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.”
BS. You posted garbage, got caught and now you want to tap dance your way out of your screw up.
Behind every double standard lies an unconfessed single standard. ansel12 just isn’t bright enough to disguise his.
“• Roughly 60 percent of Americans raised as Catholics are no longer practicing Catholics – approximately one
third have left the church entirely, while another third are only nominally Catholic. No denomination in America has gone through more rapid or wrenching change.
• However, the overall share of the population that is Catholic (just under 25 percent) has held steady. For while
“Anglo” Catholics (mainly the grandchildren of European immigrants) have been rushing out of one door, Latino
Catholics have been entering through another.
• For Catholics aged 18-34, 59 percent are Latino. Catholicism in America is well on its way to becoming a
majority-Latino religion”
“Catholics went 54% pro-abortion, and the second largest American denomination, the Southern Baptists, went about 20% pro-abortion in 2008”
Devout, Mass attending Catholics vote for the pro-life candidate and that is not a democrat.
In 1973 the ONLY RELIGION that came out against Roe v Wade
was the Catholic Church. 99% of protestants could have cared less about abortion.
You post garbage like that and expect to be taken seriously? You're the poster boy for the failure of public education.
Any idea of what methodology was used to produce those "numbers". (That's a rhetorical question because the answer is of course you can't and we all know it.)
That's quite the hole you're digging for yourself and based on your posting history I doubt you'll stop digging.
What percentage of Protestants practice?
If you’re going to cite stats then you should use the same statistics across all of them.
Archbishop Chaput will be speaking at the Los Angeles Cathedral Prayer Breakfast, tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 18. The event will be live streamed here:
http://p23.worshipstream.com/13/CathedralEvents
starting at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time. Rosary at 6:30, Mass at 7 with the prayer breakfast afterwards. I presume it will be available afterwards on the cathedral website, but don’t know for sure.
” Roughly 60 percent of Americans raised as Catholics are no longer practicing Catholics”
Well one day they’ll regret it. The other 40% is still 50 times bigger than any other Christian denomination in the country. The Catholic Church is not for wimps. Takes a man to be a good Catholic.
And after that, read post 21 for an example of how our poster likes to play with words and uses the words "pro-life" and "Republican" synonymously.
Before abortion was a major electoral issue or even any type of issue , Protestants voted Republican. That's up to at least the early '70s. That trend has simply continued. Yet he likes to tell us that Protestants have always voted "pro-life".
They're voting Republican. Just like they've always done. Before and after abortion became a hot issue.
He has no more idea of whether Protestants are voting "pro-life" or voting "pro-tax cuts" or "pro-anything".
That’s fine, my interest is in conservative voting.
The nation's politics will become like California's.
Too bad the actual real life voting doesn’t support you on that.
I know of no Catholic that attends Mass on a regular basis who votes democrat. All conservative republicans.
As you can see on this thread, while Catholics vote for the left, we are not to mention it.
Many of these posts even deny that it happens at all!
These posts do not reflect conservative politics and goals.
I always have to laugh when people degrade the number of Catholics.
We have four Masses every weekend when most Protestant churches only have one service.
Saturday at 5:30 — Church is usually 3/4 full
Sunday at 8:15 — completely full and bursting into the vestibule
Sunday at 10:30 — completely full and packed in and bursting into the vestibule
Sunday at 12:30 — completely full and packed in like sardines and bursting out onto the sidewalk entrance most Sundays.
And they dare to question? LOL!
I will bet that this scene is pretty much repeated in every Catholic Church. One of our Catholic Churches here in town (yes, in Oregon) has 10 or 11 Masses......I lost count so am not sure on that number.
And they dare to question?
Well, for certain values of protestant, sure.
But Protestants are very different beasts. There is more difference between Episcopalians and Baptists than between Catholics and Baptist.
“As you can see on this thread, while Catholics vote for the left, we are not to mention it.
Many of these posts even deny that it happens at all!
These posts do not reflect conservative politics and goals.”
Nonsense.
In every thread that mentions the Catholic church, we’ll find a post like yours.
You’ve already admitted that you will not call out Episcopalians for their support of abortion and homosexuality, but you will call out Catholics.
That’s a double standard, and frankly, I’m tired, we’re all tired of hearing it.
Most of the protestant losses are white mainline groups - people like the episcopalians, lutherans, presbyterians.
There’s no evidence of similar losses among White Catholics. If anything, at least in America, there are more white Catholics than before. :)
I believe you're right about Protestants, but your information is way off base regarding "white Catholics":
.... Catholics still account for just under a quarter of the population, as they have for many years. That's because the surge in Hispanic immigration has offset the steady decline of white Catholics. Roughly 2 in 3 Latino immigrants are Catholic, according to Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum. He also notes that Hispanic fertility rates are higher than those of white Americans, ensuring more Latino Catholic growth in the United States........Catholics are leaving the faith at four times the rate that newcomers are joining. "Religious change is not simply a function of retention; it's a function of recruitment. It's both sides of the ledger," explains the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's Greg Smith. "In no other religious groups we looked at did we see this high a ratio people leaving versus joining."
.... from the thread Does the American Catholic Church Have a Numbers Problem?
No other religion in the United States has lost more members to other faiths, or to no faith at all, than Catholicism, according to the new survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The survey, conducted in 2007, found that 31 percent of Americans were raised Catholic, but less than 25 per cent of them still identify as Catholic. Roughly 10 percent of all Americans have strayed from Catholic roots, the study reported.....
.... from the thread Study: Catholics losing the faith
“found that 31 percent of Americans were raised Catholic, but less than 25 per cent of them still identify as Catholic”
Now compare that to the 62-52, or 20 percent losses for protestants.
Is it really true that it’s the Catholic church that’s suffering the highest losses? Really? That’s not what I’m seeing.
Whole denominations - the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, are getting stomped? Why? Because they’ve abandoned what God teaches and have decided to go with the baby boomer ideals, “if it feels good, do it”.
The questions you should be asking is why is the Catholic church doing better with White people than Protestant churches are doing with White people?
....The questions you should be asking is why is the Catholic church doing better with White people than Protestant churches are doing with White people?
"Better" in what sense? Raw numbers? Percentages? Ratios?
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