Throw out the bad phony Catholics who vote for the murder of the unborn….they are not loyal to church doctrine. Better to have a smaller church, than a larger church filled with hypocrites.  Vote Romney/Ryan!

Important thoughts brilliantly put by the Cardinal and the Archbishop.

It is important to note that there are many organizations out there that claim to be a national or local “Catholic Movement.”  These organizations do not reflect the doctrine of the church, nor do they respect the Church leadership. A true Catholic program, incorporates the doctrine of the church, its members, and its leaders. Without mentioning their names,these organizations are easy to identify. Some may involve sisters, yet they involve none of the clergy, and they express little kindness and humility. Furthermore, their members openly reject the key non-negotiable tenets of our faith. These organizations are radical arms of the liberal left in disguise, defying our Holy Leaders.  While this is the year of Evangelization, with an important election nearby, it is imperative that the Catholic Media and perhaps the church leadership inform the laity of these organizations, exposing their true nature.  From the magazine pages to the pulpit, faithful Catholics require help in identifying the wolf in sheep’s clothing. In the words of Archbishop Lori, there is charity in truth.  Assist those that may be vulnerable by informing readers and parishioners of this unfortunate scam.

It was one of those smash-your-forehead moments - those who want Church teaching to validate voting for evil framed the debate in terms of “conscience” and “citizenship”... and they knew if it was framed in terms of IS IT A SIN TO VOTE FOR EVIL that they would lose the day. Hopefully this time around they WILL lose the day.

            Mortal Sin: Vote Democrat
                                                                by Guy McClung

      Is it a Mortal Sin to vote for Obama?  Finally bishops, archbishops and cardinals across the USA are making it crystal clear:  no Catholic can in good conscience vote for Obama or for a Democrat. Bishop John Paprocki of Springfiled Illinois, stating that the Democrat party platform planks “explicitly endorse intrinsic evils”  said “a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.”

      In 2008 the bishops’ words were twisted and distorted by dissenters and liberals in the Church to justify voting for Obama and other Democrats by focusing on issues less important than abortion and saying that “Catholics are not single issue voters.”  But now it is clear that the Democrats are wrong, dead wrong, on not one, but on five separate issues.  The liberals and dissenters will not be heard to say this time around “Catholics are not 5 issue voters.”  The bishops have made it clear that there is no compromise on three non-negotiable issues - abortion, infanticide, and racism are intrinsically evil and no issue can morally trump them. A Catholic with a well formed conscience cannot justify voting for a Democrat because they like the Democrat’s position on an issue like poverty, war, the death penalty, women’s rights, “social justice,” or immigration.  “This is a big moment for Catholic voters to step back from their party affiliation,”  said Archbishop Lori of Baltimore. He also makes it clear that a Catholic cannot vote for Obama or for any Democrat:  ““The question to ask is this: Are any of the candidates of either party, or independents, standing for something that is intrinsically evil, evil no matter what the circumstances? If that’s the case, a Catholic, regardless of his party affiliation, shouldn’t be voting for such a person.”  Other issues – although politically significant- do not rise to the level of moral significance of intrinsic evil such as racism, abortion, and infanticide.  Obama and the Democrats not only promote abortion, they want everyone’s tax money to pay for abortions for any woman who wants one. 

      Regarding infanticide-the killing of an already-born baby - Obama himself has advocated infanticide and he has said that no medical care should be provided to a baby born alive who has survived an abortion – to him and to the Democrats not letting this baby die an excruciating deaths might be a burden to a woman’s decision to have an abortion if she knew her baby might live and might need medical care after an attempted abortion - and the Democrat Platform in asserting what they view as the “absolute” nature of the court-created “right” to abortion supports infanticide. Recently the Obama campaign refused to state any limitation or restriction on abortion that Obama would support -this will insure infanticide in the cases in which a baby survives the horror of abortion and is left to die in pain, alone, often in a grabage can. .  Bishop Felipe Estevez of St. Augustine, Florida has condemned the infanticide of an already-born baby. “The taking of an innocent human life, whether inside the womb or not, and up until natural death, is always and everywhere intrinsically evil,”  said the bishop.

      Obama and the Democrats advocate for and promote racism by funding racist Planned Parenthood with millions of dollars of our tax money – an abortion business that purposefully targets black and Mexican-American babies by locating its locations in or near minority neighborhoods and has accepted money on the racist condition that it will be used for killing only minority babies.  This promotes the racist purposes of Planned Parenthood – in the words of its founder Margaret Sanger - to rid the world of “human undergrowth.” To racist Obama and the racist Democrats,  black and Mexican-American babies are this “human undergrowth.”

      Obama, who once supported traditional marriage before this election season,  has a new “evolved”  position to redefine marriage and to destroy traditional marriage – as is currently defined by federal law – as the union of one man and one woman.  Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has called the definition of marriage a “non-negotiable:”  “Abortion and euthanasia are never allowed because they involve the direct taking of innocent human life. There is also no negotiating the God-given definition of marriage and family based on the permanent and exclusive union of one man and one woman.”

      Obama and the Democrats deny religious liberty to all Catholics.  Archbishop Lori, who chairs the US bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, said the defense of religious liberty is “fundamental” and “transcends party….Many in the media have portrayed the HHS-mandate fight as a fight about contraception — as well as sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs . . . but this really is a fight about religious liberty.”  Archbishop John Meyers of Newark N.J, makes clear the connection between efforts to re-define marriage and the inevitably ensuing denial of religious liberty. He states that a such a redefinition would “seriously undermine religious freedom…….How long would the state permit churches, schools or parents to teach their children that homosexual activity is contrary to the natural law if homosexual marriage were a civil right?” he asked.  He notes that “hate speech” laws in other countries have already been used to arrest ministers who teach the Bible’s message on marriage.

      For Catholics this coming November there are five “non-negotiables,” five issues each of which is morally more important than issues like so-called “social justice” issues. True shepherds will care for the souls of their flock, guide them away from the Party of Death, and say, in plain unequivocal language, a good Catholic cannot vote for Obama or for anyone else who promotes intrinsic evil.

Guy McClung   PO Box 2553 Rockport TX 78381

Most voters think there is no problem with religious freedom in America because they can worship any time they want.  But really, we have a huge problem.  It’s not about attending services - practicing religion in a charitable, non-destructive way is in danger.  Religious freedom we’ve known since America was founded is going down the drain - fast. 

When it comes to laws, the Catholic Church has seen several disturbing strides from the Obama Administration against religious outreaches to the U.S. population.  Catholic organizations provide health care, education and indigent services to people of all faiths.  And, in a non-discriminatory way, they follow Christ’s commands to help the most vulnerable, the sick and the poor.  HHS mandate laws have redefined their ministries into secular entities so the Church is responsible for funding abortions, contraception, and sterilization of those they serve and employ.  Many of them are from other religions.  That means the law forces Church ministries and businesses to go against deep-seated pro-life teachings that are basic to the faith, or else be subject to bankrupting fines, forcing them to close.  These laws apply to all churches, not just Catholics. 

The HHS mandate is an unjust law forcing the Church to provide abortions, contraception, and sterilization to Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Catholics and anyone else.  These laws represent blatant religious persecution and cannot be obeyed.  Everyone should know what the Catholic Church is doing: lawsuits galore across the nation against the Obama Administration to keep from losing much-needed services they’ve offered for years. 

One can imagine the “hate crime” furor if the Administration ignored a Jewish charity’s right to practice its faith.  For example, what would happen if laws were written to force them to buy and prepare pork for others, or equally inappropriate, force them to provide entertainment in opposition to Jewish beliefs to anyone of another faith?  They would be in the same boat as Catholics are today.  Another example would be a law requiring Baptists to pay special taxes on water from public lines that they use for baptisms.  Making new discriminatory laws that change “religious use” to “secular use” regarding religious institutions is how the Administration is getting their fingers in the pie.  Redefining well-established Catholic institutions as “secular” or “of a public nature” if they help or employ religions other than their own is what lawmakers have done.

What does all this mean?  It means an underhanded campaign is unfolding to manipulate us into avoiding religious charities should we need them one day.  It means churches that practice their faith and help people have to watch their back.  It means huge taxpayer expenses on legal proceedings to get money from pro-life churches.  It means having a culture of death with any opposition being illegal.  It means loss of our religious freedom.  We need to do something now!  The same thing is going to happen with other issues Catholics are concerned about like same-sex “marriage” if we don’t get to work on this.

“The New Evangelization begins with each of us taking it upon ourselves to renew once again our understanding of the faith and our appropriation of it in a way that more deeply, willingly and joyfully embraces the Gospel message and its application today.”

Your, Eminence, Catholics who have left the decadent Democrat Party or who have never joined that organization have already done this, or are well on their way.  Catholics who need the “New Evangelization” are those who remain in that organization, which includes most of you and your clergy.  Your efforts to try a “new and improved” “consistent ethic of life” will only prolong the murders of the unborn, contrary to what Cardinal Bernardin and the U.S. bishops said would happen; it will fail to stop the attack on historical, traditional marriage; and,it will not stop the Democrat Party’s attack on our First Amendment Rights and the Constitution.

When you and the bishops continue to claim “As Catholics we are not single-issue voters,” however, in the same two sentence paragraph you say, “Yet, a candidates’s position on a single issue that involves and intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support,” I ask you, why “may” and why just a single “candidate’s position, why not the entire political party that not only supports legal abortion but is the only political power keeping it legal?  Your emotional support for Democrats “forces” you to then smear, with innuendo, your allies on intrinsic evil by implying that they do not care for the poor when you say “Both opposing evil AND doing good (for those in need) are essential.”
The end result of your duplicity is Catholics remain in the pro-abortion party and are the single,largest voting block for the party of abortion and homosexual marriage.  How can you not see that slandering your allies by innuendo is only protecting the evil you want to end? I will never understand how you can be so wedded to that, except to say your misguided attempt to “look” fair in pathetic.  Who are you REALLY protecting?

I ask you, why “may”

Stilbelieve, your ignorance is overwhelming.

You have been beating an anti-bishop drum that has a very thin sound for a while now. Picking a candidate has to consider all of his/her positions against the positions of a rival candidate. A pro-abortion (active, inactive, loud and determined, quiet and uninterested in the topic), candidate may be the lesser of intrinsic evils in a race. The Church asks you to think, not wait for a filled in sample ballot for you to take to the polls. I would suggest you quit nit-picking and join in unity to defeat the forces that are now attacking our Church. 

