Topic: Religion and Government
The Catholic Next to You Might Not Be Real It turns out that over 50% of Catholics do not follow the Faith.by Kevin Roeten
(conservative)
Thursday, July 23, 2009
A group of vocal bishops could not sway the Catholic vote enough, and Catholics voted Obama for president in a 54-46% differential. What is supposed to be a solid block of votes for one or all of the five listed "non-negotiables" (if you actually follow Catholic belief) disintegrated into a rough conglomeration of votes for the issue to which people felt most attracted.
All Catholics were told not all issues were the same. It's easy to determine the highest priority issues. Without "life" there can be no environmental concerns, no healthcare concerns, no war worries, no racismnothing. If there's no "life", why would one even care about the possibility of regulations, or even tax burdens?
Many other issues are hotly debated at election time: the poor, economy, environment, immigration, and retirement security to name a few. But Catholics may legitimately take different approaches to handling these issues. Even though the underlying principles of these issues can be non-negotiable, there are many options for handling each one of these issues, so specifically they are not non-negotiable [www.catholic.org].
That's why life is first on the list of "non-negotiables" issued by the Catholic Church [Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics (English). There are actually five in that categoryabortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and same sex marriage. All five are considered intrinsically evilthat is, evil every time. No exceptions, no caveats, no conditions. All involve "life", the primary "non-negotiable".
Based on Church teachings, encyclicals of the pope, Catholic Catechism, and issue papers from the Office of the Doctrine of the Faith, the listed "five "non-negotiables" are posted above. It should be observed Catholicism never endorses a particular candidate or partyjust an ideal.
Gauging each major candidate on the five non-negotiables, McCain passed on four of the five, Palin passed on five of five, and Obama/Biden each failed on all five. Catholics who truly weighed the five non-negotiables would have immediately thought the past presidential election was a "no-brainer". But what does 54% of Catholics voting for the pro-abortion candidate say about their true priorities?
Those Catholics not believing "life" has the utmost priority have committed a heresy. In other words, any Catholic voting for a candidate who permits, allows, or endorses abortion would be committing heresy, and would technically be a heretic.
But for 54% of a particular voting block, specifically Catholic, to vote for the pro-abortion candidate is a direct indicator of widespread lack of Catholic knowledge, the distinct treatment of issues as equivalent, direct heresy, or all three.
On a flight to Brazil (5/9/07), Pope Benedict XVI left little room for interpretation. During an unprecedented 25-minute in-flight press conference, Benedict explicitly stated pro-choice politicians should not only be denied communion, but face outright excommunication from the Church for supporting "the killing of a human child".
A reporter broke the ice by asking him if he supported the excommunication of Mexican legislators who had voted to legalize abortion. The pope replied, "Yes, this excommunication was not something arbitrary, but is foreseen by Canon Law"
The pope was emphatic, and continued to insist such actions involved excommunication.
The pope was talking directly about "latae sententiae"(automatic "excommunication"). This occurs without formal declaration if there is an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin [Canon Law 915]. Abortion is one of the five intrinsically evil deeds classified as grave. With these sins, excommunication is inflicted by the perpetrator on herself/himself. Therefore, one's vote for candidates that would enact these abortion laws also incurs excommunication.
Also, very recently Benedict released a new encyclical Caritas Veritate (Charity in Truth), which says all the social political issues are tied to the pro-life ethic: "that the pro-life perspective can't be compromised in pursuit of common ground on other political issues."
It is sincerely hoped that all those Catholics [in name only] will come back to the Faith. If they do, then 33 million "supposed" Catholics who voted for Obama in the last presidential election were likely excommunicated. But Obama only won by a popular vote of just over 8 million votes. It's amazing what true Catholics can do if they wanted.
The views expressed in this
article are those of Kevin Roeten only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Kevin Roeten is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2009-07-23 09:45:11
One might think that the Catholic Church would have learned from their losses over the past 50 years or so. Your article underlines the fact that not only has the Church not learned, neither have some of its most loyal supporters. Excommunication for heresy: what a concept. Carry that out far enough and long enough, and the Catholic Church could very simply become a footnote to history. It certainly won't regain any lost support that way.
I was raised a Catholic and am no longer a member of any organized religion, but I do remember on adage from the religion, "Judge not and ye shall not be judged!".
One has to realize that because the Catholic Church is the one true way, the devil has don everything he possibly can to disrupt operations or to put it into a bad light.
Obviously, you've read none of my columns concerning Catholic pedophilia, the Cruseades, or the Inquisitions. Get back if you want copies of any one.
Excommunication would only involve serious misgivings about Catholic precepts. Not fasting during Lent, as others, would likely not be serious enough for excommunication. The non-negotiables would be.
Maybe you should get familiar with what excommunication really is. You forget very easily, the Catholic Church is not after "numbers", but after those that will believe its doctrine.
It's not suprising that you are no longer a member of any organized religion.
If you were, you would know that from your quote, Jesus meant strictly that one should not judge what someones eternal life would be. NOT at whether a particular action would be wrong or right.
Please let me know if you want the correct definition of anything you think you might remember.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2009-07-23 12:48:11
I see. So if I read your articles, then all of the huge numbers of people previously thought to have left the Catholic Church will not have left after all, and there will be no crisis in American Catholicism due to a perceived lack of adequate numbers of priests in future years (see the article I cited above for details). Also, all the claims about pedophilic priests are nothing more than lies spread by the Devil himself. Fascinating.
