll NEVER understand why Jews prefer Dems over the GOP... NEVER!!! Are they just stuck on stupid?
There is no equivalence; on the one hand, abortion is an inherent evil, never to be justified in any case. War may or may not be just, but the decision is ultimately in the hand of civil authority, not the Church. While both the current pope and JP-II believed that the Iraq war was unjust, they do not have access to all the intelligence or strategic planning the Bush administration possessed
That is a nonsensical statement. By that "standard", every war launched by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were just -- just ask Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin.
3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
Sad thing is that many of the Catholic’s in this country will vote for him. Not the faith full ones, but the the Christmas/Easter cultural ones for sure.
Like this means squat. If even 80% of RCs took their religion seriously there would never be a rat prez. again.
If she is basing her claim that Catholics cannot vote for a candidate that supports abortion on this, then it looks like she can't vote for a candidate who is also pro-capital punishment or pro-divorce.
Not non-sensical; the authority and responsibility for actions to ensure the public safety rest with Caesar, not the Church. I certainly do not mean that any war is justifiable, but that the prohibition against abortion is absolute, while the justifiability of the war in Iraq is debatable. I, for one, believe that the president is, in this case, in a better position to make the decision.
No, because divorce is something that is a different thing from, say, insisting that two men can get married, which violates the natural order. And capital punishment is not prohibited by Church law; like war, it is something that is considered a last resort, only to prevent greater harm.
So while individual popes or religious figures may be more or less opposed to these things, or to a particular war or case, these are simply their opinions. The things that the Pope is talking about are things that violate the natural order and which are always wrong. Abortion is the murder of an innocent human being and is always wrong; homosexual “marriage” violates the natural law and is always wrong (aside from being impossible), etc. These may be things which a particular electoral candidate is trying to make acceptable to or even impose on our society, and in that case one cannot vote for that candidate.
If you divorce and remarry without benefit of church-sanctioned anullment then you are living in a state of adultery and are forbidden from receiving sacrements. Yet that is not enforced at the level of church hierarchy. And the quote from His Holiness that is at the top of this thread speaks of the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.
Our Holy Father John Paul II has stated that “abortion and euthanasia are crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it.’” (The Gospel of Life, no. 73)
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/politics/pg0062.html
Pretty much eliminates voting for anyone in the ‘Rat party
Pope Benedict even got a shot in for Homeschooling!
The answer is pretty clear: Historically, Jews have been socialists. Just look at the kibbutzim: That is communism in a microcosm.
B16 doesn’t want us to pull out either, per an article in the Catholic Register. We have a duty to safeguard the innocent there now and make sure things are ok before we leave. Which is what we’re doing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.