The government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive; on every hand were crying abuses and grinding cruelty. Yet the Saviour attempted no civil reforms. He did not interfere with the authority or the administration of those in power. He who was our example kept aloof from earthly governments. Not because He was indifferent to the woes of men and women, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men and women individually and must regenerate the heart.

Dyed in the wool democrats who are clinging to a party of the past must know that Castro, Putin and other communist leaders are all backing Obama to win the election.  The democrat party is no longer democrat. The republican party is on it’s heels following it! The men running on the rep ticket are of the old rep. party , not the new one. 
THIS IS   NOT A BATTLE   OF PARTIES OR MEN
        THIS   IS   A BATTLE BETWEEN GOD AND THE DEVIL
SO WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?
IF THE BISHOPS AND PRIESTS WOULD ONLY PRESENT VOTING IN THIS WAY, THERE WOULD BE NO LOYALTY TO PARTY EXISTING ANYMORE!!!!
PLEASE GOD ENLIGHTEN YOUR   “SHEEP”  HAVE MERCY ON US!

This is good news. I believe the Bishop and priests in my diocese are in Obama’s back pocket because they have nothing to say about HHS, Abortion, or Homosexual Marriage. They are Obama’s best friends.

Howard, listen to Phyllis and vance.  It is NOT an INDIVIDUAL attacking us, it is a WHOLE POLITICAL PARTY filled with such party individuals regardless of the reason they are in that party.  No excuses were given to “individuals” who joined the KKK or the Nazi Party.  If you read Faithful Citizenship you will see that the intrinsic evil of racism is mentioned.  What isn’t mentioned is that it is a sin against the 5th commandment and it is the Church’s teaching that not only is holding the feelings of racism a sin, but “it is particularly so to join an organization that promotes it.”  ANY person who joins the Democrat Party, or is in it, is by the very FACT of being in that organization, sinning against the 5th commandment of God because that party is responsible for the continued murder of God’s creation, that is if you are a Catholic and believe God is the creator of life.  Is it God’s will to create life for it to be aborted?  The Democrat Party is the sole reason 52,000,000 babies have been murdered in the U.S. and it is continuing. I find such Catholics in that party to be directly responsible for those murders.  WHY haven’t you heard that from a single priest or a single bishop?! IT’S THE TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.  You haven’t heard it because like so many Catholic laity, the bishops and clergy are predominately registered and vote for the Democrat Party.  Check it out for yourself.  Take your Diocesan Directory to your Register of Voters and check the voter registration of the bishops and clergy like I have in the Diocese of Orange, a conservative county in which more than half of clergy registered to vote are registered as Democrats decades after Roe v. Wade.  It is a public record. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out something is terribly wrong with that which explains the moral relevance of the bishops’ Faithful Citizenship going on 39 years post Roe v. Wade.

Stilbelieve, I understand your passion but question your desire that everyone think in terms of large groups – ethnic, racial, religious, social, political. This is what led to the abuses of government power in the 20th century. I question that you blame the Democratic Party itself for all abortions that have occurred and that you cannot recognize individuals who have the right idea. The Party Planks are not binding on the candidates Republican as well. 

http://www.democratsforlife.org/

You may see my party registration record but you will never be able to see my voting record and now probably guess wrong. The bishops that you come out against habitually have created the teachings that you quote as justification for your stand. Again you speak against an entire group. I do care if you are anti-bishop for the reason that they don’t yell as loud as you do or agree with you.

Our Church has a duty beyond politics. Her teachings should be infused into your person so that you make the right decisions regardless of the situation. That is what they are trying to accomplish, they are trying to teach you to fish. Your view is very secular in it’s scope. If you wish to persuade certain clerics then do so. Argue the issues against what you believe they hold contrary to the Church to their face. I don’t see how anonymous complaining here will change their mind. I have had political discussions with priests and find that not all are well informed, but, I would never accuse one of being an evil person based on our conversaton. 

Howard

“The Party Planks are not binding on the candidates Republican as well.”

The party platform is what the party membership support.  KKK stands for something.  The Nazi Party stands for something.  Church teaching says membership in such organizations is sinful because they deny one their human rights.  The Democrat Party denies the right to life of the unborn, the first and most important human right of all. Therefore, joining and supporting the Democrat Party whether laity or a bishop is sinful.  How sinful?  I’d say mortally sinful because without Catholics the Democrat Party would not have the power to keep abortion legal.  The KKK and the Nazi Party both did some good works, especially the Nazi Party which got people working again and stabilized their currency system after WWI. The KKK took care of their poor.  Church teaching does not give them credits for those supposedly “good works.”  But they do the Democrat Party and it gets even worse than that. 

The Bishops have smeared the other party by innuendo, alluding in their Faithful Citizenship to their being wrong on their “duty to the common good and act in solidarity with those in need.”  The bishops sum up their teaching saying, “Both opposing evil AND doing good are essential.”  Well, were is the evidence that the “other unmentioned party” isn’t doing both?  The bishops are committing the sin of slander by implying with innuendo that one party may be right on the intrinsic evil sins but aren’t on the “doing good.”  And the “doing good” things aren’t even sins, they are prudential judgments; judgments that I think are much better than those in the Democrat Party. So, you are wrong about my lumping people in groups; I’m just doing what the Church teaches, teachings that I have confirmed recently that are still enforce according a Cardinal I respect. The one thing that is not enforced is the should-be inclusion of the sinfulness of joining the Democrat Party.  Any Catholic that does remain in or join the Democrat Party proves by their actions that they do not have a properly formed conscience.  But that doesn’t matter any more I guess because I understand that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are still receiving Communion, so what the hell, let the innocent, little babies continue to be murdered, I should just sleep well feeling good about myself because I care for the poor, is that the way the bishops want it, Howard?

Howard

“Our Church has a duty beyond politics.” 

Legally murdering babies is not a political issue, it’s a spiritual one.  Think of it, 52,000,000 murdered babies because Catholics love feeling good about themselves.  They care for the poor, and the bishops soothe their, and the laity’s, consciences with moral equivalency in their so-called “Faithful Citizenship.” 

“I would never accuse one of being an evil person based on our conversation.” 

Nor would I, Howard, but that’s because I have grown to become a Republican.  Democrats are the ones who think Republicans are evil.  Republicans just think Democrats are wrong.

For years the shepherds were silent as it was easier to not disturb the flock and the sheep were silent as too many of us wanted teachers who, as Paul said, who would tickle our ears while we wallowed in our sins. Now as the culture becomes increasingly evil the shepherds and some of the sheep are starting to wake up. I am not certain if this will be enough to soon bring our culture back from the abyss or to affect the election and yet we must try, if only to save our souls. Ulitimately I fear that our culture is not ready to wake up and that God will need to subject our country and our world to some chastisements, likely painful ones,  to get our attention. And remember, from the history of the kings of Israel, that one of those chastisements is for God to allow a people to fall under the rule of stupid and evil leadership, and, if this happens we ourselves are even more responsible for this as we elect our own leaders.

Stilbelieve, you imply that the Democratic party is discussed in “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship”.  I see not comparison like that at all. Please provide a page number reference.

Summing up the quote of JP2, “Opposing evil and doing good are essential obligations”, tells us that both are important and expected of a Catholic. This is not a political statement.

I don’t know how you construe that I am saying murdering babies is a political issue from “Our Church has a duty beyond politics.” You seem to make great leaps in meaning from what is said by others.

Bob G.: Ditto. I am old enough to remember when a priest was an alter Christus who provided the sacramental bridge between God and us. The priest did not operate a branch franchise location which sent periodic franchise license payments to headquarters; the priest did not manage a business with paying customers that had to pay “tax” to business central; and the priest was not a social worker in a “social justice” office that did giveaways to those who did not work and refused to take drug tests. Sanctifying grace, God’ Life, flowed through the sacraments administered by the priest. The priest stood uniquely in persona Christi - he had no sales quotas, no assessments from hdqtrs, and no imposed “fair shares” to be “voluntarily” contributed to financial campaigns. Ins’t it interesting how Jesus said don’t worry about what you take with you or your wallet…...and one diocese “wallet” after another is being emptied by the actions or inactions of the shepherds themselves. The ultimate chutzpah: when they ask for more. How much more than 3.3 billion$ do they want?

Howard

“Summing up the quote of JP2, ‘Opposing evil and doing good are essential obligations’, tells us that both are important and expected of a Catholic. This is not a political statement.”

But, Howard, they are not of EQUARE weight.  I’ll see your JP2 and raise you with mine:

“The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights - for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture - is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination….” (Pope John Paul II, Christifideles Laici 1988)

All the referencing in “Faithful Citizenship” relative to “doing good” is “false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of ALL other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.”  It doesn’t take a lot of effort to register out of the Democrat Party and not vote for that party until they reverse their position on the right to life.  It will take “determination” to choose to act on what you profess to believe and pray for in Mass on Sundays, in that you do profess to believe God is the giver of life and pray for his will (to) be done on earth.  (That is, unless you think it is God’s will to create life so it can be aborted.) That is ALL a Catholic Democrat has to do.  He can work for the “good” afterwards as an Independent, or Decline to State, or any number of other Voter Registrations available, including the Republican Party if he or she thinks they could improve in that area of prudential judgment.  The question is: Is a Catholic Democrat’s word – “good?” 

Howard,Still Believe and others: You must remember that Lyndon Johnson, while he was in the Senate placed restrictions on those at the pulpit.  Obama does not have them in his back pocket, rather the laws state that is the clergy expresses their political lifebelts at the pulpit and if they encourage parishioners to vote, they will lose their not-for profit status.

Also, today the Republican candidate offer solutions for our church and for our economy.  with that said, our federal government is out of control and has been for some time.  Dc is full of corruption on both sides, and the solutions only lie within the states authority given by the Constitution.  Have a look at the NDRA at restoringfreedom.org Still we must do the best we can and vote with our conscience in alignment with our church.  there is a lot more to do for our country and liberty.  Voting represents about 10% of our civic duty.  Also see the Avalon Project at Yale. it is a free library of law and historical documents.  Read the Constitution, the Declaration as well as the Federalist Papers and notes from the Virginia Convention.  If we do not understand our history we will repeat our mistakes. This goes beyond our faith, even though God helps those who help themselves.  We must re-educate ourselves of the things we never learned in school.

