Posted on 10/11/2004 9:39:17 AM PDT by dukeman
South Bend, Ind. — For more than a century, from the wave of immigrants in the 19th century to the election of the first Catholic president in 1960, American Catholics overwhelmingly identified with the Democratic Party. In the past few decades, however, that allegiance has largely faded. Now Catholics are prototypical "swing voters": in 2000, they split almost evenly between Al Gore and George W. Bush, and recent polls show Mr. Bush ahead of Senator John Kerry, himself a Catholic, among white Catholics.
There are compelling reasons - cultural, socioeconomic and political - for this shift. But if Catholic voters honestly examine the issues of consequence in this election, they may find themselves returning to their Democratic roots in 2004.
The parties appeal to Catholics in different ways. The Republican Party opposes abortion and the destruction of embryos for stem-cell research, both positions in accord with Catholic doctrine. Also, Republican support of various faith-based initiatives, including school vouchers, tends to resonate with Catholic voters.
Members of the Democratic Party, meanwhile, are more likely to criticize the handling of the war in Iraq, to oppose capital punishment and to support universal heath care, environmental stewardship, a just welfare state and more equitable taxes. These stances are also in harmony with Catholic teachings, even if they may be less popular among individual Catholics.
When values come into conflict, it is useful to develop principles that help place those values in a hierarchy. One reasonable principle is that issues of life and death are more important than other issues. This seems to be the strategy of some Catholic and church leaders, who directly or indirectly support the Republican Party because of its unambiguous critique of abortion.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The Vatican has already spoken. Who needs to listen to this twerp?
there is nothing just or equitable in taking from those who have just because they have and giving to those who want just because they want.
What's noteworthy about your list of Five Non-negotiable Issues for Catholics is the lack of any reference to conducting a war or support of the death penalty. Both of these issues are debatable in accordance with Catholic doctrine. The issues on your list should trump any other political consideration. Yet I can't tell you how many Bishops and Priests rationalize their support for the Democrats based on these two issues alone, irrespective of the Democrats positions on abortion, euthanasia, cloning, homosexual marriage, et.al. And their infidelity pollutes the thinking of the rest of the Catholic community.
Clerics such as these rate a special place in hell.
I want to report two things: My daughter is a current sophomore at ND, and the student body is trending ever-more conservative...in large part because many of them arrived that way. You've got your obligatory lib issues and groups that every big campus has, but this current student body is majority-conservative. This guy's vote, and any he might pull in, won't do a thing in the election, at least in Indiana.
Number two: Bought and enjoyed a "Cheney burger" from the "Fighting Republicans of Notre Dame" at the Stanford game on Saturday. Go Irish Republicans!
This school hasn't been Catholic for some time now.
FYI.
That is very good news to me. I hope that this continues. My brother refused to even consider sending his kids there, but that is a long story.
Amen. I guess the ease of a person's ability to do this is a measure of how seriously he takes his faith.
Whatever you're smokin, Mark, it has distorted your theology. By honestly examining the issues (please review the DNC platform), Catholics of good faith should be running in the opposite direction from the Dems as FAST as they can. Don't look back lest you become a pillar of salt. This party, called the Democratic party, is an anti-Christ institution. It is so taken by the forces of evil, it is not worth saving but consigning over to the devil. It is my advice to good Catholic pols who remain in this party to abandon it. There is no grace to be found there.
Deacon Francis
"Let your conscience be your guide" = "Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law" = Aleister Crawley's Satanism.
Since when is that Christianity, Catholic, or otherwise?
Agreed, Tamar1973. But as you know, every faith-- Christian (Catholic & Protestant), Judaism, Islam, etc.-- has individuals who are "members" for cultural/traditional reasons only. Some know they are, some don't. Those who don't "get it" would never think of examining the bona fides of their membership (it just wouldn't occur to them). Examining why you do what you do, or why you believe what you believe, is hard for many people to do. It requires looking in the mirror.
my conscience(formed by the teaching of the church, which I take seriously) says that if I voted for Kerry and the way he supports abortion rights, and didn't get to a priest with sincere repentance, I would go to hell. Because it would be a willful intentional doing of something my bible, my belief system and 2000 years of church teaching tells me is a mortal sin.
Therefore, I will vote my conscience and vote for Bush.
If your religion doesn't guide your conscience, why is it your religion?
Wow. You didn't last long, did you?
Exactly!
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