Posted on 01/22/2012 2:55:21 PM PST by marshmallow
Is it humiliating for American political leaders to read that Pope Benedict sees an erosion of religious freedom in our country? It should be.
If there is one boast that Americans have traditionally made before the world, it is the claim that our country is a bastion of freedom. And of all the freedoms we cherish, religious freedom takes pride of place. In our nation’s history it was the search for religious freedom that drove the Pilgrims to Massachusetts. When the founders presented the people of the newly independent States with a proposed Constitution, popular demand required the addition of the Bill of Rights, beginning with a First Amendment that listed freedom of religion—not of speech—first.
Yet today the Bishop of Rome warns American bishops that their country is losing its status as a nation that honors and promotes freedom of religion. And sad to say, he is right.
When he delivered this unhappy message, in an address to a visiting group of American prelates, Pope Benedict was not telling his guests anything that they did not already know. On the contrary, he said that he was basing his remarks on what the American bishops had told him during their ad limina visits. And what had they told him?
* that the “Obamacare” plan will involve all American taxpayers in a process that subsidizes abortion;
* that Catholic adoption agencies have been forced out of business, because of their refusal to comply with orders to place children in the homes of homosexual couples;
*that a program administered by the US bishops’ conference to help victims of sexual trafficking has been stripped of federal funding because it does not provide for abortion services;
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicculture.org ...
It is truly sad you feel that a simple question you've managed to extrapolate into I hate Catholics and the pope.
Perhaps you should do a bit of reflection and introspection and not react in such a manor. I am not a member of any Catholic caucus here so where can someone ask simple questions without being attacked the way you did and not be attacked as either anti-Catholic or against the pope. I DID NOT EVER TELL THE POPE HERE TO SHUT HIS MOUTH as you've implied.
Respectfully, Janey
In all fairness, American Catholics have for years been pleading with the Vatican to crack down on CINOs who oppose the church, oppose its doctrines, and oppose freedom of religion.
Instead the Vatican has been content to accept their lip service, and ignore their actions. When someone keeps saying they like you, while shooting at you, it is foolish to take them at their word.
Traditionally, the Vatican tried to cultivate Catholics in positions of political power, to protect the church and Catholics, but there has to be a limit to what they hope to achieve by embracing villains.
Often times it is best to say to them, “You fight against us, so you have no right to say you are on our side, or benefit from our hospitality.” It is unfair to the virtuous to allow them to continue to be fooled by such scoundrels, and used for corrupt purposes.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
All in all, it was a very good lecture and almost Orthodox. My own commentary on it at the time is here.
Five years ago I wasn’t herein Australia. Five years ago I was barely here on FR. Five years ago I was busy in university. Five years ago, but then I digress ....
Ps, a very insipid reply. Thanks.
It’s really easy in a Protestant country - like the USA - when tens of millions of Protestants (many millions more than Catholics) voted for Obama.
I’d though of writing “hiding under a rock”, but I thought it nicer to attribute to you more exciting pursuits which would equally well have kept you from noticing news reports of rioting Muslims, sheiks denouncing the Pope and the like.
Well at least I learned one thing. Never to get involved or ask a simple question in any Catholic discussion of any type. Please excuse my naivety.
No worries!
You think you’re getting grief for your question: you should have been here for the flame wars between us Orthodox and the Latins back about six years ago. We have a rapprochement now and usually make common cause here at FR.
BTW, where in Australia are you? I spent a winter in Australia one summer in the late ‘80’s visiting Macquarie Uni, and was back for two weeks a few years back (again in the depths of the antipodean winter) for a festschrift for the colleague I’d visited back then.
Check my profile page. It will explain everything. Janey
Uh...no. They had already found religious freedom in Holland. They came to the New World to further what they considered to be religious purity.