Tricia Price

“...rather the laws state that is the clergy expresses their political lifebelts at the pulpit and if they encourage parishioners to vote, they will lose their not-for profit status.”

That’s not exactly true.  There is some leeway for the Church to support or oppose legislation.  In addition, it is not against the law for any clergy to state who they are voting for; it’s their First Amendment Right. In addition, the clergy can speak to any spiritual issue brought up by the government or politicians and speak openly about it including how Catholics should respond at the polls.  That last point was made perfectly clear by Chief Justice John Roberts in his long awaited ruling on the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare which he shockingly supported. He prefaced his ruling saying:

“Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

It is the clergy’s job to protect the Church from government interference with her Constitutional Rights, and it is the clergy’s job to protect the sheep concerning intrinsic evils as well as their Constitutional Rights by giving them the information necessary to enable them to stay true to their own words in the Profession of Faith and the Lord’s Prayer where they profess God as the giver of life and pray for God’s will (to) be done on earth. For all these reasons it is perfectly clear that Catholics should reject this Administration and the Democrat Party in their promotion of intrinsic evil, the Church leadership and clergy should be in the forefront of trying to bring that about.
 

Stilbelieve, you still make giant leaps in your posts but don’t support what you have said previously. I never claimed that doing good was I any way superior to the right to life. It is partly founded on Luke 10:30-37, The Good Samaritan, a teaching of the Church, not a justification for favoring a political party as you have suggested. You still seem to be saying that the “Faithful Citizenship” paper is somehow favoring the Democratic party and favoring doing good over life. I would like to see the pages you are referring to. I get what you don’t like but I am not seeing any support except another emotional statement about something else.

With only two major parties to choose from it is likely that one or the other will be a favorite of any group. Both parties have changed over the years and both do their best to only present themselves in a favorable light to all voters. 

To be clear I am not a Democrat and see most of those candidates as leading us into ruin as a country. The complaining I read that bothers me is mostly about perceived injustices and weaknesses in individuals in the Church and the American bishops as a whole. For example, whether Archbishop Lori is the best pick for the job he has been given. I have not heard anything substantial that would cause me to discredit the bishops in this fight with the national government. Those that constantly pick at the Church don’t seem to condemn our country with the same memory and vigor, only condemn the direction it is going. I can remember the days when a white man could reposition a sign on the back of a seat on a bus that said, “Negros Behind This Sign”. A time when we were proclaiming that all men were free in America. This attitude predates VAT2. Where is the same condemnation of the past. Do you remember Justice David Souter. Appointed by H.W. Bush (a Republican I believe), who ended up voting with liberals and also said that overturning Roe would be a surrender to political pressure?

We are still proclaiming we are the land of freedom even as we loose our Constitutional protections – that claim has not changed. We spend our time fighting over whether the bishops are doing enough to tell people what to do. Get off you’re a.. and help them. They are not super babysitters to lazy complaining Americans. I remember all the guys at work who knew how to run the companies better that the bosses. Over the years I suspect their wives got tired of hearing the same old complaints and claims that “I could do it better” – very few could.

“it is the clergy’s job ………..giving them the information necessary to enable them to stay true to their own words.”

Stilbelieve, the clergy has done this if you are listening. The question is if they declare against the Democratic party or a candidate by name, as you wish them to do, is necessary. I say it is not, the issues are too clear already.

To take on a second fight over the first amendment would be foolhardy at this time. They are untouchable by precedent if they apply principles to election issues. They can even urge the citizenry to vote as a duty. If they speak as a P.A.C. they can be considered having gone beyond they non-profit status. The insidious prosecutions that has appeared in Canada over hate speech from the pulpit, will appear here to a greater degree and are a larger threat than tax exemption. 

There are some, including running certain Catholic radio and Protestant ministers, who argue that a tax exempt status is not conferred by government but is only acknowledged by government and cannot be taken away. Church is a separate entity created by God and cannot be controlled by taxation as the rest of society.

Stillbelieve:  I realize there was a typo in that sentence; I was using Swype.  It should have read political beliefs - not lifebelts (?) ......With that said, of course there is some leeway, but my point is that no longer are members of the cloth - the clergy - able to robustly discuss the political positions, the Constitution, etc - at the pulpit.  Of course, the USCCB does assist voters in understanding the position of the church on various issues, and they are very clear, yet this is far from the work and opinions expressed during the early years of our country.

During the very early years, members of the clergy were key in the formation of our beliefs, our independence, and our Constitution.  Debates and information of the beliefs of the founding fathers, federalists vs anti-federalists, etc, often took place at the pulpit.  Today, we are relegated to speaking on issues that reflect our way of life. This is a fundamental problem in that focus on these issues eventually results in more government authority and control of human services.

Additionally, there can be no discussion of the actual history that made our country great.  Only in some of the private colleges will one learn that the goal of Spain, including Christopher Columbus, was to spread the word of God and the Church. We do not learn about the Catholics that signed the Declaration, nor do we learn anything but revisionist history today that actually supports the government outside its true role in a republic.  most do not even know the difference between a Republic and a democracy. 

Lastly, the Supreme Court’s job is to determine if a law is unconstitutional - period.  Today many liberals and others see the Constitution as a living document within the purview of the Federal government, vs the states.  the Supreme Court outright shirked their duties.  Robert’s statement basically said, please accept my opinion under the guise of adjudication. He is also implying that as long as the issue stays behind closed doors that it will suffice for the court. This is NOT religious freedom.  He did not take a stand. Some pundits have noted that by doing this, he eventually made it easier for repeal under a new president, which remains to be seen.  Sadly, we have forgotten that the States give the authority to the Federal government, and they can take it away via Nullification - under the 10th amendment and under article V of the Constitution.  I notice that the USCCB is not working at that very grassroots level, likely for a reason. 

i hear what you are saying, and I do agree.  What i am saying related to a much bigger picture, whereby our members of the Clergy must remain within the system as it is working today.  In reality, the Church should be alarming its parishioners on how to take back their authority. Even today, they are pushing the line, and I applaud them.  Also, there is absolutely no reference to the Separation of Church and State in the Constitution. This idea came from a note that Jefferson made to himself.  (See: the Avalon Project at Yale for free access to any document, see Virginia Convention there also, or go to 10th amendment center, restorefreedom.org, and the Forgotten Men)  We have never learned the true history, and we do not know what we do not know.  this government is out of control, just make a list of the things they control…think about it.  and please for the sake of your church and country read up.

Stillbelive:  It is not just the Democratic Party.  And the responsibilities lie within the people and the States.  DC will never fix DC, it is too corrupt and full of DCvers.

Sad.
.
I believe the bishops need to be true to God and finally admit that a vote for Obama is a mortal sin.
.
How can the faithful take them seriously if they never draw a line. Talking out of both sides of their mouth or equivocating on issues of faith.
.
I will state it:
Voting for Obama is a mortal sin.

The Billionaire’s Choice and Their Legacy
(The Deciders decide, and hand down their decrees)

Know your place, for you must plant the fields
and mine the coal, and when we have a war,
send us your sons, for someone’s sons must die…
you do not need to know the reason why.

Just trust in us, just serve and carry on…
work makes you free, all else is ours alone.

Christ asked us once, which side are you on?
for God or mammon?  our craven answer’s known.

(posted by a Christian believer in the social gospel of Jesus Christ)

@chris
.
There is only one Gospel and it was not written by Karl Marx.

“Voting for Obama is a mortal sin.”

Sad, the reason this is not an appropriate thing to teach people is the same reason you do not teach your children:

Stealing from (fill in the name of everyone alive) is wrong.

You teach why stealing is wrong and that it applies to anyone or any entity you steal from. 

Thanks Howard, you of course are right, however almost 40 Million people have not gotten the message.

Howard, Tricia, Rob, and chris, thank you for your insights.  I’ve just read a joint statement by Bishop Farrell of Dallas and Bishop Vann of Fort Worth on the document entitled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship in which they wrote “Through this joint statement to the faithful of Dallas and Fort Worth, we seek to briefly summarize the key points and dispel any confusion or misunderstanding that may be present among you concerning the teaching contained in the document, especially that which may have arisen from a recent public misinterpretation concerning this teaching.”  Go to: http://www.prolifedallas.org/pages/Joint_Statement  .

Their one page statement, which I found the best, yet, clearly lays it out for Catholics. If Catholics throughout the country would have followed it we would never have had the last four years of this Administration and all that has deteriorated in our country because of it.  There must have been a reason we had to be put through this.

Howard, how about voting for the Democrat Party, the reason 52,000,000 babies have been murdered, is a mortal sin?  And please don’t be nit-picky about 52,000,000.

stilbelieve, my argument with you is your insistence that the USCCB and bishops individually condemn a whole party or individual by name as being guilty of mortal sin. And that you apparently will not join in and support the bishops as a unified group working for Catholic causes - especially now. 

From the paper you site:

“...it is incumbent upon each of us as Catholics to educate ourselves on where the candidates running for office stand on these issues, particularly those involving intrinsic evils.”

Your reasoning that requires us to view as a mortal sin just joining a particular political party needs to be extended to calling yourself an American citizen. Our country protects the right of its citizens to kill those 52M little people. Are you not guilty of a mortal sin by your own reasoning by continuing to assent to citizenship?

“If Catholics throughout the country would have followed it…”

Try to step back and view human behavior from the beginning.

If only Adam and Eve had followed God’s law……..”.

Continue to promote the issues, support our bishops, unify the Church, and refrain from demonizing OUR opposition. They are people who need to be convinced not scared away.   

The answer below is on Wiki.answers..has been for a few days [will no doubt> with this publicity be yanked or changed] ...you all in swing states, esp> Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Virginia….get this to every> Catholic you know:
>
>
> Wiki.Answers:
>
> “Question: Is it a mortal sin to vote for Obama?
>
> Answer:
> It is a mortal sin for a Catholic with a well-formed conscience, ie a
> conscience formed in accord with Church teaching and the Church’s
> magisterium, to vote for Obama and to vote for any pro-abortion Democrat, no
> matter who else is running.”

