Spiritual Windsurfer

WorldMagazine.com ^ | Marvin Olasky

[Salvation]

Spiritual Windsurfer

Why John Kerry is losing to George W. Bush among Catholics | by Marvin Olasky

In 1973, nine men in robes did what centuries of prelates could not or would not do: They united millions of Protestants and Roman Catholics. The Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision made leaders of both groups realize that, without putting aside theological differences, they could unite against a common enemy: abortion.

Another common opponent, John Kerry, is performing a similar function this year. In 1960, as Catholic scholar George Weigel writes in the Sept. 27 America, "millions of Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy for little reason other than that he was a Catholic." In 1980 millions of Catholics voted for Ronald Reagan because he was a conservative and was not Jimmy Carter, an overt evangelical. In 2004, according to a recent Pew poll, a sizeable majority of Catholics plan to vote for George W. Bush, an overt evangelical, against John Kerry, a Catholic.

The 2004 vote is likely to go that way for both positive and negative reasons. On the positive side, Catholic social doctrine and President Bush's compassionate conservatism have many similarities. As Mr. Weigel writes, Catholics now teach that "the free and virtuous society is a complex set of interactions among a democratic political community, a free economy, and a public moral culture. . . . The culture is the key to the entire edifice. A culture that teaches freedom-as-license is going to wreck democracy and the free economy, sooner or later."

A decade ago I wrote a book about 18th-century America, Fighting for Liberty and Virtue, that pointed out how evangelicals like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams noted freedom's dependence on morality. They argued, as does Mr. Weigel, that liberty sets loose enormous human energy, and that a free society can survive only if people have "bottom," to use the 18th-century expression; a society, like a ship, needs some weight or it is blown around by the winds.

Most Catholics evidently see George Bush as having bottom on Iraq and on domestic policy, and Sen. Kerry lacking it. The root cause of bottomlessness is always theological confusion, and Sen. Kerry exhibits that big time. Just look at his 1998 interview with American Windsurfer, the journal of a charming sport that has become a Kerry metaphor. The senator said, "I am a believer in the Supreme Being, in God. I believe without any question in this force that is so much larger and more powerful than anything human beings can conceivably define." Sounds more like Star Wars than Christ on the cross.

Is Sen. Kerry a CINO, a Catholic in name only? He does go to Mass, especially when cameras are around. Yet Catholicism has set doctrines, while Sen. Kerry windsurfs: He has "always been fascinated by the Transcendentalists and the Pantheists and others who found these great connections just in nature, in trees, the ponds, the ripples of the wind on the pond, the great feast of nature itself. I think it's all an expression that grows out of this profound respect people have for those forces that human beings struggle to define and to explain. It's all a matter of spirituality."

Does Sen. Kerry speak about sin? Can't find that anywhere in his published speeches, but he did tell American Windsurfer, "So much of the conflict on the face of this planet is rooted in religions and the belief systems they give rise to. The fundamentalism of one entity or another." WORLD looked for a Catholic spiritual advisor who is close to him, but Sen. Kerry's most ardent praise seems to be for "the Dalai Lama who I've spent some time with and who is absolutely intriguing. Extraordinary person. He is certainly telling us there is life from enlightenment—here and hereafter, but I think, whether or not we're going to be [enlightened] is the great test that all of us are struggling with."

Is this Catholicism? No, but it's what is taught at Sen. Kerry's home church, the Paulist Center in Boston. Jonathan Last of The Weekly Standard attended a Center service and observed a reciting of an edited version of the Nicene Creed, with the section on believing in only "one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God," dropped out.

Once that ball is dropped other balls—marriage, sanctity of life, and so on—also hit the floor. The noise of all those balls dropping is mixed with the sound of most Catholics fleeing the Kerry campaign. —•

[Salvation]

For your continued discussion and/or comments.

[Salvation]

**In 2004, according to a recent Pew poll, a sizeable majority of Catholics plan to vote for George W. Bush, an overt evangelical, against John Kerry, a Catholic.**

I know this Catholic is voting for Bush!

