Posted on 10/13/2009 8:17:37 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
As a rule I never trust anyone who uses religion to justify a political philosophy. It’s one thing to argue that faith prohibits voting for a particular law – and accept that your constituents may boot you out as a result – quite another to say one cannot be a member of a certain religion and also a conservative, liberal or socialist.
So I’m not remotely surprised to find that every political juvenile’s favourite film maker, Michael Moore, is using Christianity to attack capitalism. As The Observer reports:
Alongside the political arguments about inequality, Wall Street corruption and the failures of George W Bush, Moore argues that capitalism is also fundamentally unchristian.I wait with bated breath about this “hilarious” scene, but from personal experience – being a papist myself – I can attest that the Catholic Church is a nest of Lefties. On economic and welfare issues, as well as various other subjects like immigration, aid and defence, the Vatican is well to the left of the main three parties. And ever since the financial crisis began, various churchmen have been quick to speak out about the failures of capitalism, even when (I suspect) many of them know less about how wealth is generated than your average hedge fund manager knows about Catholic liturgy.In the film he interviews several Catholic priests, who explain their belief that capitalism and the free market, by emphasising greed and the self over community, go against the Bible’s basic tenets. One priest, Dick Preston, tells Moore: “Capitalism is evil, immoral and contrary to the teachings of Jesus.” Moore also describes his own Catholic upbringing and includes a skit where free-market slogans are dubbed inappropriately – and hilariously – over scenes from a movie of Jesus’s life.
Christianity is a very broad religion
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
The next time you post an anti-Catholic thread, you can thank Catholics from not only America but from around the world who helped make the United States of America the great country it is.
Wipe your nose, junior...you just got bloodied.
I am not the subject of this thread. Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal. Reading another FReeper's mind and attributing motives to him are forms of "making it personal."
You wrote:
“... my mother is...as Catholic as they come.”
She sounds like a great lady.
“She can’t wrap her head around why I absolutely can’t stand our church.”
Probably because she’s not only smarter, but more holy, than you are. Maybe your mother doesn’t mistake your local parish for THE Church. I don’t.
“I tell her...these are the same people who give communion to people who stand for everything I am not...hypocrisy across the board from the altar to the giving baskets passed around.”
Sounds like you need to do a couple of things: 1) stop whinning to your mother. You’re not going to change her and there’s no indication you should even if you could. 2) Go to a better parish. 3) Remind yourself of this simple truth: The Church is more about what the Church teaches and less about what the sinners in my parish do against her teaching.
“It has become so liberal it makes me want to puke.”
Again, go to a better parish. Go to a better diocese. I did.
“How can you attend mass at a Catholic church and then get into your hybrid with an Obama sticker on the back and a Choice sticker? Makes. No. Sense.”
It does make sense when you take original sin into account. Those people are messed up. So are you. Sadly, as wrong as they are, you may be more culpable. Look for a better parish. Don’t just whine. Maybe you should listen to your mother.
All in all, your entire post was great advice, vlad.
Don’t you have to believe in God to be a Catholic?
Well you’re the subject of my post, genius!
“Christianity is a very broad religion.”
No it isn’t. Religion is mans way of making himself acceptable to God , Christianity is God’s way of making man acceptable through Christ.
It is the exact opposite of religion. It’s painfully obvious that we are where we are today because to many churches have replaced the “WORD” with social justice.
If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
“Capitalism is evil, immoral and contrary to the teachings of Jesus.”
Everything he hates that he calls “CAPITILISM” is exactly what he promotes “CORPORATISM” just another word for “FASCISM”
Obviously the church he attends/attended is one of those who have replaced the “WORD” with social justice.
It’s a slippery slope by which you can end up justifying anything , like murder(abortion).Religion is a dangerous affront to freedom and Christianity is the anti-religion.
I literally sat through a 30 min histrionic rant about why single parents serve no good for kids today. At the time I was one of them (now married with my family) and remember how insulted I was and what a broad brush that was painted all over us. Here I was...at mass...for Christ...and I have this guy up on the altar telling me I am a piece of crap because I wasn’t married to my son’s mother who you couldn’t have paid me a million dollars to do so at the time or any time for that fact.
The Catholic church has a hypocritical game going on talking from both sides of their mouth. I went to confession, I did the absolution thing...still was never enough for the last 2 churches I have belonged to. I will always stand by my belief in who I am and in Christ...to me I just felt there was a ton of hypocrytical fakes in the church.
I found a lot of the people who were actually in the prayer groups and what not to be more genuine than the priests themselves. I have sat through speeches about how we need to be open to “change” (there is that word again), how the wars going on are evil all around...I can stay home and hear that on MSNBC all day.
I would never change my mother and who she is. I was merely talking about my issues with the church when she asks why I have such big problems with them. We all sin...nobody is perfect...but the Catholic church always wants to throw the guilt at you even while you are screaming for salvation and forgiveness.
