What’s the role of Catholic social teaching and the common good in the 2008 presidential election?
Come watch a re-broadcast of the final presidential debate and join a lively moderated discussion examining how candidates’ positions would impact the common good raised up by Catholic social tradition.We will also look at Maryknoll’s election reflection guide, “Loving our neighbor in a shrinking world” which presents five areas of U.S. foreign policy crucial to the well being of people around the world.
(Guide available at http://www.maryknollogc.org/2008elections/index.htm)
Trinity Social Hall (Main Hall)
125 Michigan Avenue, N.E.
Washington, DC
Saturday, October 25,
1-5 p.m.1-2:30 p.m. – Replay of Oct. 15 presidential debate
3-5 p.m. – Discussion moderated by Kathy McNeely, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns (MOGC), and Lou Maroulis, Maryknoll Affiliate
Co-sponsored by Trinity University (Washington) Campus Ministry
Come watch a re-broadcast of the final presidential debate and join a lively moderated discussion examining how candidates’ positions would impact the common good raised up by Catholic social tradition.We will also look at Maryknoll’s election reflection guide, “Loving our neighbor in a shrinking world” which presents five areas of U.S. foreign policy crucial to the well being of people around the world.
(Guide available at http://www.maryknollogc.org/2008elections/index.htm)
Trinity Social Hall (Main Hall)
125 Michigan Avenue, N.E.
Washington, DC
Saturday, October 25,
1-5 p.m.1-2:30 p.m. – Replay of Oct. 15 presidential debate
3-5 p.m. – Discussion moderated by Kathy McNeely, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns (MOGC), and Lou Maroulis, Maryknoll Affiliate
Co-sponsored by Trinity University (Washington) Campus Ministry
11 comments:
FROM AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM
I am a Catholic and I am anti-slavery....
...I deplore slavery and have been an active part of the abolitionist movement. But this November of the year of Our Lord 1860 I am voting for Stephen A. Douglas.
Now I know my announcement will befuddle many Catholics who think that Abraham Lincoln is the only possible choice if you are truly as anti-slavery as I say I am.
Some of my friends ask me how can I possibly support Senator Douglas when he was largely responsible for the Compromise of 1850 and supported the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision of 1857?...
...Do we really want to legislate morality? Now as a Catholic I personally believe that slavery is wrong, but lawmakers need to represent the people...
Catholics should not be single issue voters and let slavery dominate the discussion. Human dignity and the acceptance of the government of human rights is just one issue of many. What about economic and other social justice issues?...
At the Curt Jester you can see this excellent parody of Doug Kmiec, an alleged Catholic who backs B. Hussein Obama, a known pro-death politician committed to furthering the culture of death in the US.
Now just how is it Katherine that I figured Mr. Kmiec out without ever knowing anything else about him. Since my first post in here condemning him I have seen that all the Catholics out there on the internet have the same things to say about him that I did. He's a traitor. He and Judas would get along together just fine.
Watch this video:
Dura Realidad
If, as a Catholic, you can still support Barack Obama after watching it, you may want to check yourself carefully.
You may not have a soul.
Of course, most Catholics did vote for Douglas and the Church never gave any voting instructions. BTW, Douglas' daughter was a nun.
MARYKNOLL?????????? They have been Marxists for years and years. They want your money to buy AK-47s for the communists in South America. Of course for you bozos that would be some kind of right-wing lunatic conspiracy theory. So just ignore my ranting and raving about the communists. You will anyway after the fact that you could ignore a KGB agenst's warning as to what they intend to do with liberals who help them out. Remember? They call you useful idiots. I just call you useless idiots.
Oh here's an article from a real Catholic Bishop.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Bishop Finn: Can a Catholic Vote in Support of Abortion?
Following are excepts of is Bishop Finn's column in the upcoming issue of The Catholic Key:
When a candidate supports ready access to abortion on demand, they are inviting Catholics to put aside their conscience on this life and death issue. Such a candidate is inviting conscientious Catholics to look elsewhere for moral leadership....
When a candidate regards the unborn child as unworthy of the defense of law, then he or she asks us to join them in ignoring the lessons of history by which African Americans in this country were once regarded as non-persons; or the Jews of Europe were once marked for genocide or racial purification. Had we known, would we have supported the “choice” to enslave or destroy these brothers and sisters of ours? Can a candidate expect us as Catholics to ignore the classification of the unborn as non-persons? Will he or she expect us to look aside while these babies are quietly exterminated at a rate of 4000 per day? This is precisely what they are asking us to do.
Some groups calling themselves “Catholic” have suggested that generous programs for the poor will reduce abortions more than the repeal of Roe v. Wade. But a candidate who pledges that he or she will seek to immediately ratify the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), signals to voters that the reduction of abortions is not a goal...They want us to deny our conscience and ignore their callous disregard for the most vulnerable human life.
If the candidate has addressed their legislative assembly, urging opposition to the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, then it must be concluded that this candidate wishes Catholic voters to be complicit in infanticide....
Our country is at the edge of the precipice concerning the protection of the life and dignity of the human person. A significant new attack on innocent human life will likely send us into a moral freefall that would rival any financial decline....
A candidate who asks us to add our weight to such a destructive momentum in our society, asks us to be participants in their own gravely immoral act.... - for the sake of our eternal salvation: This we should never do
You might want to think about this;
"Canon 1398 provides that, "a person who procures a successful abortion incurs an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication." This means that at the very moment that the abortion is successfully accomplished, the woman and all formal conspirators are excommunicated.
