Posted on 09/17/2012 11:38:54 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 17, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the November general election approaches, America’s Catholic bishops have been walking a fine line as they strive to avoid appearances of partisanship while at the same time they wage a high-profile battle against the Obama administration over religious freedom.
Earlier this month, one of the leading lights in the U.S. episcopate insisted he “certainly” could not vote for Obama, while not specifically endorsing his Republic opponent Mitt Romney.
Asked whether a Catholic could vote for Obama in good faith, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia replied: “I can only speak in terms of my own personal views. I certainly can’t vote for somebody who’s either pro-choice or pro-abortion.”
In a wide-ranging interview with John Allen, Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter, published Friday, the archbishop drew a sharp distinction between a candidate’s “prudential judgments” about how we care for the poor, and his position on an intrinsic evil like abortion.
Responding to concerns over the budget proposed by Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, which some Catholic bishops and other critics had called immoral because it cut programs to the poor, the archbishop pointed out that people of good faith can legitimately disagree over the role of government in providing aid to the poor.
“Jesus tells us very clearly that if we don’t help the poor, we’re going to go to hell,” he insisted. “But Jesus didn’t say the government has to take care of them, or that we have to pay taxes to take care of them. Those are prudential judgments.”
“You can’t say that somebody’s not Christian because they want to limit taxation,” he continued. “To say that it’s somehow intrinsically evil like abortion doesn’t make any sense at all.”
The archbishop, while noting he is a registered independent, said he has “deep personal concerns about any party that supports changing the definition of marriage, supports abortion in all circumstances, wants to restrict the traditional understanding of religious freedom.”
Chaput also said the bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom campaign in the summer was a success in raising greater awareness among Catholics about the grave threat to religious freedom facing America.
“The history of the world demonstrates that if we aren’t always on guard about religious freedom, we’ll lose it. It happens everywhere, and it could happen in the United States,” he observed.
“I would never have thought, even ten years ago, that we would be dealing with it so quickly,” he added.
On the HHS mandate, Chaput said he “can’t imagine” the courts would not overturn it. “If we don’t win, I’ll be astonished, and I’ll be even more worried about the future of religious freedom in our country,” he said.
“Those who oppose us on the mandates are very insistent. I thought they would back down by now, but they haven’t,” he continued. “We have to fight as vigorously in opposing them as they are in imposing them. Who’s going to win? I don’t know. It will be whoever fights the hardest and wins the hearts and minds of the people.”
“Jesus tells us very clearly that if we don’t help the poor, we’re going to go to hell,” he insisted. “But Jesus didn’t say the government has to take care of them, or that we have to pay taxes to take care of them. Those are prudential judgments”....
....The archbishop, while noting he is a registered independent, said he has “deep personal concerns about any party that supports changing the definition of marriage, supports abortion in all circumstances, wants to restrict the traditional understanding of religious freedom.”
Tennessee Nana on voting for Obama or Willard: ‘I certainly can’t vote for somebody who’s pro-choice’
Faith in Obama is never what could be called “good faith”.
It is faith in degeneracy and evil, all dressed up in glitzy phrases and with inspired touches of apparent virtue superimposed over the most base elements of the darkest part of the psyche.
“Gimme” is painted as a plea for mercy, and the most brutal of acts are called “unfortunate misunderstandings”. Time-honored rituals and custons are perverted and redefined into unrecogniability, while all the external trappings seem to remain unchanged, and it is, after all, a “personal choice”. All the while any REAL choices are foreclosed and made inaccessible, both through indoctrination of large numbers, and by social peer pressure being placed on the ones who do not conform to the new indoctrination.
It is a time to test men’s souls.
Let me start by saying my wife and daughter are Catholic. I will never be one as long as they continue to behave the wy they do. The Archbishops were not a pissed when it was just a question of abortion, oh no.. that’s politics...but now hey you are attacking our pocket books forcing us to pay for contreceptives and abortions in our medical plans. My wife gets mad when I call people pocket book Catholics. They are pro-life, pro-same sex marriage but vote Pro abortion, gay marriage Democrats into office because they are Union members or they think the Repubs will take some of that free government money away from them. They vote their pocket books not their faith.
Odd, I don’t see people calling out protestants for that same thing.
Yes, some Catholics are like that. Is it bad? Yes. But if all the protestants had voted for McCain, he’d be president.
I am completely disgusted with self-so-called 'conservatives' on this forum who display the attention span and observational prowess of a gnat.
With apologies to actual gnats, which can't help it.
The demonicRats present us with the pro-abortion communist.
The Repugnicans present us with the pro-abortion socialist.
Do I prefer to be shot in the head with a .44 Mag, or a .45 Auto?
Just becasue you weren’t paying attention in 2008 doesn’t mean it wasn’t brought up.
A big difference is that the Protestant vote always goes pro-life, including in 2008, and when getting into various denominations the differences are astounding.
Catholics went 54% pro-abortion, and the second largest American denomination, the Southern Baptists, went about 20% pro-abortion in 2008.
Now the problem is that both major candidates are pro-abortion.
Mitt Romney, a few weeks ago, switched from “human at conception” to coming out against the GOP pro-life platform, and announcing that he was for abortion for “health”, meaning that he was fully back to his life long position of abortion on demand.
Look at post 12.
Protestants do not do the same as Catholics, the Protestant vote has never gone pro-abortion, in fact, it has only gone democrat 3 times, in at the very least, a hundred years.
Ping for later
I was trying to speak to "Goat's" pocket-book Catholic point anyway.
Catholics have only voted republican six times in history, what were the reasons the rest of the time?
Bravo Sierra
What is your point? Are you trying to convert me or something?
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