I know but it’s a little pet peeve of mine, similar to when I hear people say that “money is the root of all evil” when it is “the LOVE of money....” Money is not inherently evil or good but what we do with it and how we view it is where we get in trouble.
Somehow I don't think I don't think it TOOK!
You, not the Church, chose with whom to reproduce. Instead of looking upon it as the Church dictating to you that you should remain in a bad marriage you should see the Church's message in exercising more discretion and judgment in selecting a spouse. You should have taken care of the front end of the process instead of feeling all put upon because of the Church's position on the back end of it. If you were really genuine in your beliefs you would be working with your parish in counseling young couples about the downside of hasty marriages or marriages based on nothing more than looks, lust or convenience.
“I am a born and baptized and raised Catholic and my mother is a Eucharistic Minister to the sick and gives communion at church on Sunday’s...is as Catholic as they come. She can’t wrap her head around why I absolutely can’t stand our church.”
I sympathise with you. I’ve dealt with parishioners who rally and recruit for every leftist cause under the sun, but try to raise money for the crisis pregnancy centre, and suddenly, it’s a problem.
I myself am a convert and it drives me batty when the cafeteria catholics espouse liberalism in disobedience to the pope.
My answer to this dilemma is really simple. The Church is Holy. The church is also comprised of men. This is why it is fallen, and decrepit in it’s human aspect, but remains pure and holy in Christ.
We as Catholics have an obligation to both the congregation, and to Christ himself to attend and take communion. Christ himself said that many will come to him and go away and he will say, “Lord, Lord, I never knew you. Begone!”
Those who are on the otherside, need to see themselves in this parable. If your causes are more important to you than Christ, and rallying for Obama in opposition to the words of our Lord, then he will turn you away. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been in the pew for decades.
“You, not the Church, chose with whom to reproduce.”
Exactly. Your children have a mother and a father, and as soon as you make that decision to have sex with someone, you need to ask yourself, is this the woman that I want to have my babies? If the answer is no, then you shouldn’t be having sex with them.
“You should have taken care of the front end of the process instead of feeling all put upon because of the Church’s position on the back end of it.”
Exactly, and very well said. If you disobey the church in the front end, the consequences are eternal. You must repent, or make the best of the situation you have gotten yourself into.
All of us are sinners, your sin is no different from any other, and we all need to repent and continue to do so in confession.
Michael More is not a REAL Catholic.
He is a CINO.
And he needs lots of prayers.
Agreed again! :)
THINGS are not evil, but humans can be, and it all boils down to how we harness the power; for good or for evil.
Money, guns, nuclear power...sex, drugs, rock and roll...you name it!
Although capitalism isn’t given any preference as an economic system in Catholic social teaching, all forms of socialism are condemned definitively by the Magisterium as intrinsically evil.
One of the Piuses (I always forget which) said that no Catholic can be a socialist.
Whether it feels good to hear it or not, the fact is that children are poorly served by single parenthood. Aside from the religious or moral aspects of the topic, every bit of social research confirms that children do best with a mom and a dad who are married to each other, who are both the biological parents, and who make a home together. Children who grow up in single-parent households suffer far more pathologies, statistically, than children from stable, biological-two-parent families.
I'm glad your priest took 30 minutes to hammer that message. In a time when nearly 30% of children are born out of wedlock, and in some minority communities, over 70% are born out of wedlock, and many more children suffer through divorce, it's tough to place too much emphasis on this messge.
That being said, not everyone has the capacity to fulfill the ideal. Moms and dads can die, leaving only one parent, or if there is another marriage, a step-parent. But I think that it's reasonable to infer from the priest's message that he's not talking about those circumstances. Interestingly, the death of a parent has a much smaller negative effect on children than divorce or initial single-parenthood.
And of course, if one has already made one’s mistakes, and it would only aggravate the mistake to marry someone who is obviously unfit for marriage or parenthood, then one must make the best of a bad situation.
But that doesn't mean that the initial situation isn't a bad one, or that priests don't have a duty to revisit it time and again. Even if someone goes to confession and obtains absolution for his sins, the temporal effects of those sins remain. One hopes that by trying to amend one's life, the negative consequences might be mitigated, at least a little. But there isn't a way to completely undo the harm that's been caused.
Perhaps the priest's delivery of the message was too harsh. I don't know, I wasn't there. It'd obviously be better not to go overboard with the delivery of the message, but the message itself is beyond reproach: Single-parenthood hurts kids. Folks should marry and then have children, and then STAY married. Excellent message.
Anyway, I doubt that the message was aimed at you. More likely, the priest was thinking of, looking at, considering the young folks in his pews that had not yet gone off and made themselves and each other single parents. The message was for those folks, I think. Frankly, I wish the priests in my own parish would give homilies more like that. I have two adolescent sons and I would appreciate a little support from the pulpit with this kind of message.
sitetest
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