Don’t see it that way. What happened after Vatican II, partly as the result of Vatican II, was a revolt against Rome and an attempt toe kick the pope “upstairs,” as that only his “excathedra” pronouncements would be accepted. National councils were started,each with their own bureacracy, providing a bureaucratic lawyer between Rome and the individual bishops. So when in 1968, this “liberal” pope issued humanae vitae, in support of Catholic doctrine on birth control, it was ignored as not being authoritative. At the national levels, laity, priests, and bishops paid only lip service to the pope’s letter. On the other had, his openings to the Communist powers and to the socialists were supported. Roe. v. Wade shattered the complacency of the bishops, and they soon found themselves marginalized the bishops in the Democratic Party as the McGovernites took over the Party. The Catholic pols deserted them, and it was only because of Henry Hyde and his allies that the Republicans adopted a plank in their platform opposing federal funding of abortions that the Church got a break. But since most bishops came from Democratic families they sought to find someway to hang in there. Except on abortion, pronouncements of the bishops councils still sounded like they came out of the DNC. Since then the Democratic Party has completed its journey from a religiously plural Party to a secular party that seeks to institutionalize the moral agenda of the sexual revolution and practicing Catholics have no place in this party. And they have lost half of their fellow Catholics to the secularists. Great job, bishops.
Their kids were turning Dutch.
Yes, but that was the downside. JP II really turned things around in a gradual, but very firm manner. He also lived long enough to replace many of the worst offenders with far more responsible men. Then the great scandal drove out a lot of the lower level recalcitrants.
Benedict still has his work cut out for him. Even the survey given to the non-cloistered nuns in the US had the effect of an honest cop raiding a brothel. The shrieks and screams of protest from the “guilty but not currently being pursued”, was telling.
In past I have suggested that he should direct that a major order should conduct a survey of everything in North America, including schools and universities, hospitals, and other organizations, basically just to get an objective picture of the “state of the communion”. Their initial report would be for the responsible bishop, with a copy to the Vatican.
This would be like a Domesday Book of NA, and would likely be filled with many revelations, good and bad. Major emphasis would be to identify heterodoxy and heresy, relations with government and other religions, track the progress of the American Anglican ordinariate, etc., etc.
It’s a lot easier to fix things if you know what needs fixing.
plus also note that the Pope is talking about the erosion of freedom -- and the US is an example for the rest of the world, so when a supreme example of good goes bad, even slightly, it is news. When a supreme example of evil (Saudia) remains evil, it is not news.
I see this as a compliment for the USA -- our freedom of religion is like a shining star and if it diminishes even a little bit it is a tragedy that must be noted.
HOWEVER, we in the GOP WILL bring backthe lustre
Well, the modernizers certainly hated John Paul II, because they hoped to slip one of their own into the Chair of Peter. And he certainly was not in a position to sweep with a clean broom. The radical feminists among the nuns were hysterical in their reaction.but so were some of the “old women,” among the clergy. Ratzinger, they seem to have regarded as a turncoat,so after the pope brought him into the Vatican, they never stopped going after him. John Paul sheer vitality, intellectually and physically, were gifts from the Holy Ghost to the Church. And he seems to have infused into his successor, some of the same vigor. I will never forget that funeral sermon. Here is this quiet, shy man, suddenly shedding twenty years, and making a mighty impression on the cardinals. If there was ever any doubt that they should choose him, and not merely as a caretaker, I think they shed it then. A sign from God.
Come on, didn't you ever heard of the Regensburg address?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
did you really miss this in 2006 when the Mozzies were asking for the Pope to be beheaded?
Liberals tend to reduce all matter religious and theological to politics, As Church tradition says, politics is relative, but liberals, inverting things, while rejecting absolutes in religion, employ them in politics.
perhaps, but the news was around the world.
. The great gap between Christians and Muslims is the absolute refusal of the Muslims to read the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Without this source, their religion is impoverished. Nonetheless, the Church finds it has more in common with the Muslims than the secularists.Look at Clinton’s speech to the UN,pledging to put the full weight of US diplomacy behind gay rights, even if it means the eradication of those religious traditions that proscribe the practice.
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