I guess you don't see at all. Let me try to get a little simpler for you. The huge numbers you have cited have been close to have been replaced by those wanting to get into the Church. They include many who weren't born Catholic, but who want to believe what the Church teaches.
I don't know about other dioceses and parishes, but I know about the Charlotte Diocese and St. Barnabas Parish. Both seem to be getting a major influx of new seminarians wanting to be priests. After they get to be priests, they'll stay in the diocese of Charlotte.
It looks as if I'll have to send my column on pedophiles to increase your knowledge. Bottom line, Catholic priest pedophilia has been about 4%(accusations only), while pedophilia among all other religions and denominations has actually been slighly higher.
But the highest rate of pedophilia actually came from within the family itself. Go figure...
And it's not really pedophilia. It's something like eubophelia, because it doesn't involve pedophiles.
Thanks for this piece. I have been exceedingly baffled by how Obama could have received so much of the Catholic, and also the evangelical, vote. Obvously, it is a problem of the very loose useage of these labels, as no true Christian of any denomination could have voted for Obama (or Biden, or any of the Kennedys for that matter). It is a contradiction in terms. I think that the denial of communion and even excommunication is warrented in many cases. It does the Church no good to have people claiming to be Christians who do not seem to have a clue what it means. The tenets of the faith are unbelievably attractive, but when people see so much hypocrisy amongst so-called self described Christians, it is such a turn-off and only drives folks from the faith. What everyone needs to know is that Christians (and Catholics particularly, in your article) have a well defined set of beliefs and standards, and when these are followed with all of ones heart, soul, and mind (and it will always be imperfectly - but it's a matter of the heart, honesty, and integrity) there is no joy remotely comparable.
The problem lies not with the system of belief, but with the increasing gap between what the faith demands and the typical modern day Catholic's apathy, ignorance, and lack of desire. There is a screaming need for rigourous Catholic discipleship, teaching, Bible study. I do believe that the great decline began after Vatican II, when, in it's misinterpretation, the church seemed to just follow the spirit of the 1960's. The decline was rapid.
I am not a Catholic. That said, some of the most loving, charitable, and self-sacrificial people I have ever met turned out to be Roman Catholics. This has made a deep impression on me. As a result I have been doing a lot of reading about Catholicism. I especially like George Wiegel. The popular misconceptions and prejudices against Roman Catholics are amazingingly deeply entrenched. So, I am on a journey, and I guess you could say, at this point, that I fully embrace Orthodoxy, but not necessarily all of the tenets (but 98 % of what's in the Catechism Of The Catholic Church I can fully embrace) of Roman Catholicism.
Thanks for your comments. You had a specially good set of beliefs just from your 1st papagraph. One of th main problems seem to be that so many don't believe that the pope is a direct decendent of Peter. That he is irrefutably right on anything involving Faith an Morals. Jesus gave him the keys, and said he was the leader of the Church. It's all in the Bible. What else do you need?
Does everyone believe that once Peter dies off, the head of the Church dies with him? I don't think Jesus/God had that in mind.
I also believe as you do that after Vatican II, it was grossly misinterpreted. The spirit of the 1960's was highly misguided, and the devil probably wallowed in the joy of it.
I like Georrge Weigel a lot too. Especially his discertations on a "Just War". The misconceptions about Catholics abound, another thing that the devil is absolutely gleeful about. One in partcular, is the one about the Crusades and Inquistions that our editor Walt Theissen spouted at the beginning of this thread. I don't think he read my column on those particular two subjects. If you ever have any questions about doctrine, just let me know. I'm no priest, but I do have many good resources.
People sometimes seem confused at Catholic positions and support for politicians. I point out that the positions are pretty simple - they're against killing foreigners AND against killing babies.
Then I say "but of course that's unrealistic, because you just GOTTA kill SOMEONE, right?"
I guess you realize that Catholics are against killing anyone. It's in the 5th Commandment, right?
I guess in reality, you should never have to kill any baby. And, unless the other person had killing you, your mother, your father, your family, your friends, your countrymen...anybody, actually, you had better think of a way to figure out out to keep that other person from killing, right?
But I bet you've got that all figured out though...
Posted By: Bob Nightingale
Date: 2009-07-28 03:08:01
Being a pro-life Catholic means more than just caring about those not yet born. It means taking care of those who are breathing and walking around as well. It includes compassionate care of the sick and dying, feeding the hungry, putting an end to war and suffering.
Abortion, while vile and unfortunate, is only nine months of a person's 70+ years on this earth. Abortion is a terrible symptom of poverty and hopelessness.
Many Catholics voted for Obama not just because of this issue. They looked at the alternative and couldn't see much improvement over the previous eight years. No matter how many times McCain said "my friends", he couldn't close the deal.
But then some Catholics won't vote for someone who has been divorced, or for someone who condones sex for her daughter in her own home. McCain's and Palin's messy personal lives didn't always match their campaign speeches. Obama and Biden looked pretty stable in comparison.
Didn't I say already exactly what you said in your 1st paragraph? Sure abortion is vile and unfortunate. But you fail to realize that if somene is aborted, there won't be another 70+ years of life for her/him.
Didn't you read my previous column about why the majority of Catholics voted for Obama? The alternative was at least 100 times better than Obama, with everything including abortion. You might as well throw the most debt we've had ever, almost total socialism, government healthcare, etc., etc, etc...
You stilll don't understand that abortion is first on the priority list. Everything else (like divorce) comes in a distant second or worse on the priority list.
If you actually think Obama and Biden look stable at all, I have a bridge in Arizona that's for sale...
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