@Howard
I can’t support your reasoning.
.
If half the country is fighting against evil and half is fighting for evil, where are you going to go?  To say to go to the side that is fighting against evil and not leaving the country is a mortal sin doesn’t fly.
.
Part of your argument is that just being in the democratic party is not a sin.  (I assume you agree voting for a democrat or republican that supports abortion IS a sin.) 
.
The Democratic party has driven pro life people out of the party, they made abortion a primary focus of their convention and placed it in the platform - actively promoting abortion rights. Therefore you have to explain to God (not the people here) why you stayed engaged and assisted a pro-abortion party.
.
If your view is that you are staying engaged, (but do not support the party, vote for pro-abortion candidates OR give the impression that you approve of their anti-life, anti-religious liberty, anti-marriage positions) so that you can sway them to change their position, that is hard to do, but is not wrong if you can do it (IMO).
.
Are we guilty for the deaths of those 52M? Yes, unless we actively and clearly fight against it and NEVER support it.
.
Finally re: “refrain from demonizing our opposition”.  Calling an action wrong, a mortal wrong and and mortal sin, is not demonizing.  In fact it IS condemning the sin, not the sinner. If half of all Catholics feel fine voting for Obama, then they either/or:
1) Don’t realize it is a mortal sin
2) Don’t care if it is a mortal sin
3) Don’t agree that it is a mortal sin
4) Have seized onto some ambiguity to rationalize their vote.
.
To provide them that ambiguity vs a clear message is in itself wrong.  Please be sure you are not providing that ambiguity.

@Howard

“Your reasoning that requires us to view as a mortal sin just joining a particular political party needs to be extended to calling yourself an American citizen.”

Being an “American citizen” is bestowed on me at birth.  It is not something I “just joined.”  Furthermore, Adam and Eve were given free will but obviously didn’t have a “properly formed conscience;” and we are all suffering as a result of that, just like we are suffering because of the Democrat Party and this particular Administration for which Catholics were the single, largest voting block. 

Catholics have a free will but have the obligation of developing a properly formed conscience.  If the Church teaches racial and religious prejudice is a sin “and is particularly so in joining an organization that promotes the denial of those and ‘other human rights,’” why is it not a sin for Catholics to “join” the Democrat Party, the only “promoter” with the power to continue denying the human right to life of the unborn? 

And if it is a sin in Church teaching that joining the Nazi Party and the KKK (which do not come with any absolution allowing us to join those two “organizations), then why are the bishops SILENT ALL THESE YEARS enabling Catholics to “feel” morally correct remaining in and joining the Democrat Party WHICH IS SOLELY responsible for the continued murder of innocent human life, life which those Catholics “PROFESS TO BELIEVE” is created by God; THE GOD to whom those Catholics pray to FOR HIS WILL TO BE DONE ON EARTH AND TO BE DELIVERED FROM EVIL? Is abortion NOT evil?  Does God not REALLY create life? Does abortion not really deny an innocent human being their “human right” to LIFE?  Do not Catholics profess these beliefs and pray this prayer in Mass on Sundays?  What is the difference between the KKK, the NAZI PARTY and the DEMOCRAT PARTY in terms of their denying human rights that the Catholic Church in the U.S. sees?  Why are they teaching that it is “particularly a sin” to join the first two organizations but are silent on joining the Democrat Party?

How can we really know what Romney will do if he’s elected?  One day he says he opposes abortion, the next day he equivocates and hedges and says he believes in a woman’s freedom to run her own life.  As governor of Massachusetts, he wasn’t pro-life.  He’s totally bogus.

Mendacious Mitt, we praise thy name
with worshipful rapture we hear you proclaim
the heavenly dictum the bishops do tell
“vote for Mitt or you’ll all go to hell”

With adoring devotion we look up to you
we’re your gullible flock, we don’t have a clue.

There are some good third-party candidates this year; you don’t have to vote for Romney or Obama.  Virgil Goode from Virginia is a true conservative and most definitely pro-life.  Check it out.

“Third party” gave us two terms of Bill Clinton which gave us 9-11.  Do you REALLY want a second term of Obama so he can continue his frontal attack on the unborn, the Catholic Church, and the Constitution?

“Being an “American citizen” is bestowed on me at birth.  It is not something I “just joined.”  Furthermore, Adam and Eve were given free will but obviously didn’t have a “properly formed conscience.”

Stilbelieve, how is joining any different, if there is a guilt by being a member only, from staying. As you chose a side in your citizenship these people that you have ignored in a prior post have done the same. Your actual vote is as hidden as theirs:
http://www.democratsforlife.org/
Dems such as Congressman Dan Lipinski are leaders in the fight against abortion.

“The Democratic party has driven pro life people out of the party”.

I think you are guessing and reacting emotionally instead of doing what I learned in the first week of a sociology course – don’t trust your personal estimation of social data.

If you will refer to another article in the Register today you will see that Catholics are moving towards the Republican party. As George Weigel has pointed out, the closer a Catholic is the Church, Mass attendance etc., the more likely a vote for life issues along the lines of Church teaching. 

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/presidential-campaigns-target-catholic-voters/

“If your view is that you are staying engaged.”

What else can we do. I have no objection to an individual, like yourself, using name calling; except that it will be a wasted effort. When you use a slogan or sound bite in a situation where you can converse, and accuse someone of being a sinner, it shuts them down. To atheists, agnostics, Catholics and Protestants on the less committed end of Christianity you just appear to be a “religious loon”. Sin to these people means something they define, not you or the Church, and a word they do not like to use anyway.     

God gives us his commands to form our conscience as he did Adam and Eve. We resist as they did. I see no fundamental difference.

Stillbelieve:  one of your earlier posts that mentioned the number of abortions…..this movement was not just a democratic movement.  We have to get out of the status quo thinking. The parties have changed and continue to morph over time. There are also numerous organizations that claim to be Catholic, yet support abortion ans same sex marriage. The point I am trying to make is that party allegiance is a moot point, and DC is not the place to problem solve, rather it is the source of the problems.  In the words of Thomas Jefferson, ” a government that governs the best is the government that governs the least.

The policies we have today regarding abortion and contraceptives come from the Eugenics movement of the early 1900’s. This was part of a Progressive Movement that engaged Republicans.  Planned Parenthood Founder, Margaret Sanger was very active as she, along with Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler and many others believed that only the aristocracy should reproduce. She sat with Hitler on the same UN committee, which still exists today.  Sanger placed her Planned Parenthood clinics in the inner cities to encourage Catholics, Jews, Black, etc not to reproduce. 

The Eugenics supporters also believed that one should apply with the government if they wanted to bear children. The second World War put an end to Sanger’s outspoken beliefs, but she continued to rally the states. As a result, 46 states legalized forced sterilization of women without their knowledge. Through the 1950’s incarcerated women, women with a family history of mental illness or defect, and others were forced to be sterilized along with some men as well. The term eugenics has not been used for a century, but the argument for abortion and contraceptives is the same.

The issues go far beyond sinfulness in our decisions or the party we support, rather it is the lack of education and knowledge that precludes Americans from preserving and understanding their unalienable rights. The offenders today are in both parties, and they are out of control.  We have confused our God given rights with the rights that government chooses to define.  Further, we continue to learn a revised history that simply is not true.  Lincoln for example, a revered president, could have ended slavery without a war.  Many slaves had already been free since George Washington’s time.  The South wanted to secede from the union not because of slavery, but because Lincoln wanted to go beyond his role.  While the north thought they were fighting over slavery, Lincoln was fighting to preserve the Union…not his role…..The South was fighting to preserve their Liberty and authority over the federal government. I digress.  My point is that we do not know what we do not know.  Until we are educated, informed, and civically engaged, the government will continue to define life, death, and marriage for us.  It is beyond their enumerated powers, yet most of us have never read the Constitution. Perhaps the greater sin is to let our liberty and this God given country to slip through our fingertips, as with the garden of Eden.

I am not sure if even the Bishops understand this, nor may the be aware of the power in which the states hold. If Americans do not become engaged to diminish the power of the federal government, then this country will continue down a road that at some point will relinquish our liberty irreparably.

Howard

“...if there is a guilt by being a member only,” 

There is no “guilt” being an American.  The guilt comes from joining an organization that promotes legal abortion.  My citizenship is not responsible for legal abortions, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Democrat Party are responsible for making it legal and keeping it legal in contrast to Americans who are trying to return abortion to an outlawed medical procedure.  You are reellllyyy stretching, Howard, trying to make citizenship equal to joining a political party.  The bishops never even tried that with joining the KKK or the Nazi Party.

“Dems such as Congressman Dan Lipinski are leaders in the fight against abortion.”

Yeah, and how successful has he been?  How successful has any Democrat been in changing the Democrat Party’s position on abortion since Roe v. Wade?

You said “God gives us his commands to form our conscience as he did Adam and Eve.  We resist as they did. I see no fundamental difference.”

The following quote was my comment to the article you linked to of which your words quoted above were your last word about that article.

““Mark Gray, director of Catholic polling for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, says the PRRI-Brookings survey confirms that ‘Catholics are bellwether voters and have been for decades. Whichever way they vote, so do the American voters.’”

Here is the gist of what I had to say about the article’s quote above. “In other words, the Catholic vote is without principles for half or more of Catholics. ‘Principle’ is defined as 1 a ‘a comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption b (1) : a rule or code of conduct (2) : habitual devotion to right principles.’ To those Catholics who vote against the fundamental teachings of the Church, what they say in their Profession of Faith and Lord’s Prayer on Sundays means nothing to them. Their word is hollow.”

Adam and Eve are not a good example to use to defend today’s Catholics who give their name identification and votes to the decadent, Democrat Party.  After all, Adam and Eve were the reason Jesus had to die on the cross.  Certainly, Christians, i.e., Catholics, learned the lesson of the Crucifixion and if they didn’t it isn’t the fault of Jesus, the Son of God, or God the Father.  The fault is those “Christians” who fallow another god, themselves, in violation of the very first commandment.

stilbelieve, I’ll let it rest there. I find it tiresome to try and work through your rationalizations.

Tricia Price

“If Americans do not become engaged to diminish the power of the federal government, then this country will continue down a road that at some point will relinquish our liberty irreparably.”

We are at that “point” right now.  This election will determine the future for America that will be unreversable without armed revolt.  Regardless of the background of the critical moral issues we are facing today, the fact remains only one political party is claiming ownership of those issues which are intrinsic evils and that is the decadent Democrat Party.  It must be defeated this election in every way possible at federal and state levels to give our country the opportunity to return to true Christine values, which I truly believe we can do, with God’s blessings and the work of true Catholics.

