BB””To state that somehow God did not “divinely” establish this nation - because it was not a Roman Catholic country - is jawdroppingly ignorant.””
To say the DOI and The Constitution are completely Divine documents on par with Scripture and the Church is ignorant
If you read some of my posts you would have understood that I said there were many idea’s in the founding of this country that were borrowed from Catholic teaching whether certain FF’s realized it or not because it was impossible for them to escape Catholic thought completely and still be a Christian. So, there is certain things in our foundation that are Divinely inspired and placed there by God ,but there are certain things that come out of enlightenment and reformation thinking that is destructive because freedom was not morally defined and becomes a license to do whatever one pleases.
So, I would not say the DOI and Constitution are Completely Divine documents,there are only elements that are there
A good example of something flawed because morality is not defined enough is Freedom of the press
Pope Leo XIII saw the dangers and turns out he was exactly right....
From IMMORTALE DEI
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_01111885_immortale-dei_en.html
So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from life, from laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error.
I agree, and find me one person who has ever said they were.
If you read some of my posts you would have understood that I said there were many idea’s in the founding of this country that were borrowed from Catholic teaching whether certain FF’s realized it or not because it was impossible for them to escape Catholic thought completely and still be a Christian. So, there is certain things in our foundation that are Divinely inspired and placed there by God ,but there are certain things that come out of enlightenment and reformation thinking that is destructive because freedom was not morally defined and becomes a license to do whatever one pleases.
I read ALL the posts on threads I comment upon. Doubtless, you could say "some" of the ideas in the founding of this country were "borrowed" from Catholic teaching, but that is only because the specific teachings were Scripturally based. Where Catholicism is faithful to the Scriptures, they are also correct. If you had read my post, you would have understood that my comment was directed towards Betty Boop's response to yours about the Pope's attitude towards the liberty of the American ideal. That somehow it's "new" liberty was not a blessing from God.
No one claims God "inspired" the founding documents like he did the Holy Scriptures, but if you think that somehow the very basis of the founding of this country, which was a completely new declaration of independence from tyranny - including religious tyranny, was not blessed by Almighty God, then you have not studied much of this country's early years. They stood for freedom and the concept that men deserved to have a say in the way in which their country was operated. They had the right to choose their religious faith and to self-determination. The right to keep what they earned and to have a say in how the taxes they paid would be spent. Forced servitude, forced religion, forced loyalty - can NEVER create a truly strong work force, a deep, heartfelt faith or an abiding, strident patriotism. No, God did not inspire those documents but I am positive it was his spirit within the hearts of the brave men and women that gave their riches, their blood and their very lives so that we have the freedoms we do today.
To denigrate the founding of this country because freedom was not "morally" defined, ignores that the ten commandments were the guidelines for our laws as well as most other countries, to an extant. There were already laws in place in this country that were "natural" laws such as those against stealing and murder and false witness. As Betty Boop said, the Constitution was a document that placed limits upon the federal government and it allowed individual states the freedom to enact their own laws that were consistent with societal norms. Granted, society today has veered far from the statutes of God, but I don't see how that can be blamed on the founding of this country. Even the laws we have today are not enough to constrain those whose hearts are evil. And only until Christ rules and reigns upon this earth will we truly have a world wherein righteousness dwells. America is still the best country in the entire world and I AM blessed and would choose to live nowhere else.
But dear brother in Christ, I have never said that. Nor do I believe that.
Christ Himself told us to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's." Obviously, and quite clearly, Caesar and God are not equivalent in any sense.
For "Caesar" is not divine. "Caesar," of course, refers to the State, or the government. If the State were a theocracy — which I gather you believe it ought to be — the dynamics of unopposed, virtually unlimited and unchecked power would render it as corrupt as any secular government. To "marry" Church and State is precisely the goal of militant, irredentist Islam. It's strange to hear a Catholic American suggest that such a thing is appealing....
The DoI was inspired by the Judeo-Christian cultural legacy which all the signers inherited, and to which they firmly belonged. It seems strange to hear it suggested that whatever good parts it has are somehow specifically Catholic, and the rest total trash.
Again, the Constitution is not a directive of how people should live; it is a directive to the State as to what it is forbidden to do. In short, it is forbidden to do anything outside the express charter it received from We the People, who conferred only very limited powers to the federal government, all other powers being expressly reserved to the several states or the people.
You wrote,
A good example of something flawed because morality is not defined enough is Freedom of the press.The problem here is, who's going to define the morality? The State has no role here — by design of the Framers. They trusted that a people under God already knew the moral law; they didn't need the State to tell them what it was.
If the society has become morally corrupt, the cause is not to be found in the design of the Constitution; it is to be found in the "God is dead" ideology as promulgated by the foes of God and human liberty that has poisoned the American cultural consensus in modern times, which historically has been God-fearing and God-loving.
Even the Churches have been infected with this disease.
Beware of Left Progressives, dear brother, especially those within the churches! For they definitely do want to define "morality" for you, and to sanction you if you don't agree with their definition of it.
To a President Obama, "morality" is that which leads to social leveling, on the pretext of a "preferential option for the poor." All men are then truly "equal" — equal in their unrelieved and unrelievable material poverty. This kind of "morality" only makes everybody "poor" in the end. And I suspect Obama knows this.
But what's important to him is the expansion of the omni-competent State to the detriment of the People. The more desperate and fearful the people become, the more power the State has over them.
This is not "moral"; this is vicious....
Go read the Constitution again. Perhaps if you do you'll recognize that this Charter of American liberty is about the proper order of the federal government, not about the proper order of American souls.
Reasonable people can all see the "dangers" that Pope Leo is referring to — i.e., the abuses of "free speech." And of course I agree wholeheartedly with his observation that "Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself."
I imagine the Framers would have agreed with that insight. And they above all feared that the unrestrained consolidation of State power would leave the people defenseless against any arbitrary redefinition of what constitutes "truth and goodness."
Which is why they wanted to constrain the powers of government, to prevent it from "overreach" into the human moral sphere....
Which is why I firmly, passionately believe that there should never be any identification of Caesar with God. Which, of course, is the heart's desire of Left Progressives everywhere, whether inside or outside of the Church.
And there are too many such inside the Church nowadays — and I don't mean just the Roman Catholic Church. And, analyzing your arguments, I think you may have been listening to folks of this type....
Just some thoughts, FWIW.
Thank you for writing, dear brother in Christ!