[Salvation]

Catholic Discussion Ping!

Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Catholic Discussion Ping List.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

You gotta love Marvin.

[prophetic]

John F'n Kerry's catholicism experience is mainly about when he actually served as an Alter Boy (back when he was about 6+).

So what about the rest of his life?

Btw, John F'n Kerry is about to become an ExCommunicated Catholic for his stand on abortion.

[Salvation]

Definitely!

[Just Lori]

an edited version of the Nicene Creed, with the section on believing in only "one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God," dropped out.


Ok. This one I do NOT believe. The creed is not up for debate in our Church. If any entity in the Church drops this line, a Bishop should be notified. This cannot be true.

[Salvation]

I totally missed that. Thanks for catching that. Obviously this center is not Catholic then, in my estimation.

I haven't ever heard of anything like that.

[Technical Editor]

I shall pay the Paulist Center a visit soon to check on this. I'll report back here.

[My2Cents]

And this Protestant will march to the polling booth arm-in-arm with you to vote our convictions.

[Technical Editor]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/31/165759.shtml

Separating the Catholic Sheep From the CINO Goats
Phil Brennan
Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2004


Except for a courageous handful, America's wimpish Roman Catholic Bishops won't say this, but I will: A significant number of proclaimed Catholics in this country are no more Catholic than the most secularized of their fellow Americans.


Yet the media insists on labeling them as being members of a church whose doctrines they dispute and whose disciplines they reject. It is members of this group whose dissent from the most vital teachings of the Church draws huzzahs from the neo-paganists who dominate the mainstream media today. And it also this group which distorts the true picture of what was once a solid voting bloc, but no longer exists as a political reality.

There are, in fact, faithful Catholics and there are people who call themselves Catholic but are, in reality, about as close to being atheists as they can get without completely banishing the idea of the Almighty from their lives. If He exists at all, to them He is merely an afterthought.

This has a serious impact on America's political future because, as George Marlin points out in his extraordinary new book, "The American Catholic Voter – 200 Years of Political Impact," both the real and pseudo Catholic vote will be the decisive one in the upcoming presidential election.

In a pair of recent Gallup polls it was revealed that Catholic registered voters who attend church weekly - about one-third of all Catholic registered voters - support Bush over Kerry. Those voters view Bush's moral policies as most closely resembling those of the Church, and Kerry's moral outlook as greatly at odds with the Church - by a full 10 percent margin, 52 percent to 42 percent.

But among those Catholics-in-name-only (CINO) voters who rarely if ever go to church - about 38 percent of the self-described Catholics - Kerry led by 57 percent to 39 percent.

Marlin points out that since the "Catholic" vote will determine the outcome - and he provides solid evidence for the veracity of this prediction - the election will be decided by how effective the Bush forces are in energizing the faithful Catholics to come out and vote for him, and how effective Kerry is in energizing the phony Catholic bloc of voters.

It's important to understand exactly what defines a Roman Catholic. Anyone wishing to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church must subscribe fully and not half-heartedly to what is called the "Depositum Fidei," the deposit of faith which contains the Church's doctrines. It's not up for debate. Take it or leave it. Leave it and you leave the Church.

Adhering to those doctrines faithfully makes a faithful Catholic. It is not easy. There are lots of inconveniences that prevent a Roman Catholic from living in accord with the current fun-and-games secularist lifestyle with which the media, Hollywood and the literary world are so enamored. It sets us apart from a majority of our fellow Americans. But as the old saying goes, "living Catholic is hard; dying Catholic is easy."

The CINOs reject the hard part - that which interferes with the decadent lifestyle they prefer. In the case of those in political life, the hard part interferes with taking positions opposite from those of voters on the left. And if that sets them at odds with their nominal religion, it's not their fault. They blame a Church which refuses to join the secularist parade and approve that which would deprive it of its very reason to exist.

Let's be blunt about this; people like John Kerry and Tom Daschle and their ilk - all CINOs - are well aware of the horrendous nature of abortion - the outright murder of unborn human beings in the eyes of the Church and most of humanity for most of the world's history.