Results are what are important.  The result of the bishops voting to support Cardinal Bernardin’s change in the definition of pro-life have been disastrous for the unborn and society as a whole.  Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life” was supposed to bring a whole lot more other people into the “pro-life movement.”  When I first heard of his new plan for pro-life I knew immediately that was the end of pro-life; babies were not going to win their right-to-life with Bernardin and the bishops new approach.  I couldn’t understand why Bernardin would do that to the pro-life movement.  After all, the pro-aborts weren’t changing their definition of “pro-choice.”  But I suspected that it had to do with his being the Archbishop of Chicago, a purely Democrat city, and Catholic parishioners, including the clergy, struggling with their life-long love of being Democrats, and the Church’s very vocal and up front teaching against abortion since Roe v. Wade.  I’m sure he was hearing a lot about the problem the Church’s teaching was causing politicians and clergy in their parishes.  The media loved it when Bernardin, as the Chairman of the bishops’ Pro-Life Committee, made the announcement of the new way the Church was going to look at pro-life.  The media saw it the way I thought people would see it, a more flexible approach to the issue, broadening the categories that were considered pro-life and bringing more Catholics into it with so-called “social justice.”  The Democrat politicians really liked it.  The bishops miscalculated and Bernardin tried to pull back somewhat from how the media and public interpreted the new “teaching” on “abortion.”  But it was too late, the media and the Democrats ran with the reprieve they were given, and church-going Catholic Democrats remain so because they, too, can now call themselves “pro-life.”  They were pro-life they said because their being “pro-life doesn’t stop with birth.” 

But then I found my answer to why Bernardin did what he did.  Fast forward 20 years, I picked up a book at a library book sale entitled, “Cardinal Bernardin - Easing Conflicts - And Battling For The Soul Of American Catholicism”  And there on pages 242, 243 and 244 I found the real reason how and why Bernardin pushed for the change in the definition of “pro-life.”  The bottom line to these 3 pages of how and why this change came about is this two sentence quote on Bernardin’s thinking: “A more cohesive and consistent position that recognized a spectrum of pro-life issues, ranging from peace through capital punishment, would energize the priest, clergy, and laypeople in direct contact with the Catholic population in a positive way.  Not only would this move gain greater support from Catholics and others but it would keep the pro-life movement from falling completely under the control of the right wing conservatives who were becoming its dominant sponsors.”

So Bernardin’s motives were political, not spiritual.  Spiritual was the mechanism for the change, but the need for the change was political - to keep pro-life from falling completely under the control of the right wing conservatives who were becoming its dominant sponsors.”  I was right all along, but now I know it.  And this “new and improved” “consistent ethic of life” the hierarchy is promoting isn’t going to do a thing for the unborn either.  It’s just another misdirection to enable Catholic Democrats to remain so in “good standing” which includes an overwhelming number of bishops and clergy.  This, too, will put off their having to face the truth - joining or remaining in the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage, decadent Democrat Party is a sin of major seriousness.  Leaving the party is all they have to do to save the unborn and their souls.  It is as simple as that; but emotionally very difficult - I know from first hand experience.  It requires facing the truth, that what you always believed about those “other” people, and about yourself, isn’t true.  Catholic Democrats are not going to have to face that truth as long as abortion is not held up to their face for them to decided which to choose -  Catholic or Democrat, they can’t be both.

Stilbelieve, the ex-priest and dissident Eugene C. Kennedy who wrote that book was I believe the same man who blamed theology for the sex abuse scandal.

Your true aim is to criticize the Church at every opportunity no matter how large or small. The purpose of this flailing away may be able to be determined by Mr. Kennedy as he does have experience in psychology.

Next you will be treating us to Malachi Martin! 

Howard,

Kennedy, a “dissident?”  He was a good friend of Bernardin’s for 30 years.  When Kennedy was released from his priestly orders, it was Bernardin who married him and his wife in the Church.  And Kennedy’s biography on Cardinal Bernardin was a favorable biography that was published 4 years before the Cardinal was diagnosed with cancer, and 7 years before he died.  The Cardinal never refuted anything Kennedy wrote in his biography. 

I don’t see where you think my “aim is to criticize the Church at every opportunity no matter how large or small.”  I am pointing out the on-going man made mistakes in U.S. Catholic Church leadership that are producing the serious conditions the Church is being challenged with today, all stemming from the decision to change the meaning of pro-life to a “consistent ethic of life” after Cardinal Bernadin took over the Chairmanship of the U.S. Bishops’ Pro-Life Committee back in the early ‘80s.  The focus of Church teaching, culturally, is producing the opposite results they were intended to produce.  They thought the “consistent ethic of life” was the way to go only to find babies continuing to be murdered wholesale, and now the Church is being attacked directly by the Democrat Party Administration of a man who says “he continues to be profoundly influenced by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, whom he came to know when he was a community organizer in a project partially funded by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.” That man is President Barack H. Obama and he said that to a “round table of religion writers. (Catholic News Service, July 2, 2009) 

The Archbishop of Chicago was the one who came up with the idea of changing the direction of “pro-life” and now we know why.  He did it, not for the babies, but for political reasons, “to keep pro-life from falling completely under control of the right wind conservatives who were becoming its dominant sponsors.” i.e., to save the Democrat Party.  And that is why everything seems to be going to hell in the Church and the country today.  Until the bishops face that reality directly, no new “Faith” program is going to change a thing.

The so-called “seamless garment” was part of a larger scheme. Anyone foolish enough to dream of “St Bernardin” should read this, for the Bernardin/Alinsky/Campaign-for-Human-Development connections: “The Influence of Saul Alinsky on the Campaign for Human Development,” By Lawrence J. Engel -Theological Studies, December 1998

http://www.catholiccitizens.org/press/contentview.asp?c=52228

This will also explain why the CHD continues to give to anti-Catholic entities.

some pertinent quotes:

“What was the origin of this experiment? Why would Catholic bishops approve funds for the poor to organize for power, much of which went to the community-organizing projects associated with Saul Alinsky?..... With the basic elements of the CHD agreed to at Cumbermeare, the next steps were to draft a proposal and to work it through the Social Action Department Committee and General Secretary Bernardin, to implement a campaign among the other bishops, and finally to call for a vote at the bishops’ meeting in November 1969. Work had to be accomplished within three months…..On November 16, 1970, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted the Resolution on the Campaign for Human Development. The following week on Sunday, November 22, a collection was taken up in Catholic parishes throughout the U.S. The result was $8.4 million, the largest single collection in the history of the U.S. Catholic Church to that time.(153) McCarthy, Baroni, and Finks had succeeded. .As Bernardin understood, Saul Alinsky had a profound if indirect influence on the origins of the CHD, a postconciliar Catholic response to an America in crisis. My evidence establishing Alinsky’s influence on the CHD provides one component of the historical work necessary to undertake the project of theological reflection on the role of community organization in 20th-century America. Still to be further explored is the theology of CHD’s founders, its North American option for the organized poor, the intellectual roots of Alinsky’s theory, as well as the hermeneutical and interdisciplinary examination of the encounter between U.S. Catholic social thought and American Pragmatism. “

You seem to gravitate towards those who are noted for proposing a major overhaul of the Church. I suppose the book jacket does tell of a pastoral and maybe a friendly relationship between those two men. The issue at hand is however not benign.

Prof. Kennedy is known for an interest in “Roman Catholic Identity Politics” and other studies having to do with a radical change of the Church as we know it. For example:
Former Maryknoll priest Eugene Kennedy claims to long for a “post-clerical, de-centered priesthood, in which the adjustments to celibacy are varied.” For Kennedy, the priesthood must be changed to include “the love and understanding of a specific woman, or, in some cases, a certain man.”

http://tinyurl.com/aoae5a4

and in the increasingly radical Nat. Cath. Reporter:

“Preposterous theology responsible for sex abuse not gay priests.”

http://tinyurl.com/33rdmze

Although I am not qualified to engage in a debate with Mr. Kennedy about his psychological reasoning, I am well enough aware of how academics behave to know that he will find well qualified opposition.

The reason I said that your “aim is to criticize the Church…..” is that you criticize the Church at every article you comment on. I don’t get from you any attempt to support her in her time of need - NOW. I read comments from a malcontent and a conspiracy theorist. There is a pattern here.

Howard,

“I don’t get from you any attempt to support her in her time of need - NOW.”

And I don’t get from the Church in the U.S. the leadership to help her in her time of need.  The reason is the leadership is trying to have it both ways, and as in the fight against abortion, the leadership is failing.  It’s failing because they refuse to see the obvious.  And they refuse to see it because they would have to look at themselves in the mirror and have to ask, do they really believe what they profess to believe.  If they did believe what they said they believed, then their actions would have to change and they would have to start teaching the truth.  And the truth is, they themselves can not continue to give their name identification and votes to the Democrat Party while leading us in professing that God is the giver of life and praying for His will to be done on earth.  The fact that so many clergy remain in the Democrat Party this very day is made possible by the thinking that went into “Faithful Citizenship.”  It is an unclear and confusing document.  One can take from it whatever they want.  The reason that is, they did not want to condemn the Democrat Party nor promote the Republican Party.  That is made clear by their saying they are neither Democrat or Republican, right or left.  They then proceeded to draft the document which enables anybody to see whatever they want in it, thereby defending the Democrat Party while slandering, by innuendo, the Republican Party.  The attack against God is coming from one direction, only.  The bishops and clergy can’t or won’t be truthful to their calling because it would require most of them to divest themselves from their personal identity as a Democrat. It would require too many of them to give up their self identity which is what being a Democrat is all about. And that is why their “fight for freedom of religion” is so weak; they don’t want to offend the Democrat Party or its membership nor do they want to threaten the political power the Democrats have. 

Stillbelieve: I hear you. We must vote with our conscience.  But you assume that Romney working within a corrupt system will change the system.  it remains to be seen, while to date there have been egregious assaults on our liberty by the GOP.

There is an alternative point of view which says that the re-election of Obama will inflame many citizens to engagement to the point of working through the states to relinquish the enumerated powers of the Federal government. Many constitutionalists are concerned that if Romney is elected, Americans will go back to sleep.

