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Candidate Paul Ryan: Is he a bad Catholic?
LA Times ^ | 08/14/2012 | Michael McGough

Posted on 08/14/2012 2:21:29 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd

Forget about whether he should be elected vice president. Should Rep. Paul D. Ryan be excommunicated?

I have been perusing blogs and comments thereon that suggest the prospective Republican veep candidate is not only a bad man but also a bad Catholic. It’s the latest installment of a tiresome debate between liberal and conservative Catholics about which faction’s favored politicians are truer to the teachings of Mother Church.

As columnist Michael Sean Winters points out, Ryan’s claim that his political philosophy is conversant with Roman Catholic social teaching is hard to swallow.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abortion; badcatholic; catholic; catholicvote; dnctalkingpoints; doublestandard; getryan; godgap; homosexuality; paulryan; politics; religion; religiousleft
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To: Responsibility2nd

Now it comes - in view of his popularity and his status as the next Vice President of the United States-Republican, the liberal press will stoop to any depths to smear him.


21 posted on 08/14/2012 2:54:12 PM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: Responsibility2nd

from the article: “Winters nicely deconstructs, in both senses of the word, Ryan’s assertion that his opposition to federal social spending reflects the Catholic doctrine of “subsidiarity” — the notion that issues should be resolved “at the level of social organization closest to the individual.” Problem is, Winters writes, Ryan is not advocating innovative anti-poverty programs at the local level.”

This does not make sense: Ryan is not running for local office. If he were running for local office, that it might make sense to ask him about his positions on local issues.

Further, the article assumes that federal social welfare spending is actually good for the poor. All the evidence is to the contrary. First of all, are the poor really poor? In America, the “poor” are on average more obese than the non-poor. They also tend to have mobile phones, air conditioning, cable television, free time, clothing, medical care, shelter, public education, etc... - all things that the poor, as understood in the rest of the world and in, at least as I read it, the Bible, would not be expected to have. So I am not really sure how applicable Catholic social teaching is to this situation. One also has to look at the differences in competence on the part of the bishops when it comes to different kids of issues. For example, when it comes to which economic policy will best help the American poor, assuming they really are poor, the bishops have zero claim to greater competence than anyone else (and many of them are quite daft on the subject). However, when it comes to faith and morals, such as whether it is ok to kill unborn children or same-sex sexual activity, then yes if you are Catholic you should get on board with the bishops. All of this is to say that Paul Ryan has a far greater claim to Catholicism than do the likes of liberal so-called Catholics like Pelosi, Biden, John Kerry, the Kennedys, et al.


22 posted on 08/14/2012 2:55:06 PM PDT by Stingray51
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To: morphing libertarian

No, they’re good Democrats. Well, at least most of the Kennedy politicians are. Now.


23 posted on 08/14/2012 2:57:39 PM PDT by RichInOC (Palin 2012: The Perfect Storm.)
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To: jeffc

Are the folks at LAT Christians?

Then how can they make that judgment?


24 posted on 08/14/2012 3:00:10 PM PDT by 353FMG
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To: Timber Rattler
I doubt the LA Times knows anything about Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno.
25 posted on 08/14/2012 3:00:42 PM PDT by HapaxLegamenon
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To: Responsibility2nd

AS IF Jerry Brown or Nancy Pelosi support Catholic Church teachings on abortion and homosexuality.

Nancy had the balls earlier this year to declare the Pope “wrong” on abortion.


26 posted on 08/14/2012 3:00:46 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Eric Holder's NAACP rally against the voter ID laws required the press to bring govt issue photo ID.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

McGouugh and Winters are clueless on the teachings of the Catholic Church, as presented by the Vatican, The Bible, and The Catechism.

Ryan, on the other hand, is quite in concert with all three.


27 posted on 08/14/2012 3:01:54 PM PDT by G Larry (Progressives are Regressive because their objectives devolve to the lowest common denominator.)
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To: Responsibility2nd; bootyist-monk
“I’m Your Worst Nightmare.

“I am a BAD Catholic.”

28 posted on 08/14/2012 3:03:38 PM PDT by RichInOC (Palin 2012: The Perfect Storm.)
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To: NoGrayZone

The Church is the Body of Christ, the pillar and foundation of truth, your are positing a difference without distinction.

As far as your exegesis, Christ is the God of the living, we are alive in Christ.

You are welcome to your own interpretation and beliefs, and as your own authority on which are the correct ones, you get to decide.


29 posted on 08/14/2012 3:07:08 PM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: NoGrayZone

“That has always bugged me. Is is NOT between Ryan and the church, it is between Ryan and the Almighty”

NGZ -

Think of it like this. “Being a Catholic in good standing with the Church”.