But they would rather sacrifice babies over the political support of the multi-billion dollar abortion industry and its lavish campaign contributions.

Yet they continue to insist they remain members of the Catholic faith and are simply following their consciences by bartering their immortal souls for money and votes.

Let's be clear about this. They are not in any sense of the word Catholics. One can't support abortion and remain a Catholic. Nor can those who are faithful Catholics go down to their polling places on election day and vote for turncoats. By so doing they forfeit any claim to Catholicism and become apostates and accomplices in the murder of the unborn.

It's not just the issue of abortion that separates the CINOs from their former church. Other issues - same sex marriage and embryonic stem cell research and the requirement to attend Mass on Sundays - also puts them into the apostate column.

For them, living Catholic is just too hard. And dying outside their church will be hard. Damned hard.

Pray for them. And for God's sake, outvote them on election day.

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

[Technical Editor]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/31/165759.shtml

Separating the Catholic Sheep From the CINO Goats
Phil Brennan
Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2004


Except for a courageous handful, America's wimpish Roman Catholic Bishops won't say this, but I will: A significant number of proclaimed Catholics in this country are no more Catholic than the most secularized of their fellow Americans.


Yet the media insists on labeling them as being members of a church whose doctrines they dispute and whose disciplines they reject. It is members of this group whose dissent from the most vital teachings of the Church draws huzzahs from the neo-paganists who dominate the mainstream media today. And it also this group which distorts the true picture of what was once a solid voting bloc, but no longer exists as a political reality.

There are, in fact, faithful Catholics and there are people who call themselves Catholic but are, in reality, about as close to being atheists as they can get without completely banishing the idea of the Almighty from their lives. If He exists at all, to them He is merely an afterthought.

This has a serious impact on America's political future because, as George Marlin points out in his extraordinary new book, "The American Catholic Voter – 200 Years of Political Impact," both the real and pseudo Catholic vote will be the decisive one in the upcoming presidential election.

In a pair of recent Gallup polls it was revealed that Catholic registered voters who attend church weekly - about one-third of all Catholic registered voters - support Bush over Kerry. Those voters view Bush's moral policies as most closely resembling those of the Church, and Kerry's moral outlook as greatly at odds with the Church - by a full 10 percent margin, 52 percent to 42 percent.

But among those Catholics-in-name-only (CINO) voters who rarely if ever go to church - about 38 percent of the self-described Catholics - Kerry led by 57 percent to 39 percent.

Marlin points out that since the "Catholic" vote will determine the outcome - and he provides solid evidence for the veracity of this prediction - the election will be decided by how effective the Bush forces are in energizing the faithful Catholics to come out and vote for him, and how effective Kerry is in energizing the phony Catholic bloc of voters.

It's important to understand exactly what defines a Roman Catholic. Anyone wishing to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church must subscribe fully and not half-heartedly to what is called the "Depositum Fidei," the deposit of faith which contains the Church's doctrines. It's not up for debate. Take it or leave it. Leave it and you leave the Church.

Adhering to those doctrines faithfully makes a faithful Catholic. It is not easy. There are lots of inconveniences that prevent a Roman Catholic from living in accord with the current fun-and-games secularist lifestyle with which the media, Hollywood and the literary world are so enamored. It sets us apart from a majority of our fellow Americans. But as the old saying goes, "living Catholic is hard; dying Catholic is easy."

The CINOs reject the hard part - that which interferes with the decadent lifestyle they prefer. In the case of those in political life, the hard part interferes with taking positions opposite from those of voters on the left. And if that sets them at odds with their nominal religion, it's not their fault. They blame a Church which refuses to join the secularist parade and approve that which would deprive it of its very reason to exist.

Let's be blunt about this; people like John Kerry and Tom Daschle and their ilk - all CINOs - are well aware of the horrendous nature of abortion - the outright murder of unborn human beings in the eyes of the Church and most of humanity for most of the world's history.

But they would rather sacrifice babies over the political support of the multi-billion dollar abortion industry and its lavish campaign contributions.