Perhaps the bigger sin, is not educating ourselves in the Constitution and its interpretation.  Today, the law schools are teaching Constitutional Law based on the Supreme Court decisions and specific cases vs. the text of the document itself.  No wonder the SCOTUS has shirked its responsibility of adjudication.

So i guess if I were to ask the Church to endorse a Candidate, it would be neither of the two main parties, nor anyone running on another ticket.  We have a lot of learning and work to do, and uneducating the educated.

Tricia Price

“So i guess if I were to ask the Church to endorse a Candidate…”

The bishops don’t have to endorse a “Candidate,” they just have to warn us of the candidate that is a threat to us and life.  That is Obama and decadent Democrat Party many of the clergy remain registered in.

Stillbelieve:  We are now getting into a circular discussion, and I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

If you view the EWTN shows that air daily, you can certainly see the very clear positions of the church on candidates an issues.  It could not be more distinct that that.  Also if you go the the USCCB website there is a guide for voting - very clear - very specific.  SO I do not know what you are talking about.  There is more that the Catholic Church does - more than just at he pulpit.  It is your duty to seek the information, as a Catholic.

If you are saying that every member of the clergy, should disclose their vote prematurely while at the pulpit, and be forced to vote one way, then you are making the same argument as the Muslim extremists that support Sharia Law.  You can’t have it both ways….liberty and totalitarianism.

What is your point?  What do you want to see happen?

Tricia Price

“What is your point?  What do you want to see happen?”

Abortion-on-demand remains the law-of-demand only because of one thing - the Democrat Party.  The Democrat Party has had the power to keep abortion legal only because of one group - Catholics.  Not all Catholics; just those who give their name identification and votes to the Democrat Party.  If the USCCB “guide for voting - (are) very clear - (and) very specific” how did 54% of Catholics vote for the first pro-abortion, pro-infanticide President ever?  And how are 40% of church attending Catholics, according to current polls, going to re-elect that President who now has added same-sex marriage to his itinerary as well as attacking the Catholic Church’s right to religious freedom in the Constitution’s First Amendment?

The answer is because over half of the clergy registered to vote are registered as Democrats and almost all vote that way.  So whatever “voting guide” the bishops put out is so muted as to enable Catholic Democrats, especially clergy, to remain giving their name identification to the pro-abortion, and now pro-gay marriage, anti-Catholic Church party.  In so doing they are in violation of their long time teaching of it being “particularly a sin to join an organization that denies him or her their human rights.”  The Church used to teach that pre Roe v. Wade, but have been silent about that teaching ever since Roe.  Why?  Because all Catholic clergy would have to remove their names from that organization and teach the Catholic laity why they need to do that also.  But the U.S. bishops and priest didn’t do that because they would lose their life-long self-identity; being Democrat to them is living out being Catholic in their minds.

I want to see the bishops and clergy confess their sin that has resulted in the continued murder of unborn American babies, now at 55,000,000 since Roe, and remove their names from the Democrat Party registration rolls, stop voting for them and apologize to those who are NOT Democrats for thinking they were better than them.

Tricia Price:  “Strong message” to follow? You nailed it. The negligent watchmen/hirelings are responsible for all those whose souls have been lost because they failed to issue the warning. God blesss you and keep you, and keep you writing. Guy McClung

“I want to see the bishops and clergy confess their sin that has resulted in the continued murder of unborn American babies…”

stilbieleve, you only speak against the Church, disguising your anger by pretending to support a cause. You stew in a negative little world if hate. Voting directions are clear, if they are not followed it is not the Church’s fault.

Howard -

If they are so “clear” why did 54% of Catholics vote for the first pro-abortion, pro-infanticide President 4 years ago, and why are polls saying 40% of Catholics will vote for him this time around even though he is directly attacking the Catholic Church’s Freedom of Religion in America, as well as supporting an even newer intrinsic evil - same sex marriage?  Why, if it is a sin for Catholics to deny a person their human rights, and “particularly so when joining an organization that promotes that,” are over half of the Catholic clergy who are registered to vote, registered in the Democrat Party which deny the unborn their right to life going on 39 years, now?

Stillbelieve:  Thanks for your clear answer as to what you want to see.  I appreciate your honesty.

You wrote:  “Abortion-on-demand remains the law-of-demand only because of one thing - the Democrat Party.  The Democrat Party has had the power to keep abortion legal only because of one group - Catholics.”

I will agree that many Catholics in the liberal states will continue to vote for the liberal policies.  They will unknowingly continue to give up their unalienable rights to life, liberty and happiness. They are misguided and ignorant, having fallen prey to a corrupt system that has educated them poorly, and led them astray by jargon and rhetoric. 

Each Party represents a myriad of views, however. There are Moderate and Conservative Democrats, as well as Moderate and Conservative Republicans.  So, I know some Democrats that are completely against abortion.  This party system that we think we know is smoke and mirrors.  I worked in DC for many years, it is full of deceit within both parties.  In fact the focus is to win and control money - nothing more. Perhaps it is more accurate to say the the Progressive Movement which started in the 1800’s and has known NO Party is to blame. 

Just look at the Eugenics Movement in the early 1900’s.  Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood was a strong Eugenics supporter.  this is why she went into urban areas to open her “clinics.”  She sat on the same UN committee which exists today, with Adolf Hitler.  As a result, 46 states had legalized forced sterilization, as Sanger believed that only the high aristocracy should reproduce. During those years, no one party aligned with this philosophy.  Sanger thought Catholics should not reproduce.

Your conclusions are much too simplistic in this very complex system in DC, which is also affected by the UN.  I cannot see what you intend to accomplish by your statement either.  I have seen for a long time the USCCB and EWTN speak out clearly on this issue, but we find what we seek….

Yes there are some Catholics…I call them Cafeteria Catholics that have been duped into thinking that life does not begin at conception.  It is not true that the Democrats are responsible, despite the polling stats you cite.

As a Catholic, I can say it is not a good place to be - a place of blame.  Also, if you are a Catholic, then you know that you must forgive and love your enemies, as well as remain humble of heart.  Even if the stats are accurate, which i highly doubt, then the one with out sin should cast the first stone.

I do not sit in judgement of you or anyone.  But I feel your argument, although I can sympathize, is a moot point because we live in a government system that is out of control….I know my vote will not count for example, in the state where I live, because it will be invalidated by the left wing delegates. I live in an area where there are not a lot of Catholics.

I have decided to become more active by first reading the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.  I am also involved in national movements to educate others and take our Republic back. 

I would simply say,that although I share some of your angst, I feel your view is too simplistic and your energy could be directed to a much more useful goal.  In fact, you are right where the liberal progressives want you to be, pointing the finger in anger at someone other than government.  Read “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky. 

I hope you find peace in your heart for those that have sinned, and help the many of us who want to make sustained change in the US.  If you are interested go to “the Forgotten Men”  website and fb page.  they are a national - very Christian movement….they know that DC will never fix DC - it must come from the States….

I wish it was that simple to remove the democratic party, but wait and see - if Romney wins this election - I will bet money that there will be a time when the Republicans support full blown Obamacare.  Why?  Because the DCvers, want bigger government. 

Stillbelieve:

I contend that your stats are flawed.do you know how many people were polled? And in what states? The blue states? 

The Vatican positions and the Bishops’ voting recommendations as well as the Priests for Life and EWTN shows and others are very clear…..and explicit…...Have you gone to these websites and seen any of these shows? Have you called and asked any of these people?

Guy: 

I think you read Stillbelieve’s post.  I take responsibility for my own actions, and I have seen very clear outspoken messages from the Vatican, the USCCB, Priests for Life, EWTN, Women of Grace, and many others.

I am not confident in the polling cited, as well. 

I do agree that many Americans in general have been duped into thinking that life does not begin at conception, as scientists try to define life in their own way.  There also has been much more since the early 1900’s to encourage this belief.  I also think that many Catholics have not honored the church doctrine, yet we are all sinners and as one prayer says - forgive us our sins and lead all souls to heaven. 

I do not agree with Stillbelive regarding the Democrats, as both parties over the decades have supported Roe v. Wade. 

Tricia Price

“they know that DC will never fix DC - it must come from the States….”

If the bishops followed Church teaching on denying human rights and joining organizations that promote such denying, and if they were true to their word in the Profession of Faith and the Lord’s Prayer they lead us in every Sunday Mass, and then taught the laity to be true to their word, too, then not only would Washington D.C. get a new start, but so would all the States Legislatures and local governments that you think are the only ones that can change D.C.

Tricia Price

“I contend that your stats are flawed.”

Look it up. PEW Research - polling religions this election.

“The Vatican positions and the Bishops’ voting recommendations….” 

What teachings from the Vatican?  What positions from the Bishops? 

Faithful Citizenship?  It’s a joke. In the USCCB’s 2012 election “brief…summary of the bishops Faithful Citizenship called ‘The Challenge of Forming Conscience for Faithful Citizenship’” says “It complements the teaching of bishops in dioceses and states.”  Under “Doing Good and Avoiding Evil” it says “Opposition to intrinsically evil acts also prompts us to recognize our positive duty to contribute to the common good and act in solidarity with those in need.”  The very next stand alone sentence is, “Both opposing evil AND doing good are essential.”  What follows that is quotes for Veritatis Splendo, no 52 by Pope John Paul II which is a grab bag of “rights to the goods that every person needs to live and thrive - including food, shelter, health care, education, and meaningful work.”  It follows that with, “The use of the death penalty, hunger, lack of health care or housing, human trafficking. the human and moral cost of war, and unjust immigration polices are some of the serious moral issues that challenge our consciences and require us to act.” Tell me, except for the death penalty, which the Church has it wrong, who is promoting or responsible for all the other things mentioned?

Their conclusions is, “In light of Catholic teaching, as bishops we vigorously repeat out call for a renewed politics that focuses on moral principles, the defense of life, the needs of the weak, and the pursuit of the common good.  This kind of political participation reflects the social teaching of our Church and the best traditions of our nation.”

Now, tell, who are they talking about other than those responsible for “intrinsically evil acts?”

“...as well as the Priests for Life and EWTN shows…are very clear…..and explicit.”

Who belongs to Priests for Life and how many people watch EWTN?  Furthermore, why is there EVEN a need for “Priest for Life?”  Why just one small group of priest that focuses on the intrinsic evil of murdering innocent human life?

Stillbelieve:
Change will not come via state legislators either. I am referring to constitutional provision s. Have you looked at the resources I mentioned?  Can you confirm your stats.  What was the source? Did u read the full post ?

