Ted Cruz Takes Tough Stands For Religious Liberty

Leadership: Say this for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: He routinely takes principled stands on tough issues, even if it puts him at odds with his own party. Case in point: His comments this week in support of nuns and Israel.

With the White House filing a new brief signalling it intends to force Catholic Sisters to violate their religious beliefs, the Texas Republican strongly defended religious liberty.

Despite its defeat in the Hobby Lobby case, the White House last Monday was back at it, filing a brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado explaining a rule that would force the Little Sisters to violate their religious conscience regarding ObamaCare.

The Supreme Court had granted a temporary reprieve from ObamaCare's contraceptive mandate to the group of elderly nuns who run nursing homes.

Under the old rule, Health and Human Services required the Little Sisters to sign a form noting their objection. But the new rule would still let their benefits administrator provide contraceptives to their workers.

I am neither defensive nor all over the place

You can take your personal attacks back. But definitely this conversation is over.

Just for the record:

From my posts, my position is that people look for excommunication of others without knowing what it is. They don’t know what excommunication is. They demand that the church do an excommunication as defined by the accuser

They envision Pelosi and ‘Catholics who have abortions’ to be sanctioned by the church

I brought canon law to the forum. There it is there is how excommunication works

Here is what canon law is:

‘In the Catholic Church, canon law is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the Church’s hierarchical authorities to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church.[5]’

You can either take it, leave it, continue defining what it is you think the church is or ought to be or you can just read it and have an understanding of what excommunication is or you can can continue calling for excommunication as defined by you or not

I could not care any less. I did not put the post in there for you to change your mind. I put it there to get people who call for Catholics to be sanctioned by the church to have an understanding of what they are calling for

They can take it or leave it

If you don’t like canon law, take it up with a priest. That’s who it is written by, in the fourth century. And it is still held today.

Leave me out of your personal view of it. I don’t care.

Remain in ignorance of what you are talking about. I don’t care

You are very wise, if liberal Catholics thought like you, we would be in better shape

But I can still make the argument from Matthew 18:15-17 etc, if the support of killing a child , and teaching them that homosexuality is acceptable (we do that by accepting gays out of love, real love would have us not accept their lifestyle ) and supporting the removal of God`s Word from classroom/public square etc

If these things dont reach what these scriptures teach,then I dont know what does

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

OR Titus 3: 10,11
As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. ... If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. ... As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that .... Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

I am a sinner saved by Grace, my righteousness is as filthy rags.

When we believe in Jesus and what he did on the cross for us, when we accept him, the fact that he personally died for us, HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS is credited to our account,

I am assuming we are in agreement thus far?

But are we not to repent, or at least attempt to repent? It`s not like voting for abortion/gay marriage and the removal of God`s Word from the classroom/public square is a temptation of the flesh, that we gave into and later said...forgive me Lord, I did it yet again, I will try harder please forgive me.

Voting for killing children etc, is a in your face sin against God without any remorse repentance etc

I was speaking strictly about voting(voicing ones opinion) for the support of killing God`s unborn Children, the removal of His Word from classroom/Public Square etc, and for the support of homosexual marriage and the teaching of it to children as a reasonable lifestyle

So a person could ask forgiveness for that, but NOT if they continue to do it without remorse or repentance, again it`s not like it`s a giving in to a passion that we are sorry for afterwards, but a willful in your face sin against God

That`s how I see it, so supporting Democrats or voicing the opinion at the water cooler of the same, is to spit on God

Just how I see it

Well...there are some common misconceptions about the church

One is that it’s a governmental organization, and Americans extrapolate that into its being a democracy. So the term liberal catholic bears weight of conservative Catholics having a duty to change them or to try to.

And ‘liberal Catholics’ are under this same misconception. An extreme of this can be seen in the active gay militants marching in the St Patricks parade. These people grew up catholic and are under the solid and erroneously reaffirmed impression that they would be happy if they were accepted by the church and the hierarchy

It’s wrong on so many levels, the first of which is that the people in the church do not have the power to accept their behavior; another is that they certainly would not be happy. The church follows God’s laws, not the other way around

But so called liberal Catholics, presumably those who are for homosexual lifestyle and pro abortion and birth control, are catholic by heritage and in name. Rarely will you find a convert who turns around and tries to change the church

Liberal Catholics do not follow the tenets of the church. They learned about the church in second and then in seventh or tenth grade. Not reinforced at home nor even at church. So their knowledge of the church is forgotten and then made up

So the two groups you are talking about are cultural Catholics and practicing Catholics

And practicing Catholics certainly do have the responsibility to admonish or teach sinners, recognizing that we are all sinners, but Catholics don’t go about preaching the bible. We don’t memorize verses not because we are not as faithful as those who do so, but because it is not part of our faith

It is much more nuanced than that for Catholics. St. Francis said ‘preach the gospel, and, if necessary, use words’.

So, part of our evangelization, in addition to admonishing sinners when feasible, and appropriate, is bringing people to it by understanding ourselves what the gospel says and living it. We are not all theologians. And we are not supposed to be ashamed of our faith, on the other hand, we are called to know it

When coming on a situation in which one should tell another catholic they’re wrong, some considerations come in. Like, ‘will I lose this relationship cutting off all chance for evangelization? Should I wait for a better opportunity?’ Like that.

So liberal Catholics are simply Catholics who do not know their faith and do not practice it

There is not a chance anywhere that the church will become liberal. There is not any chance that the church will ever change and allow an acceptance of gay lifestyle, birth control or abortion. It is not up for a vote

Any such thing would simply be a heresy. And that could happen. But it would not be the church

The church follows God

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