Posted on 11/07/2012 8:26:03 AM PST by annalex
These are a few thoughts that I have, as a Catholic layman and American nationalist. I am also a monarchist, and so I recognize the basic futility of a democratic political process in a culturally divided electorate: the country has been for the past several election cycles largely ungovernable because it has lost a common ethical consensus. However, even in this predicament, elections serve a useful purpose. That is because regardless of the efficacy of the democratic process, politics remain one tool available to us to forestall a national collapse, and, possibly, cause a cultural revival and reunification. These two are our fundamental political objectives. More precisely, a Catholic Conservative should, I think, espouse these medium-term commitments:
There is nothing a monarchist would change with respect of these goals. We, monarchists, understand that a monarchy can only happen as an organic development in the political life of a unified nation under God. I believe that given American political culture with its respect for self-government and property rights, a form of new feudalism will evolve constitutionally, and the new feudalism will give rise to a monarchy when this nation is sufficiently unified around our unique national idea.
Did the re-election of Obama set back these goals?
I believe that our goals were set back not last Tuesday but during the primary process. Governor Romney was perhaps, most “presidential” of the field of candidates, but even so, he structured his campaign on several false propositions: he avoided social issues and failed to propose an economic agenda that would captivate the American middle class. He correctly identified Obamacare as most odious feature of Obama’s policies, but he failed to link it to its impact on the religious freedom, which was its most vulnerable element. Having instituted something at least vaguely similar to Obamacare in Massachusetts, he was in no position to attack Obamacare’s central premise of government takeover of the medical industry.
I further believe that had Romney been elected, the conservative goals would have been set back worse than they are set back now. That is because a Romney’s victory would have vindicated the idea that the Republican Party can win elections without the social conservatives and without the conservative libertarians such as Dr. Ron Paul. Let us hope that the GOP learns the lessons of this year:
In the meanwhile, we are left with what the collective wisdom of the American people gave us: four more years of divided and therefore bounded by its partisan divisions federal government. This is, I believe, the best we could have hoped for. Let us use these years to grow the Tea Party, make it a better-rounded political force by engaging it more fully in our culture war, and be firm and brave defending our glorious Church from the enemies on the Left.
Ping to your lists, if you will.
Agreed, we dodged a bullet. Better to have one party opposing Obamacare than two parties that support it.
But man, we paid an awful cost in the senate last night.
Catholic Conservatives include Hispanics, large parts of the Catholic Church have created the moral hazard that it is ok to use the force of government to steal the fruits of another man’s labor for others.
In other words, steal for good.
Morally and Ethically, this should have been struck down and these people drummed out of the Church, but they weren’t.
SO... You have many Hispanic Catholics fooled into thinking it is ok for them to be conservative in their beliefs yet vote this way in their secular lives to get free stuff for themselves and their kin.
This is the same thinking of someone breaking into a foreclosed home to steal the fridge, they are taking from rich corrupt banks for the poor .... yet these rich banks are owned by both the rich and the poor ... and regardless it is still wrong without any justification.
This is the decline of the Catholic Church and the Conservatives in Society at large .... these two are related to the same cause.
Indeed they do but they do not include thieves.
My deepest hope for the Church is a declaration from the Pope that voting for a candidate in order to extract an gain from others ... is an ill-gotten gain .... theft ... and a sin against God.
I think you know what I am trying to say.
Yes, and that, too should be something for the GOP to learn from. For example, the unprecedented hounding of Akin by the GOP establishment was shameful.
Someone on Salvation's Daily Mass thread urged us not to post such things because social libertarians (his term) look at them and it might frighten them away from Romney. This is the cost of centrism.
I think that if the Bishops will not enforce the rules, then I must leave the church. I am saddened but with this marxist social justice theology now so prevelant, I have no choice.
John Paul II claims, following Pope Leo XIII, that human persons have rights that flow from the dignity granted to them by their nature. These rights, the Pope says, are inalienable and proper to every human person. Though the rights of human persons are many, for the sake of his argument the Pope names some that are specific. Among those that he names, there are five that are principally violated by socialism: the owning of private property, forming of professional associations, the limiting of working hours, the receiving of a just wage, and the discharge of one's religious duties (6-7). The Pope asserts that all these rights are natural, or in other words proper to man by his nature. For instance, the Pope cites that it is natural or proper for man to meet in associations with fellow men inasmuch as man is a social being. Also the Pope notes that these natural rights precede any cooperation with political or civil authority. Precedence is given to these right lies in their root in other inalienable right that are possessed by the human person. The chief rights to life, liberty and property allow for the specific rights that the Pope discusses to exist. This discussion of natural rights and precedence flows forth into a discussion about the relationship between people as individuals and the state. The Pope concludes with an affirmation of the individual human person. With his dignity and inalienable rights, the human person holds precedence over the institution or society as a whole. For it is the job of the State to protect the natural rights of its individual citizens and to supply the means for the attainment of the personal good (7). The State must be fair and equal and work to obtain good inasmuch as it is possible for each of its individual members (9).
From Pope John Paul II's Critique of Socialism. References are to the source: CENTESIMUS ANNUS
Rome doesn’t police the American Catholic Church as it should be done. If it had Biden, Pelosi, Kerry and his awful wife, and most of the Kennedy’s would have been publicly ex-communicated long ago. The Catholic Church of my childhood no longer exists in the US and apparently not in Rome either.
Lured, in fine, by the greed of present goods, which is ‘the root of all evils, which some coveting have erred from the faith’ (1 Tim. 6:10.3), they assail the right of property sanctioned by natural law; and by a scheme of horrible wickedness, while they seem desirous of caring for the needs and satisfying the desires of all men, they strive to seize and hold in common whatever has been acquired either by title of lawful inheritance, or by labor of brain and hands, or by thrift in one's mode of life.” (Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, December 28, 1878, n. 1)
More at What the Popes Have to Say About Socialism. The encyclical quoted: QUOD APOSTOLICI MUNERIS
I know what this means, but this is too vague for most of the uneducated masses.
The Bishops and Priests are supposed to teach but instead have advocated many of the Democrat Social Programs because they benefited the poor without realizing by doing so, they were advocating the confiscation of other people’s property for this purpose.
It is a problem of specificity and ignorance.
That's a non-sequitur. The church is there to lead you to salvation, not to police the rules. I agree with your frustration and share it, but there is but one Holy Church.
No, think that through again. It makes as little sense as to say
Mind the tagline:
I hear you, but Pelosi, Biden, Kennedy ad nauseum. They get to be in good standing? REALLY? I am adrift and demoralized today. Minnesota also rejected the marriage amendment. The Republic is in peril and so is the church.
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26)[14] For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and breaking down the middle wall of partition, the enmities in his flesh: [15] Making void the law of commandments contained in decrees; that he might make the two in himself into one new man, making peace;[16] And might reconcile both to God in one body by the cross, killing the enmities in himself (Ephesians 2)
Peace is a person. Same person as the Truth. Have peace with Him, and who partakes of Him along with you, then he has the same peace as you do, and he who does not partake of Him rejected the peace through no fault of your own.
Anger is but a passion. Mortify it. "If by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live" (Romans 8:13)
I have a certain disgust about sloth and cowardice in high places, but I'm afraid I come under the same indictment. The solution isn't to abandon ship. The solution goes like this: To our knees. Then: to our feet.
I agree.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.