That damn religious thing
At mass the other week1, the priest began absolutely railing against politicians who have supported abortion, and basically condemning them to live out their days as lepers in their own denomination, and live out their death burning in hell. This is Christianity?
The New York Times, it seems, has heard a similar homily somewhere. They went to Scranton and asked a bunch of people what they thought.
This is really becoming a problem if you consider that when your pastor tells you something, you generally follow his lead. That can be helpful when you seek guidance, but dangerous when it is used to influence a political election. Especially when I imagine about 50 percent of the priests’ political views are probably in line with Democratic views.
“People should straighten out their religious beliefs before they start making political decisions,” (Matthew Figured, a Sunday school teacher at the Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church), 22, said on his way into Sunday Mass.
I would argue the other way around, Mr. Figured. The Times reports Figured is now leaning toward McCain after his bishop barred Sen. Biden from receiving communion in the area “because of his support for abortion rights2.”
“Getting into Augustine and Aquinas — it is just not helpful,” said Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, a progressive Catholic group running television commercials that emphasize the church’s social justice teachings.
Now, opening a debate with the Catholic church is probably going to be “distracting.” But, at the same time, it shows people who are not Catholic historians or theological scholars that the church itself has had differing views about when life begins.
I honestly wonder what answer you would get if you ask many of these Catholic voters so eager to be quoted about their views on abortion what they think of the death penalty. Would you get church doctrine: Only God can take a life? Or would you get the more standard: Let the killers burn in hell? An overwhelming number of Catholics, I think, would follow the church. But, and I think this holds true in Scranton — as you might see in the following quote — many would would rather see the murderers dead, like they screamed for Saddam’s head, and lulsted after pictures and video of his hanging.
The choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as Mr. McCain’s running mate had clinched it for him, Mr. MacDonald said. “She is anti-abortion, anti-gay-marriage, anti-Big Oil, a lifetime member of the N.R.A., she hunts, she fishes — she is the perfect woman!”
One parishioner ruled out voting for Mr. Obama explicitly because he is black. “Are they going to make it the Black House?” Ray McCormick asked, to embarrassed hushing from a half dozen others gathered around the rectory kitchen.
Wow, Scranton, The New York Times pegs you as sexist and racist, in the span of two paragraphs! I think they hit closer to the mark than you would have the world believe, sadly.
However inflammatory this might be, I think it is important to point out the fundamental — and therefore calcifying — difference between pro-life people and pro-choice people, because it really is comparing apples to oranges. Pro-life people are anti-abortion, but pro-choice people are not pro-abortion, they (or at least me) are simply not comfortable with mandating something based on religious belief.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … .
That is, of course, the de facto quote when arguing freedom of religion, but I don’t think it is too far of a stretch to say pro-life legislation respects the Catholic church and its view on abortion. A good measure of what I look for in a president is “The West Wing” episode, “Take This Sabbath Day,” in which the fictional president weighs his Catholic beliefs in deciding to pardon a man sentenced to death.
TOBY
Look, I… I spent the day…RABBI GLASSMAN
You spent the day hoping the President wouldn’t call the Pope.TOBY
You’re damn right. I did.RABBI GLASSMAN
If he had commuted the sentence after talking to the Pope, the worst fears of every non-Catholic who voted for him would be realized.
Look, voting party line because of a candidate’s view on one single subject is not helpful to this nation. And, as that great Catholic Democrat once told us, we should not be asking what our nation can do for us, but what we can do for it. And right now, our nation does not need John McCain. It needs Barack Obama, and it needs Joe Biden, and it needs a forward-looking leader who is smarter than most Americans. Because by God, we do not need my neighbor, Mr. Old-Shirtless-Guy-Sitting-on-His-Stoop-at-5-in-the-Morning, in the Oval Office. We need an Ivy League graduate who rolls up his sleeves and fixes things.
The least we can do for America is see he gets elected.
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1I am Methodist, but my fiancée is Catholic. I attend mass with her.↖
2Biden does not support abortion rights, he just does not think every last American citizen (and immigrant) should be subjected to his personal religious beliefs. How on God’s great green earth can a Christian argue with that? Oh, they find ways.↖
LOL ………..
“I don’t think it is too far of a stretch to say pro-life legislation respects the Catholic church and its view on abortion.”
Man, you really are slow. Respecting a religion’s opinion is not nearly the same as respecting the establishment of a national religion. One is permitted by the Constitution (especially if it happens to coincide with human natural law…and common sense), the other is not. Big difference.
Catholics who don’t agree with Church teaching on major issues should just leave…period. After all, we’re not talking about fantasy football trades here. The Church was established by the Creator of the universe to pass on Truth…the Truth that leads us to authentic freedom. The Truth that makes it clear that real love will entail perseverance in suffering. Cafeteria Catholics are just hypocrites, plain and simple. Why would someone want to willingly belong to an organization that they disagree with…it’s just beyond my ability to comprehend. They should be good Protesters and start their own 401(3)(c) churches like 24,000 others have done.