Stillbelieve:
You raise another point, but let’s stay on topic. Have you seen the resources I mentioned? Your position regarding the bishops lack of support, is clearly refuted. If you look, or even call the USCCB you would get the whole story and learn that the Church leadership has never waned. I have to question your insistence, and your refusal to look other information that clearly refutes your position. Lastly, it is not a partisan issue, never was. Again both Dems and GOP have supported non-Catholic and unconstitutional policies.  It seems that your position is influenced by short-sighted biased resources.  If the pro-life issue were as simple a you state, don’t you think the pro-life leaders would have three where-with-all to have achieved victory at this point….c’mon…

Tricia Price

“I contend that your stats are flawed.”

Look it up. PEW Research - polling religions this election.

You said, “The Vatican positions and the Bishops’ voting recommendations….” 

What teachings from the Vatican?  What ‘voting recommendations’ from the Bishops? 

Faithful Citizenship?  It’s a joke. In the USCCB’s 2012 “brief…summary of the bishops Faithful Citizenship called ‘The Challenge of Forming Conscience for Faithful Citizenship,’” it says “It complements the teaching of bishops in dioceses and states.”  Under “Doing Good and Avoiding Evil” it says “Opposition to intrinsically evil acts also prompts us to recognize our positive duty to contribute to the common good and act in solidarity with those in need.”  The very next stand-alone sentence is, “Both opposing evil AND (their emphasis) doing good are essential.” What follows that is quotes from Veritatis Splendo, no. 52 by Pope John Paul II which is a grab bag of “rights to the goods that every person needs to live and thrive - including food, shelter, health care, education, and meaningful work.”  It follows that with, “The use of the death penalty, hunger, lack of health care or housing, human trafficking. the human and moral cost of war, and unjust immigration polices are some of the serious moral issues that challenge our consciences and require us to act.”  Tell me, except for the new teaching on the death penalty (which the Church has wrong), who is promoting or responsible for all the other “serious moral issues” that we are “require(d) to act on?”

The summary’s “Conclusion” says, “In light of Catholic teaching, as bishops we vigorously repeat our call for a renewed politics that focuses on moral principles, the defense of life, the needs of the weak, and the pursuit of the common good.  This kind of political participation reflects the social teaching of our Church and the best traditions of our nation.”

Now, tell me, Tricia, other than who’s responsible for “intrinsically evil acts” - whose “politics” do they have in mind concerning “the needs of the weak, and the pursuit of the common good?”  And by what measure are we supposed to gauge whether these “moral principles” are being met?

“...as well as the Priests for Life and EWTN shows…are very clear…..and explicit.”

How many Catholic voters belong to Priests for Life and or watch EWTN?  Furthermore, why is there EVEN a need for a “Priest for Life?”  Aren’t ALL priests supposed to be for the right to life?  Why just a small, little group of priests who focus on this intrinsic evil of murdering innocent unborn human babies?

Stillbelieve:  You raise a lot of points. Let me take them one by one….
Re: Pew surveys-I will look to see the number of people polled, what sates they were in, and what age group, as well as gender and marital status. 
Re: Vatican and Bishops: Over the century, three Vatican encyclicals. They are a good resource for you and anyone. USCCB, as well as state conference specific guides to voting in their Web sites. When in doubt i call. Further, the Holy See has made several statements.  I see that clearly, but apparently you do not, i am not confused about thrift positions in this regard.

Millions of Catholics view EWTN, as they have for decades now. Anyway this us a moot point. The question is, do you? . Priests for life, is clergy based.  They are a grassroots org.  They educate against the liberal rhetoric we are bombarded with daily, just like many others.

Your interpretation of the leadership statements its very different from mine. I am very involved and I have asked for clarification instead of assuming. 

As for Catholics that cherry pick the doctrine of the church, I have a hard time accepting them as Catholics, especially when they knowingly defy the church and faith. With that said, it its morally wrong to call them on the carpet in the public square.  Until I know that you have fully vetted and challenged your own perceptions, then we cannot debate on an even playing field.  So, on my end I will look at the stats you reference. Yet I can tell you that nothing constructive comes from anger and vengeance.  It seems like you have left the church in anger, linking all into one category. You are being played by Lucifer, in that as a Catholic one should come from a place of humility.

I am very appreciative of your candor, even though I disagree with you.

Tricia Price

Read my corrected post following the one below yours this AM.  I wasn’t sure I really sent one last night because it hadn’t posted when I logged in this morning.  Anyway, the corrected typos and better wording may help you understand what I am talking about.

Now, as for your saying, “If the pro-life issue were as simple a you state, don’t you think the pro-life leaders would have three where-with-all to have achieved victory at this point….c’mon…”

The “pro-life leaders” did have the where with all to achieve victory and were well on their way in the early 1980s with the election of Ronald Reagan.  But because the Catholic Bishops is the U.S. got nervous about the success the pro-life leaders were having in getting people elected, resulting in defeating Democrats, they redefined the word created after Roe to counter the pro-aborts calling themselves “pro-choice.”  They lumped “social justice,” prudential judgment issues into the word “pro-life” and redirected Catholic teaching to “a consistent ethic of life” which produced the garbally-goock gibberish found in such writings like “Faithful Citizenship” which enables Catholics to remain in the pro-abortion party with a soothed consciences, resulting in stopping of the pro-life movement dead it is tracks.  Cardinal Bernardin accepted the chairmanship of the bishops’ Pro-Life Committee as long as it was understood by the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops that he was going to make this move, with the consent of the bishops, to change the definition of “pro-life.”  God only needed ten brief sentences to instruct us in how to live and avoid sin.  The U.S. bishops needed 25 pages to instruct us on how for form our consciences concerning the murder of unborn babies.

A major motivating reason the “good” Cardinal wanted to make that change was because “it would keep the pro-life movement from falling completely under control of the right wing conservatives who were becoming its dominant sponsors.”  Now, Tricia, does that sound like a good reason for the need to change the meaning of the word “pro-life?”  Was God offended that “right wing conservatives” were in the forefront of saving the unborn?  Did the babies really care who was winning their fight for life?  Or, was Bernardin and most of the bishops’ concern that the united pro-life LEADERSHIP, up until that point, was focusing solely on the issue of abortion the 10 years post Roe, which was causing Catholics who loved being Democrat and the Democrat Party to struggle with their self identity.  I’m asking you to tell me what the reason was for the U.S. Bishops to bring up “prudential judgment” issues in connection with the legal murdering of unborn babies some 10 years later, out of the blue, without discussing it with any of the other non-bishop pro-life leaders?.  And how has that change helped to end legal abortion today? 

Soon after the bishops made this change, Catholic Senators Kennedy and Biden, leaders in the Senate and the Senate Judiciary Committee, were unleashed to attack anybody a Republican President nominated to the Supreme Court who was a potential threat to ending legal abortion.  Their attacks were so vicious that one of their first victim’s name became a verb for the abuse such nominees would receive.  The expression became – they were “borked.”  And the “good” Catholic Bishops in the United States never said a word about the disrespectful and thunderously unkind treatment such nominees could look forward to.  That reality changed, forever, the civil discourse and respect previously allotted in the Senate nomination hearings process.  ‘Another nominee’s color didn’t even protect him from the Catholic, pro-abortion Democrats attack on his character.  The bishops freed up the Catholic politicians to be as viscous as they want towards Republican President nominees suspected of being “old” pro-lifers, not new prolifers like them. It also was the birth of nominating candidates that had little evidence of their judicial temperament and reasoning in an effort of protecting the nominees from such Democrat attacks.
   

Tricia Price

Have you ever been a Democrat?

reply to HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A DEMOCRAT: 1st—-LOL;
then 2nd-remembered when decades ago I lost most of my faith and didn’t care about abortion [woman’s decision and all that; my body my self, etc]. Then one day, 1972, on leave from US Army, encountered pictures of aborted babies. This was truth, truth I had never known…..and it hit me that if the Church was right about this, then it was probably right about other truths . And I was on my way from a party-of-death position, to God-help-me and God-help-the-unborn, God-help-the-mamas,  and God-help-us all..and back to the Church. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Stillbelieve:  I think I have read your intended posts.  I had used my cell phone earlier, which is difficult and often results in typos. Sorry about that. 

I have fully read your posts, and I am sorry to say that I just cannot relate.  Even though I understand your angst, and I share your concerns for the Catholics that do not follow the church doctrine, as well as Bishops that you maintain have betrayed the faith, I do not share the same level of outrage that you seem to feel.  Moreover, the message from the Church has been consistently pro-life in my opinion. Further, to blame the church as the lynch-pin regarding policy trends which began a century ago does not follow logic, in my honest opinion. 

I am glad to know that you acknowledge the voting guide on the USCCB web-site.  As you can see they speak to several voting issues, thus the length. 

I am not sure why you would ask if I have ever been a Democrat, again it is a moot point as the policies we are talking about are non-partisan issues, regardless of the fact that the current administration represents the radical left.

I can only say that you do not know what you do not know….as with anyone I suppose….. I would encourage anyone to stay civically engaged after the election.  In a system as large as the US today, blaming is falling prey to partisan rhetoric, and left-wing tactics.  The anger should be directed at the DCvers in DC, and both parties who no longer adhere to the Constitution and Bastiat’s Rule of Law.  This is where one should direct their anger….just saying.

It appears that your goals in this conversation is to convince me that the church is at fault and needs to come out in the publish square to be ostracized. This falls on deaf ears, not because I am a sycophant, but because, even if it was found to be true - that the church is to blame -I feel it is morally wrong to do so.  I seek humility and to pray for all souls….

Stillbelieve: one last post…the church is not the lynch-pin for bad policies…...juts on morality alone…..we all should be looking at ourselves - as individuals - instead of critically viewing others….maybe it is time for you to view the many shows on EWTN. 

Peace be with you

Tricia Price

“I am not sure why you would ask if I have ever been a Democrat, again it is a moot point as the policies we are talking about are non-partisan issues, regardless of the fact that the current administration represents the radical left.”