Yet they continue to insist they remain members of the Catholic faith and are simply following their consciences by bartering their immortal souls for money and votes.

Let's be clear about this. They are not in any sense of the word Catholics. One can't support abortion and remain a Catholic. Nor can those who are faithful Catholics go down to their polling places on election day and vote for turncoats. By so doing they forfeit any claim to Catholicism and become apostates and accomplices in the murder of the unborn.

It's not just the issue of abortion that separates the CINOs from their former church. Other issues - same sex marriage and embryonic stem cell research and the requirement to attend Mass on Sundays - also puts them into the apostate column.

For them, living Catholic is just too hard. And dying outside their church will be hard. Damned hard.

Pray for them. And for God's sake, outvote them on election day.

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

[Technical Editor]

Whoa! Did I really just repost the same article? Sorry about that.

[Technical Editor]

http://www.spectator.org/

The American Spectator

Kerry’s Auxiliary Bishops

By George Neumayr

10/20/2004

The presidential race is full of religious ironies, pitting a Protestant who quotes the Pope against a Catholic who rejects the Pope. The Protestant -- campaigning on opposition to abortion and homosexual marriage -- will likely get the Catholic vote. The Catholic -- campaigning on embryo-destruction, partial-birth abortion, and the alternative lifestyles of pagan antiquity -- will get the mainline Protestant vote.

In one more irony and historical marker of clerical decadence, the Catholic candidate will receive a higher percentage of support from the Catholic episcopate than the Catholic laity -- the very episcopate Kerry has made a point of saying that he will ignore on matters of morality.
John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter writes that "if the Holy See were to vote in a secret ballot for the American president, Kerry would beat Bush 60-40." Polling of American bishops would even be higher. Priests like Richard McBrien have appeared in clerical collar on national television to justify voting for Kerry. The dean of Notre Dame, which the bishops regard as their Harvard, recently published a piece saturated with third-rate casuistry urging Catholics to vote for pro-abortion Democrats.

Incapable of transcending long-elapsed stereotypes, the secular media cast Kerry's Catholic problem as a conflict with a reactionary hierarchy. Would that it were so. A few bishops oppose Kerry, but many more privately support him and have whispered against the handful of brave bishops who threatened to withhold communion from him.

Kerry's Catholic problem started not with the clergy but with the laity.
The Roger Mahonys of the hierarchy are Democratic activists and dilettantes, not guardians of the ancient faith. (For more on Cardinal Mahony, click here.) They have no problem supporting an open heretic like Kerry, because their faith in Catholicism is as ambivalent as his.
Kerry is their idea of a good Vatican II Catholic -- liberal on economics, avant garde on morality. Indeed, a loss for Kerry represents a loss for them. He embodies the liberal catechesis they have tried to drill into the laity for decades. If a majority of the Catholic laity vote against Kerry, it will be one more rude confirmation to Roger Mahony and company that their post-Vatican II project to liberalize the laity has flopped.

''We are looking at a broader picture, a more global picture,'' said Bishop Gabino Zavala, one of Mahony’s auxiliary bishops, to the New York Times. ''If you look at the totality of issues as a matter of conscience, someone could come to the decision to vote for either candidate.'' For the Democratic bishops, infanticide and minimum wage are weighted the same. Kerry knew early on that most of these bishops wouldn’t confront him, given their passivity and weakness for Democratic politicians who make the right social-justice noises from time to time.
Kerry’s allies in the Democratic Party scrambled to produce a "Catholic Voting Scorecard" to show that he and other pro-abortion Catholics have adhered more closely to the positions of the "U.S. Catholic hierarchy"
than to their Catholic Republican counterparts. By highlighting Kerry’s support for the liberal politics of the bishops -- on the Senate floor, he once read from their inane pastoral letter on Reaganomics -- the Democrats had hoped to cancel out the perception that Kerry was a heretic no self-respecting Catholic could vote for.