“…it needs a forward-looking leader who is smarter than most Americans”
Well that surely ain’t Obama. Anyone in 2008 AD who still doesn’t realize that human life begins at conception is STUPID, not smart. After all, we have US citizens doing hard time because they killed a pregnant woman and were simultaneously convicted of murdering the unborn baby. Try telling those inmates that life doesn’t begin at conception! And anyone that STUPID is not nearly qualified to lead this nation (or make its laws in its Senate, for that matter).
@Walt:
How nice for your faith to have a representative so skilled in debate posting here. Perhaps my interpretation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution differs from yours, what a shock. Imagine how the U.S. Supreme Court must feel.
Then, Walt, where do you place Sen. Joe Biden, who is pro-life and said:
He clearly believes life begins at conception, but does not believe the rest of The Free World should be forced to follow his beliefs. Should he “just leave,” as well? You would throw him out for believing in the same things in which you believe, but not eager to go on a crusade, razing unity and dividing our nation?
C’mon, man. It’s evident to even the simplest that this is Biden being a politician, not wanting to lose a specific segment of voters. Situational ethics.
And please don’t try to advance your argument by putting words in my mouth. I never said I would throw anyone out. I want them to leave on their own. I don’t understand why they don’t. Do I think Biden should leave? Yes. Absolutely. Because, from the Catholic perspective, we’re talking about Truth. If you claim to believe Truth, but don’t have the courage to promote it (we call that “evangelization” and it’s an obligation for each member of the Church), then you really don’t believe it down deep.
In the Catholic Church, we are celebrating a jubilee Year of St Paul. In June 2007, the Pope held St Paul’s attitude up as a model for us, saying:
“From this we can draw a particularly important lesson for every Christian. The Church’s action is credible and effective only to the extent to which those who belong to her are prepared to pay in person for their fidelity to Christ in every circumstance. When this readiness is lacking, the crucial argument of truth on which the Church herself depends is also absent.”
Unless he’s open to conversion, leaving is the only humanly honorable thing for Biden to do.
@Walt:
Yes, I know about evangelization. I believe it was the homily last week at my local church. And I think it is one of the biggest problems I have not just with the Catholic church, but many other faiths as well. I see where sending missionaries to Haiti and the Dominican Republic and other third-world nations is a good thing, if for no other reason than those missionaries are helping build schools and teaching people how to — forgive my bluntness — get a long. But at the same time there are so many examples of thrusting a religion on a people that show it is not always a good idea. The Crusades are an obvious example.
The whole point of my post, though, was it should not come down to one difference in deciding a presidential race! Especially when the candidates differ so greatly. Sure, with Bush and Kerry (and heck, even Bush and Gore), it was hard to tell the candidates apart on many of their views. But with McCain and Obama, the differences are easy to spot, and it is a shame for Democratic Catholics who will vote for McCain because their priest told them not to vote for Obama, or who vote against so many of their political beliefs because of one religious belief.
I doubt God, the church or whomever anyone believes might be up there would consider it a sin to vote for the Democratic ticket based on a perceived sin of a man who does not believe it is a sin, and who, quite frankly, has said that the question might just not be his place to answer. Mind you, he wasn’t (purposefully) skirting the answer (or maybe he was), rather trying to show he is open to logical persuasion.
Believe me, I am not excited about McCain-Palin. But I obviously do not see the potential in Obama-Biden that you do. I also don’t understand how you can distill the right to life down to “one religious belief”. I mean, this is the most basic, most important, most fundamental right that exists. And if you can’t get it right on that one, what hope is there, and what possibility is there for getting it wrong on so many other issues?
Please, take a minute to check out Jill Stanek’s blog (www.jillstanek.com), especially the links in the upper right box labeled “barack obama’s radical positions on abortion”. Jill is not a zealot nut case (like me!). This is documented shit, man! Obama isn’t just STUPID, he is an anti-life zealot!! How will that translate into his stance on the elderly, or the physically disabled?
Thanks for the dialogue. We’ll see how it turns out in November.
The election’s over, but I’d enough free time to read this exchange. As a practicing attorney and former professional historian, I’d like to correct two misperceptions (and no, I’m not a Roman Catholic).
First, laws that coincide with religious beliefs do not in themselves constitute an establishment of religion. Were it otherwise, murder or theft or, probably, any other antisocial or harmful behavior would not be illegal. (The first amendment to the federal Constitution, by the way, bars only nationwide establishment of a church; the states may do as they wish, and more than one had an established — state-sanctioned, taxpayer-supported — church well into the nineteenth century.)
Second, the Crusades, though they certainly may be considered violative of Christian belief because of the employment of violence, were not waged to convert Moslems. The impulse, rather, was protection of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem and of the many remaining Christians (nominally so, at any rate) in the so-called “Holy Land”. Remember that Moslem forces had taken Palestine only a few hundred years before, in very sanguinary campaigns, slaughtering many of a population that at the time was overwhelmingly Christian (again, largely probably only in name, as is true of most, it seems, today). Islam, after all, is newer than Christianity by six centuries.