Expect a Catholic exodus

National Post ^ | 08/07/03 | Hugo Gurdon

[polemikos]

Many people of good conscience are therefore leaving the Church

All in all, not a bad article, but full of little PC "balance" lines like the one above.

[nathanbedford]

No political party should claim morality or religiosity for itself. Politicians rarely get away with even a hint that they are more Christian or religious or moral than their opponents. Voters punish such arrogance.

Rubbish. Some politicians, such as big city dems, have for decades pandered to religions. Clinton cynically paraded religiosity. Some politicians, such as secular humanists who inhabit the dem party, attack virtually every symbol of religion in the public domain. In San Francisco the dems have declared open season on the Boy Scouts because they are "Christian."

But the author's larger point is valid, the Catholic conservatives cannot much longer live the lie. The significance of this is it represents a wedge issue for Hispanics which the Republicans certainly should exploit. Hispanics will turn national elections for decades to come.

[Neanderthal]

Let's hope he's right. No one with a brain can be a Catholic and a Democrat at the same time. The 'Rats are trying like mad to hide this fact.

[lentulusgracchus]

No one with a brain can be a Catholic and a Democrat at the same time. The 'Rats are trying like mad to hide this fact.

I'd go further and suggest it's becoming increasingly difficult for anyone who's a deist.

The Democratic Party is becoming, as the article says, more and more closely identified with scientism, humanism, and atheism. Those are the only "isms" which overlap easily with dialectic materialism, the native "ism" of Marxism.

Or perhaps I've overlooked something. Comments?

[lentulusgracchus]

Ooops. Overlooked "modernism", the parent of fascism.

[Terp]

Missed secularism.

[lentulusgracchus]

Is that really an "ism"? I've heard of secular Jews, e.g., which is what I think you may have in mind, and I know they behave politically in certain ways -- which can be very different from the way Orthodox and Conservative Jews behave -- but is there a coherent "ism" associated with secularization?

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

missed communism as well. :-)

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

usually it's linked as "secular humanism"...
Oh don't forget "moral relativism"

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

I'm pretty sure the phrase "secular humanism" was invented to exclude the religious from the class of people they consider human.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

I thought darwinism was the parent of fascism or maybe I just connect fascism with that other bastard stepchild of darwinism, eugenics.

[swilhelm73]

Well, fascism as a whole isn't especially pro-eugenics. The was specific to the NAZI version of fascism.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Well, fascism as a whole isn't especially pro-eugenics. The was specific to the NAZI version of fascism.

Yeah true. Maybe we should refer to fascism and eugenics as kissing cousins. ;-)

[lentulusgracchus]

Maybe we should refer to fascism and eugenics as kissing cousins.

Actually, German National Socialism's closest cousin was......German Socialism. I took the trouble to read an online article once about one of the interwar intellectuals and his affinities, and there was a group of ex-German officers who were nationalists and patriots who, where they intersected with socialism, were the seedbed of National Socialism. It is one of the things socialists today like to dissemble or simply never bring up, that there was for a while in Weimar Germany a nearly seamless continuum of opinion from the nationalist Right to the Spartakist Left, and socialism and National Socialism grew up from very similar roots. Some of the people later imprisoned or even executed by the Nazis held opinions that were in the 20's not profoundly different from those of the Nazis themselves.

[lentulusgracchus]

...maybe I just connect fascism with that other bastard stepchild of darwinism, eugenics.

Actually, there was another stepchild of Darwinism that had specific Communist and Stalinist affinities, and that was Lysenkoism, which suggested that if, say, a fox dipped its tail in cream-colored paint, its offspring would have white tail-tips. This was part of the Communist fascination with control of nurture and thought control. Stalin actively promoted Lysenko and his students, some of whom survived Stalin and had to execute intellectual (and political) climbdowns in the 50's.

[ImpBill]

Don't forget Feminazi-ism.

[livius]

Good article. I hope it's true...Catholics suffered for so long from non-existent or defective leadership and from miserably inadequate instruction in their faith that many of them are probably not sure what they believe anymore.

But I suspect that the Dems are going too far now, even for the foggiest minded Catholic (unless his name is Kennedy). Here's hoping.

[lentulusgracchus]

Don't forget Feminazi-ism.

Good one. Or you could refer to it as Marxism as applied to gender-specific mobilization targets.

[Bluntpoint]

On CBS right now there is evidence that the cover up of church scandals came from rome.