Kerry's plans to hide his heresies under Roger Mahony's Seamless Garment were blown out the water by the lay Catholic equivalent of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Numerous lay Catholic groups have exposed Kerry's Catholicism as a fraud and have coaxed out of timid bishops a few words of rebuke toward Kerry.

Not that the bishops aren't still constructing rationalizations for Kerry even after a debate before millions in which he misrepresented Catholicism wildly, managing to reject at least a third of the Ten Commandments. On Tuesday The Drudge Report had one of those blood-red headlines titled, "Vatican Denies It Responded To Lawyer Seeking Kerry’s Excommunication." This was a life raft the bishops were trying to throw the Kerry campaign. The story came from the Catholic News Service, the propaganda outlet the bishops use whenever they want to muddy an issue to the benefit of a pro-abortion Catholic.

Kerry has rejected Catholic teachings Martin Luther didn’t touch, yet CNS was frantic to dispel the notion that he is a heretic. "One Vatican official contacted by CNS said no church official had seriously approached the point of declaring Kerry a heretic. 'No, Kerry is not a heretic,' he said."

The National Catholic Reporter, which also speaks for many bishops (they advertise in its pages for chancery jobs) even as it wars on Catholic orthodoxy , is advising Kerry "to talk religion." It denounced the "small and narrow" group of Catholic laity opposing him and noted that many bishops support Kerry. But if Kerry takes its advice and campaigns on heretical Catholicism, where can he go without getting booed? Perhaps Roger Mahony, who encouraged his congregation to give Bill and Hillary Clinton a standing ovation on Palm Sunday during Clinton's race against Bob Dole, could arrange a town hall meeting at the Los Angeles Cathedral. But then Kerry had that vote sewn up a long time ago.


George Neumayr is executive editor of The American Spectator.

[Just Lori]

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.


This entire article is nuts. Is Mr. Brennan a Catholic?

[Just Lori]

In one more irony and historical marker of clerical decadence, the Catholic candidate will receive a higher percentage of support from the Catholic episcopate than the Catholic laity -- the very episcopate Kerry has made a point of saying that he will ignore on matters of morality.
John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter writes that "if the Holy See were to vote in a secret ballot for the American president, Kerry would beat Bush 60-40." Polling of American bishops would even be higher. Priests like Richard McBrien have appeared in clerical collar on national television to justify voting for Kerry. The dean of Notre Dame, which the bishops regard as their Harvard, recently published a piece saturated with third-rate casuistry urging Catholics to vote for pro-abortion Democrats.


I don't know anything about Mr. Neumayr.... he is exec. ed. of the American Spectator. That's all I've read here. How does he know what the Catholic candidate "will recieve"? (My crystal ball is in the shop) And John Allen claims to know the soul of the Holy See......? This is nuts. Don't even get me started about the NCR. THIS Catholic prays daily for wisdom and guidance. I don't believe most of what I read here.

[Stateline]

Everybody's gone surfin...surfin U.S.A......

[topher]

Btw, John F'n Kerry is about to become an ExCommunicated Catholic for his stand on abortion.

Not to dampen anything, but only two Bishops can ex-communicate John Kerry -- the Bishop of Boston -- Archbishop Sean O'Malley, and the Bishop of Rome -- Pope John Paul II.

I am not saying that Pope John Paul II and the Holy See will not excommunicate John Kerry, but is not something that happens overnight -- especially if the Vatican is involved.

For example, I have not heard Cardinal Ratzinger comment in any way on this issue.

This issue may be in progress with the Vatican, but only that the Vatican is considering the matter at this point. To say that John Kerry is close to being excommunicated may be absurd. It may take many months to consider.

However, this is the Year of the Eucharist, so there would be a reason for the Vatican to set a prominent example for reception of Holy Communion.

On the other hand, Archbishop Sean O'Malley can start doing some housecleaning in his Archdiocese by making that Paulist Center more orthodox and ex-communicating John Kerry.

[Bandaneira]

Who goes faster...A "Spiritual Windsurfer" or a "Buddhist Boogieboarder" ?

This existential question has always bothered me.