How can you say that what “we are talking about are non-partisan issues?”  The Democrat Party platform and legislative action are diabolically different than the Republican Platform and legislative action.  And regardless of the first efforts to adopt those diabolical platform positions began, as you say 100 years ago, the success of implementing them has occurred in our life time and it is our responsibility to correct them.  That is where the bishops come as our teachers, and they are failing as a body.  Failing so much that the Democrat, pro-abortion, pro-infanticide, pro-homosexual marriage President, who Catholics were responsible for electing, and are posed to do it again, feels comfortable attacking the Catholic Church directly and her First Amendment Constitutional Rights. I could care less that this may have started 100 years ago, but it has only gotten out of the “cage” in our generation and it is our generation who has to put it back in the cage.  The bishops are out spiritual teachers, and this is spiritual warfare, not politics, and they have failed in their vocation.  I am not talking from anger, but from concern for their failing to see the error their ways because of not wanting to offend the Democrat Party or Catholic Democrats, which they are among that majority in the faith.  I’m critical that they have let their Democrat identity influence their spiritual teaching.

As for whether you were ever a Democrat, if not, then you don’t understand how they think.  I was a south Chicago born, Irish Roman Catholic Democrat raised kid, and remained that way until after college and later married with two young boys when Roe v Wade ruling came down.  I was not a practicing Catholic at the time, but having had a year of embryology in school, I knew when life began.  When “my life long Party” started to defend the murder of unborn babies, I had enough of their phony “caring for the little guy” bs and registered out of the party as an Independent as I could not emotionally register in the hated Republican, only care for the rich, Party.  I also returned to the Catholic Church and got recruited in a local city prolife organization who backed prolife candidates for State and Federal elections.  The only prolife candidates that came to our “Meet the Candidate” forums were Republicans.  I got to get to know Republicans up close for the first time and discovered they were nothing like what I was told they were like and what I thought they were like.  I helped several Congressional Republican candidates defeat incumbent, pro-abortion congress members in Democrat districts.  Several of them have gone on to quite successful in government.  One State Legislature I helped get elected had me and a friend of mine open up his district office, which I worked in for 12 years until he retired.  So, I know the thinking of the well intention Democrat mind, especially the Catholic Democrat mind.  That is why I have the confidence in knowing what was and is the reason abortion-on-demand remains the law-of-the-land.  I stated that reason thoroughly in several of my postings here.  Thank you for the opportunity to exercise my thinking on this very important life and death issue.  I look forward to learning the results of today’s election to see if the Church will be able to retain it’s First Amendment Rights of Freedom of religion.  Please forgive an typos, etc, I have to run to Mass.

Stillbelieve:

I appreciate you listening to my side of things too….and i appreciate the dialogue.  I do agree, as I said before, that the lack of commitment to our faith is part of the problem, in this very large system.  I still maintain, it is the tip of the iceberg.  It is not what you know that bothers me, it is what you do not know that you do not know. 

I have worked in DC at a very senior level, I was a VIP to the White House and Capitol Hill during a Democratic Administration.  I have also worked in Public Health one 5 continents, with a a science background, even embryology. So I have been at the same table with both parties, and i have seen the corruption on both sides first hand at the national and international level.

That Is “how I can say what I say, and know that no “one party or group of Americans are to blame.  I also know that blame-game is a political ploy to keep your attention away from what is really going on behind the scenes in DC.  One of the reasons I left DC is because of the corruption, AND I learned the the solutions are within the Constitution, i.e. the tools left by the founding fathers…...They are nullification, article V,and sheriffs interposition, for starters. 

If you really care about this country and about human life, then get off you soap box and get involved where it counts!  There are plenty of resources out there…..AS I MENTIONED BEFORE….restoringfreedom.org, tenth amendment center, the Forgotten Men (fb and webpage), the Mike Church Show .....Team Liberty….....it goes on an on…..read the federalist and anti-federalist papers at Avalon Project - free online….or try Mike Maharry’s book on Lincoln to understand the bigger picture…when things started going down hill…..look into the sites mentioned about to find a wealth of information on how this country declined and what to do to get it back.  If you believe…....and you agreed before….that DC will never fix DC…..then nothing would prevent you from moving forward. 

Until Americans can let go of your opinion and experiences to understand that there is another very valid option out there…..then things will remain status quo.

This problem began over 100 years ago. 

And I was registered as a Dem, GOP, and independent.  As I said before the parties are filled with variable positions and they have morphed over time.  It is a moot point. 

Good luck, and God Bless

Stillbelieve:

one comment you made:  The Democrat Party platform and legislative action are diabolically different than the Republican Platform and legislative action…

that may appear to be true today, but it is not reality.  Both parties have voted in the same egregious direction, even when we had a democrat in the WH and a republican lead Congress…..State level politics do not always reflect the national level climate.

Stillbelieve:

Here is a statement from someone who had worked extensively on the Hill.  From “The Forgotten Men” fb page….and an article written in 2000.  it may help you see my point:

So, people are confused, angry, frustrated…I sure understand why.

Step one is to pause and reflect on why this election was so important. Soul searching is a healthy thing to do…I do it frequently. Often, it leads to an epiphany of sorts, and suddenly, the picture becomes clearer and often the solution does so as well.

In 2000, I ran across an article by Professor Walter E. Williams that began this process for me. I had to confront a good deal of what I thought about national politics…and I came to the conclusion that I had been looking at this all wrong. But while it’s easy to admit that I was wrong, the next question had to be, if what I believed about national politics and the national government, what was the solution? I couldn’t just understand the problem, I had to have a solution.

And as I studied history, the picture became clear and it had nothing to do with the RNC or the DNC…it had to do with unalienable rights, consent of the governed, the rule of law and restoring them. And I realized there was nothing that can be accomplished on a national scale…it was going to take We the People, a grassroots movement. And this is where we start. So, with that said, read Dr. Williams article below, and then start with this 4 Step beginning process:

1. Purge your vocabulary of the words “nation” or “country,” we are neither. We are a Union and there is a huge difference between the two.
2. Study the Declaration of Independence. Contained therein is the map going forward. Meditate on those profound words.
3. Study the background and history of the Pledge of Allegiance. Focus on the phrase “One nation…indivisible.” Do you agree with that (see #1)? If you do, then read Step #4
4. End status quo thinking. The DC’vers who occupy Washington DC want you to maintain the status quo, why? Because they win and you lose. Until you break out of that thinking, nothing can change.

For some this will be old hat to you and to you I say; now is the time for you to lead. To others, these 4 initial steps may anger you, or encourage you, but I hope you’ll look into them.

Either way…this MUST become a We the People moment. Things must change dramatically, do not fear change.

It’s Time to Part Company
econfaculty.gmu.edu

One political question we have to answer is whether George W. Bush or Albert Gore shall be president and just which party will control the House of Representatives and the Senate. But I’d suggest that there’s a far more important long run question we must answer: If one group of people prefers government control and management of people’s lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?

Like a marriage that has gone bad, I believe there are enough irreconcilable differences between those who want to control and those want to be left alone that divorce is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage, where vows are broken, our human rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.

Let’s look at just some of the magnitude of the violations.

Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution enumerates the activities for which Congress is authorized to tax and spend. James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained it in The Federalist Papers: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. . . . The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”

Nowhere amongst the enumerated powers of congress is there authority to tax and spend for: Social Security, public education, farm subsidies, bank bailouts, food stamps and other activities that represent roughly two-thirds of the federal budget. Neither is there authority for Congress’s mandates to the states and people about how they may use their land, the speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps and the gallons of water used per toilet flush. A list of congressional violations of the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end.

Americans who wish to live free have two options: We can resist, fight and risk bloodshed to force America’s tyrants to respect our liberties and human rights, or we can seek a peaceful resolution of our irreconcilable differences by separating. That can be done by peopling several states, say Texas and Louisiana, control their legislatures and then issue a unilateral declaration of independence just as the Founders did in 1776. You say, “Williams, nobody has to go that far, just get involved in the political process and vote for the right person.” That’s nonsense. Liberty shouldn’t require a vote. It’s a God-given or natural right.

Some independence or secessionists movements, such as our 1776 war with England and our 1861 War Between the States, have been violent, but they need not be. In 1905, Norway seceded from Sweden, Panama seceded from Columbia (1903), and West Virginia from Virginia (1863). Nonetheless, violent secession can lead to great friendships. England is probably our greatest ally and we have fought three major wars together. There is no reason why Texiana (Texas and Louisiana) couldn’t peaceably secede, be an ally, and have strong economic ties with United States.

The bottom line question for all of us is should we part company or continue trying to forcibly impose our wills on one another?

Walter E. Williams
c42-00
September 8, 2000

Tricia Price

That’s an interesting concept - work peacefully toward separating two totally different philosophies into two different governing bodies located in two separate geographical areas as opposed to one philosophy dictating to the other such as we have in the U.S.A. today.  One would use the original Declaration of Independence, the other a new Declaration of Independence that Obama is implementing without declaring what is in it. 

I can see that separation theme being used in political campaigns but I don’t see how people would actually physically bring about the geographical division.  Here in California there has been talk of dividing the state into a North CA and a South CA, but no movement on how to bring that about.

I think such a separation theme could also be promoted in the U.S. Catholic Church. There is a divide among Catholics that corresponds to that in the general public.  You have the pre Cardinal Bernardin pro-lifers and the post Cardinal Bernardin new pro-lifers.  The bishops have done a terrible job (sorry, Tricia, they have as evidenced by yesterday’s national election results, again) in trying to blend those two distinct spiritual teachings into one.  If anything, they just made it worse.  Intrinsic evils and prudential judgments, like mortal sins and venial sins (or, better, no sin at all) can never be presented as moral equivalences.  And they did that to “be kind to Catholic Democrats,” of which included most of the priest who were registered to vote. 

Stillbelieve:
I am glad you enjoyed the articles. Secession its the last resort.. I am not a proponent. The states have the right to secede, and individuals might move to those states.. 

I still disagree with you’re position on the church. Cafeteria Catholics make decisions based on convenience and lack of commitment. It does not take a rocket scientist to know right from wing within the church guidelines.

There must be a lot of Catholic sinners out there!  President Obama won by a landslide, with 332 electoral votes and the majority of the Catholic vote. God is good!  Community won, and greed lost.

Mary Grace,

A landslide? the popular vote was just about equal, except more than 50% voted for someone other than Obama!  In my State the majority of voters selected Romney, yet due to our delegates our majority vote did not count. I would argue that the polling in districts, which supposedly favored Obama by 98% were false.  There has been corruption at the poll.

...and ignorance is still on display.