There are explicit things that one has to do in order to be a Catholic in good standing that are not required of other Christians. One of which is to attend mass every week. Then there are things like confession, etc.

You do not have any of these requirements, but we do.

“It is the individual that decides for him or herself to be a good one.”

Not in the Catholic church. Everyone who chooses to become Catholic also agrees to obey the Church and her teachings in full, not in part.


30 posted on 08/14/2012 3:10:09 PM PDT by JCBreckenridge (Texas, Texas, Whisky)
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To: ilovesarah2012

Nancy Pelosi was one of the Rats who began the attempts to “close the god gap” (her terms) in the wake of the 2004 election.

In 2006, they used the “Culture of corruption” meme to out two homosexuals in the GOP and turn off some religious conservatives.

Nothing in their platform is “kosher” with the Catholic Church, whether it is the push for same sex marriage or the push for requiring religious institutions to fund marriage and birth control (that’s what Sandra Fluke was after, she TARGETED a Catholic university).


31 posted on 08/14/2012 3:10:09 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Eric Holder's NAACP rally against the voter ID laws required the press to bring govt issue photo ID.)
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To: jeffc

The goal of the Left isn’t necessarily to win over religious conservatives, sometimes they can shave off enough points by just convincing them to stay home or to leave the box blank.


32 posted on 08/14/2012 3:11:52 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Eric Holder's NAACP rally against the voter ID laws required the press to bring govt issue photo ID.)
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To: Responsibility2nd
I got a kick out of this part:

If you accept the proposition that the hierarchy is the determinative source of Catholic teaching… the conservatives have the better of the argument.

Of course, if you get to make it up or pick MTV as the determinative source of Catholic teaching...

33 posted on 08/14/2012 3:12:01 PM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: HapaxLegamenon
I doubt the LA Times knows anything about Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno.

I didn't, and thank you for the references. I've been trying to understand Roman Catholic Church's position on this issue. I suspect that there's no clear cut one side positions like "the Church is 100% for free-market capitalism" (her concerns for the poor and the weak make her less likely to side 100% with free market position, I think) and certainly not "100% for socialism" (concerns on dignity of individual prevents her to do so), so reading these official documents have been great.

34 posted on 08/14/2012 3:28:55 PM PDT by paudio (Two stubborn facts remain: (1) Romney is better than 0bama, and (2) Romney is the Republican Nominee)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Let us not forget one of my senators. She is Mary Landrieu, a Catholic. She maintains that she is opposed to abortion, but supports a woman’s right to choose. Yeah! That is similar thereunto to saying that you are opposed to drinking alcohol, but then walking into a AA meeting and offering to buy everyone present a round at the corner bar.

Somehow I think that the Pope would not agree with her. I wonder why her priest does?


35 posted on 08/14/2012 3:31:18 PM PDT by Saltmeat
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To: Stingray51
For example, when it comes to which economic policy will best help the American poor, assuming they really are poor, the bishops have zero claim to greater competence than anyone else (and many of them are quite daft on the subject).

Daft is right.

A number of bishops, in typical liberal fashion, appear to live in a fantasy world in which dollars miraculously multiply like the loaves and the fishes, and in which no destructive consequences will result from open borders and taxpayer funded welfare to the world (coerced via brutal taxation from people who are not necessarily any better off than the ones who are sneaking in to avail themselves of the sweat of others' brows).

They don't understand that what they're advocating will eventually end up sinking the whole ship (resulting in far greater and more widespread misery than before.)

36 posted on 08/14/2012 3:32:27 PM PDT by BlatherNaut
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To: Responsibility2nd

The entire discussion is flawed. The Catholic mandate tp be charitable does NOT automatically mean that charitable giving should be filtered through te government.


37 posted on 08/14/2012 3:35:29 PM PDT by lacrew (Mr. Soetoro, we regret to inform you that your race card is over the credit limit.)
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To: JCBreckenridge; D-fendr

This is exactly what I mean. Does the catholic church say it’s okay for catholic’s to seek fortune tellers, or those whom “speak to the dead”?

Ecclesiastes 9: 4-6

Psalms 146: 3-4

Deuteronomy 18:9-13

Galatians 5: 19-21


38 posted on 08/14/2012 3:35:34 PM PDT by NoGrayZone (For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.)
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To: NoGrayZone
This is exactly what I mean. Does the catholic church say it’s okay for catholic’s to seek fortune tellers, or those whom “speak to the dead”?

No. It's forbidden.

God's Word makes it very clear.

39 posted on 08/14/2012 3:44:14 PM PDT by BlatherNaut
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To: Responsibility2nd

Pelosi is the bad catholic.


40 posted on 08/14/2012 3:53:04 PM PDT by Truth is a Weapon (Truth, it hurts so good.)
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