Election ping!
1. Who said it had to be?
2. That's what a big tent is about... where are we supposed to go, the Democratic Party?!
There is absolutely nothing “radical” about the Tea Party Movement!
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, render unto God that which is God’s. This is the separation that Jefferson referred to.
Honestly, I only skimmed it. But I did note something in there about “our duty to the poor.” That tells me it’s written from a Social Teaching standpoint that tends toward Socialism. I see it as trying to drive a wedge into the Catholic vote. If we actually supported our Catholic faith, no party would dare oppose our values... and America would live up to its founding. Our enemies know this.
Our rights are based in liberty (remember that whole "life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness" thing?). With that liberty, we are called by our faith to a responsibility to our fellow man.
When our rights become based on our responsibility, we will have Communism.
I must have been asleep at Mass for about 40 years. When did the Catholic Church begin teaching that governments are supposed to be our brother’s keeper? I seem to remember we as individual Catholics are to be our brother’s keepers. I do not remember reading anything in the New Testament where Jesus said, “Oh, just let the government steal from everyone it can to reward those who are in need.”
Professor Shenk and anyone else teaching this apostacy need to be excommunicated.
Shneck does not understand his faith. Sirico does. Sirico was a leftist in his youth. He had an intellectually-inspired conversion and became a priest.
Shneck does not understand his faith. Sirico does. Sirico was a leftist in his youth. He had an intellectually-inspired conversion and became a priest.
Here it is:
The Founding Fathers of the United States asserted their claim to freedom and independence on the basis of certain "self-evident" truths about the human person: truths which could be discerned in human nature, built into it by "nature’s God." Thus they meant to bring into being, not just an independent territory, but a great experiment in what George Washington called "ordered liberty": an experiment in which men and women would enjoy equality of rights and opportunities in the pursuit of happiness and in service to the common good. Reading the founding documents of the United States, one has to be impressed by the concept of freedom they enshrine: a freedom designed to enable people to fulfill their duties and responsibilities toward the family and toward the common good of the community. Their authors clearly understood that there could be no true freedom without moral responsibility and accountability, and no happiness without respect and support for the natural units or groupings through which people exist, develop, and seek the higher purposes of life in concert with others.
The American democratic experiment has been successful in many ways. Millions of people around the world look to the United States as a model in their search for freedom, dignity, and prosperity. But the continuing success of American democracy depends on the degree to which each new generation, native-born and immigrant, makes its own the moral truths on which the Founding Fathers staked the future of your Republic. Their commitment to build a free society with liberty and justice for all must be constantly renewed if the United States is to fulfill the destiny to which the Founders pledged their "lives . . . fortunes . . . and sacred honor."
John Paul II
many catholics we know are libs.
so, no.
I’m not Catholic. However, here’s an article that may help iron-out the conundrum:
Rethinking Romans by Greg A. Dixon
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=22417
It’s an article from 2001 but I think it may be helpful
Did I miss the part where he defines "radical extremists"?
I hope not!
Catholic writer Michael Novak has written extensively on this subject for many years. His "On Two Wings" is an excellent resource on America's founding ideas, as was his "Democratic Capitalism."
So?...When did following the Constitution become “radical”?
No bias here, folks! Move along! ( sarc)
Government intervention in every aspect of business, attempts to set up criminal enterprises in the guise of "carbon trading", pushing anti-christian teaching in the schools at the same time they are dumbing it down, building a two trillion dollar slush fund bypassing congressional oversight, letting outside radical groups funded by radical billionaires write the laws, refusing to secure the borders, stealing car companies from their stockholders, seizing control of the medical industry... none of that has anything to do with Christianity. We can see as well as anyone can that the government is awash in marxists. Including a few who masquerade as Christians, fooling nobody.
Church teaching, he explained, has an inseparable link between rights and responsibilities for both the citizen and the government, with both having an eye toward promoting the common good. The tea parties, however, have argued for rights based on liberty, not responsibility.
Tea partyers have a very solid understanding of the responsibilities of individuals, and families, and churches, and communities, and want to make sure those responsibilities aren't usurped by unelected bureaucrats. And marxists.
What the man says is based on the assumption of a model of government that is top-down. It completely misses the point of a government that is bottom-up.
You are responsible to do what you can to deal with what is in front of you. Failing that, you combine with friends, family, neighbors, the church, business partners, investors, to do what you can’t do by yourself. You turn to the community for what can’t be handled privately, and the state for what your town can’t do. Only what you and your church and your town can’t do gets kicked up to the federal government.
People who see government top-down are stuck in another paradigm. There are plenty of them out there, but there is no reason for us to follow their example. Americans do more for the poor than any other country on earth, because traditionally we don’t wait for the government to do what we can do.
What is the Catholic teaching on the Tea Party?
Here it is:
The Founding Fathers of the United States asserted their claim to freedom and independence on the basis of certain “self-evident” truths about the human person: truths which could be discerned in human nature, built into it by “nature’s God.” Thus they meant to bring into being, not just an independent territory, but a great experiment in what George Washington called “ordered liberty”: an experiment in which men and women would enjoy equality of rights and opportunities in the pursuit of happiness and in service to the common good. Reading the founding documents of the United States, one has to be impressed by the concept of freedom they enshrine: a freedom designed to enable people to fulfill their duties and responsibilities toward the family and toward the common good of the community. Their authors clearly understood that there could be no true freedom without moral responsibility and accountability, and no happiness without respect and support for the natural units or groupings through which people exist, develop, and seek the higher purposes of life in concert with others.
The American democratic experiment has been successful in many ways. Millions of people around the world look to the United States as a model in their search for freedom, dignity, and prosperity. But the continuing success of American democracy depends on the degree to which each new generation, native-born and immigrant, makes its own the moral truths on which the Founding Fathers staked the future of your Republic. Their commitment to build a free society with liberty and justice for all must be constantly renewed if the United States is to fulfill the destiny to which the Founders pledged their “lives . . . fortunes . . . and sacred honor.”
John Paul II