Posted on 09/01/2006 8:35:39 PM PDT by dukeman
When author David Carlin was a young man, it was scandalous for a good Catholic to be anything but a good Democrat. In the pews, pubs, and union halls of America’s cities, millions of poor European immigrants and their children pledged allegiance to the Church of Rome and the party of FDR.
All that changed in the 1960s, with the rise of a new kind of Democrat: wealthy, secular, ideological. Even as Carlin served the party he loved — twelve years as a Rhode Island state senator and once a candidate for Congress — he could only watch in dismay as its national leaders abandoned their blue-collar, pro-life, and religious constituencies and took up with NOW, Hollywood, and the abortion lobby.
So complete has been this transformation that we no longer speak of a natural alliance between Catholics and the Democratic Party. Indeed, Carlin here asks whether today it’s even possible to be both a faithful Catholic and a Democratic true believer.
A veteran sociologist, philosophy professor, and author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America, Carlin shows how his party and his religion have taken opposite sides in the Culture War. On issues of human life, sex, faith, morality, suffering — and the public policies that stem from them — the modern, secularist Democratic Party has become the enemy of Catholicism; indeed, of all traditional religions.
Carlin shatters the excuses that Catholic Democratic politicians employ in a vain attempt to reconcile their faith and their votes, and then, with what he calls the “political equivalent of a broken heart,” he examines his own political conscience. As a faithful Catholic and a Democrat approaching his seventieth year, must he now leave the party he’s called home since birth?
David Carlin’s arguments challenge all religious Democrats to ask themselves the same question.
"pledged allegiance to the Church of Rome"
Is this what Catholics do?
Do they pledge allegiance to the Lord?
If he leaves the Democratic Party, he will take a journey many observing Catholics have already taken.
As a Catholic, you have to ask what tenets of the Catholic Church does the Democratic Party platform support. The answer is very little. Once a Catholic can separate in his mind the concept of real charity freely given from the costly government social programs collected at the point of a gun, there is nothing to keep him in the Democratic Party.
I still can't figure out what sort of Catholicism they are teaching in Massachusetts.
Do they pledge allegiance to the Lord?
Yes, at every Mass which we can attend daily and must attend weekly. We call it the Profession of Faith.
To Catholics, there is no distinction.
NO, hell no
I am a Catholic and a Republican. The thought of Pelosi, Frank, Conyers, et al in power makes me ill. The aetheist, social progressives are starting to take over again.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
-God
Those that take the vows of Priesthood do. Taken otherwise, you cannot separate Christ from his Church.
Dems threw the Catholics away -- and got Hollywood in exchange? Dems really are stupid...
Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
"Indeed, Carlin here asks whether today it’s even possible to be both a faithful Catholic and a Democratic true believer."
The answer is, it's not. One can be a democrat OR one can be a faithful Catholic. One cannot be both unless they're suffering from multiple personality disorder.
Next question please?
Presumably, someone who believed those two allegiances to be in conflict couldn't in good faith remain a Catholic, could they?
Look at their slavish devotion to promoting and protecting "abortion rights" ... which amounts to the "right" to exterminate future voters by the tens of millions.
Great plan for the future, guys. Brilliant.
Ditto.
Look, the Republicans (particularly in Congress) have been pathetic in the past 6 years, certainly the last two. They do not deserve re-election, but to see Nancy Pelosi as the third person in succession to the Presidency is just mind-boggling to me. I am praying for the American people to once again do what is right.
Some Catholics stay Democratic because they believe in the socialist Catholic liberation theology, taught by many Jesuit institutions around the country.
See my post #3
"Once a Catholic can separate in his mind the concept of real charity freely given from the costly government social programs collected at the point of a gun, there is nothing to keep him in the Democratic Party. "
For too many Catholics the whole "Render unto Caesar..." instruction in the Bible gets confused and they think all social programs for the poor are morally equivalent.
As the parties stand today, seems impossible to be both Catholic and a Democrat. But tomorrow, if some republicans have their way it may be equally impossible to vote for some of them. (I am a republican Catholic). In fact I would be hard put to vote for president Bush again given his approval of the morning after pill.
But what then? We are obligated, as Catholics to vote. As Catholics we may never choose the lesser evil but only the greater good. And that is becoming more and more of a problem as the secular world even in conservative politics becomes less in line with the same morals as many religions have.
It is scary.
When I was a kid, both sides, the Greek Orthodox and the Irish Catholic, of my large extended family were good Democrats. Today virtually none of them are and those that are tend to vote Republican. They all say the same thing, the Democratic Party more than left them, it became the enemy of virtually everything they were taught to believe.
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