PLS watch this and understand!!
http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?swf=http%3A//s.ytimg.com/yt/swf/cps-vfl59689.swf&video_id=Ww7Rv_KjGDM&rel=1&hqt=1&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//i4.ytimg.com/vi/Ww7Rv_KjGDM/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskI0P5L-bOG01aMPiacPsooL&use_get_video_info=1&load_modules=1&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1&hl=en
An abortion is defined as "the killing of the foetus, in whatever way or at whatever time from the moment of conception" (Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, published in the "Acts of the Apostolic See" vol. 80 (1988), 1818). This definition applies to any means, including drugs, by which a human being present in the woman is killed. Thus, once a woman knows she is pregnant the intentional killing of the new life within her is not only murder but an excommunicable offense. A woman who only thinks she might be pregnant has a grave responsibility to find out and to protect the possible life within. Any action to end a "possible" pregnancy while probably not an excommunicable offense would be callous disregard for life and gravely sinful.
Conspirators who incur the excommunication can be defined as those who make access to the abortion possible. This certainly includes doctors and nurses who actually do it, husbands, family and others whose counsel and encouragement made it morally possible for the woman, and those whose direct practical support made it possible (financially, driving to the clinic etc.).
http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?swf=http%3A//s.ytimg.com/yt/swf/cps-vfl59689.swf&video_id=Ww7Rv_KjGDM&rel=1&hqt=1&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//i4.ytimg.com/vi/Ww7Rv_KjGDM/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskI0P5L-bOG01aMPiacPsooL&use_get_video_info=1&load_modules=1&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1&hl=en
You cannot be Catholic and support a pro abortion candidate;
1. abortion is intrinsically evil
2. the catechism;
2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.72
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.73
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.74
2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:
You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.76
2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,"77 "by the very commission of the offense,"78 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.79 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation.
3. the Church has clearly and unambiguosly stated that no matter how many of the other concerns in a voting are justified and important NONE trump abortion.
A Catholic cannot in good conscience vote for a pro abortion candidate let alone support.
How about those Dallas and Ft. Worth Bishops? Speaking the truth in love. They state that abortion is not the only moral issue, however they did say it is the defining moral issue of the last 35years.
The bishops teach that "to vote for a candidate who supports the intrinsic evil of abortion or "abortion rights" when there is a morally acceptable alternative would be to cooperate in the evil - and, therefore, morally impermissible". If it is morally impermissible then it is sinful. If it is sinful, then salvation is at risk. Their letter does not endorse a candidate but explains what issue(s) are preeminent when considering a vote and merely expounds on Faithful Citizenship. These guidelines would be applicable for any vote for a politician whether they be Democrat or Republican. Of course, by following the Church's teaching, one candidate will align itself better than the other candidate. Neither candidate aligns himself perfectly. We must look to the Church for instruction.
Faithful Citizenship is not a stand alone document. Faithful Citizenship was based on Living the Gospel of Life that was written by the USCCB and that document is based on the document Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) in which the Holy Father said that "It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop..."
There is a distinction between intrinsic evil acts and prudential judgment. Abortion, slavery, attacking non-combatants, and many more are intrinsically evil. What policies to implement for the economy, how to go about feeding the poor, when to implement the death penalty, how many national parks to build, determining the best healthcare policy, are all a matter of prudential judgment and we can have legitimate disagreement on the implementation of those policies. without jeopardizing our salvation. However, abortion is the foundational issue of our time with about 1.2 million babies being slaughtered every year in America.
How does a policy like implementing FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) going to save babies? FOCA, which Senator Obama wants to enact as soon as he gets into office, will offer no protections for the unborn. Are not the unborn persons? Jesus speaking through the Church teaches this to be true. Offering no protections for the unborn is a direct attack on human life.
This is the most violent form of child abuse. This is the number social justice issue of our time. No child who is destroyed before being born cannot obtain healthcare, employment, etc.
Mr. Obama is the most pro-abortion candidate ever to run for the office of presidency. By supporting "abortion rights" he is not prolife.
What policies to implement for the economy, how to go about feeding the poor, when to implement the death penalty, how many national parks to build, determining the best healthcare policy, are all a matter of prudential judgment and we can have legitimate disagreement on the implementation of those policies. without jeopardizing our salvation.
Wrong. The compency of the Church to dicern the best policy may be a matter of prudential judgement and therefore she cannot bind the faithful. But if an individual layperson, particularly one who has some expertize in these one of these matters, has sincerely concluded a particular policy will lead to great moral good or great moral evil, then that person must follow his discernment.
For those of you who are really open to the best course of protecting the unborn and at the same time following the Church's teaching, please read the following:
http://www.cathdal.org/default.asp?contentid=137&newsid=42
It should take less than 10 minutes of your time and your salvation may depend on it.
In the last post once you are at the website, please click on English or Spanish.
It is clear and concise on sorting through the issues.
If Catholics as an organized religious group wish to influence politics as an organized religious group, then it is fair for government and politicians to expect Catholic churches to follow laws and practices as they would with any other political action committee.
If certain Catholics are indeed "one-issue" voters, i.e. "pro-fetus"; perhaps those voters should also consider those who are already born, rather than merely thinking about the pre-born. So, I have questions for you who vote on one issue: How many human beings were killed by the invasion of Iraq? Is invading a country on a false pretense moral? Is it moral to 'stay the course'? How many lives will be lost if we stay in Iraq and continue our killing ways, as we will if McCain ascends to the Presidency and, God forbid, his intellectually improverished running mate has any influence on the country. Face it voters; Bush and his decisions and policies are a travesty; and merely voting 'pro-life' as in 'anti-abortion' overlooks many moral isssues where the Republican Party has scorned our morals and Nation's virtues simply to further enrich the already rich.
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