Even if he had zero Catholics, it's a dumb point for Matthews to make. Any of his advisors, Catholic or non-Catholic, would tell him that what he did with the Vatican embassy didn't affect anything. What Jeb Bush said was total nonsense. I hope Chris Matthews wasn't trying to tell people it wasn't.

They are not closing the embassy. They are moving the embassy so it is next to the Italian Embassy and that makes it a tenth of a mile closer to the Vatican than the old embassy was.

But I could be wrong...

Tweety is fascinated by all things Tweety.

Sigh. Women, gays, whatever...

No wonder we are destroying the planet.

If I were an obnoxious person, I might be inclined to mention the environmental record of Lenin's heirs. As I recall, atheism was an integral part of their platform.

This is the argument that you bring for believing in a white guy with a long beard in the sky? Maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

of environmental stewardship.

Yeah, that Santorim is a real enviromental warrior.

which is an entirely different matter, since the Catholic Church is pro-environment and so are the individual Catholics you disparaged.

You are correct about Santorum, but if you blame enough Christians that's bound to happen.

I might as well argue with a dining room table.

"There are already quite a few Catholics that are close to Obama in the White House administration: VP Joe Biden, WH Chief of Staff McDonough, HHS Sec Sebelius, Sec of Labor Perez, Sec of Agriculture Vilsak - Sec of State John Kerry, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon -- and probably many others (not all cabinet folks have their religion listed on Wikipedia)."

And then you responded:


"Great! Our government is run by people who believe in the sky fairy.

"No wonder we are destroying the planet."

Any thinking person would conclude you were trying to disparage Catholics, especially those in the Obama administration, as people who were "destroying the planet."

My point was that officially atheist regimes have the worst environmental records in recorded history, so blaming religion is stupid. It's akin to the people who claim that the lack of state-sponsored prayer in schools is the cause of all the worst evils in history without recognizing that slavery, genocide, segregation, and plenty worse occurred before 1962.

Catholic Popes, unlike some Christian fundamentalists, have been taking strong pro-environmental positions for decades.

http://nation.time.com/2013/11/15/the-real-reason-pope-francis-posed-with-anti-fracking-activists/

That said, protecting the environment is a classic papal priority. John Paul II called for a new ecological awareness in his 1990 World Day of Peace address. The environmental crisis, he said, was a moral problem, and required new solidarity between industrialized and developing nations. Pope Benedict XVI continued this same push. His 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate, or Charity in Truth, called for the need for agrarian reform, the environment as a stakeholder in modern business, the link between poverty and the lack of care for the environment, and again, the moral need for solidarity between industrialized nations and developing nations.

But, and here’s the key, for both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, ecological justice cannot happen without addressing poverty. John Paul II explained the connection this way in his 1990 speech:

It must also be said that the proper ecological balance will not be found without directly addressing the structural forms of poverty that exist throughout the world. Rural poverty and unjust land distribution in many countries, for example, have led to subsistence farming and to the exhaustion of the soil. Once their land yields no more, many farmers move on to clear new land, thus accelerating uncontrolled deforestation, or they settle in urban centres which lack the infrastructure to receive them. Likewise, some heavily indebted countries are destroying their natural heritage, at the price of irreparable ecological imbalances, in order to develop new products for export. In the face of such situations it would be wrong to assign responsibility to the poor alone for the negative environmental consequences of their actions. Rather, the poor, to whom the earth is entrusted no less than to others, must be enabled to find a way out of their poverty. This will require a courageous reform of structures, as well as new ways of relating among peoples and States.

Benedict continued this same argument in Caritas in Veritate:

Questions linked to the care and preservation of the environment today need to give due consideration to the energy problem. The fact that some States, power groups and companies hoard non-renewable energy resources represents a grave obstacle to development in poor countries. Those countries lack the economic means either to gain access to existing sources of non-renewable energy or to finance research into new alternatives. The stockpiling of natural resources, which in many cases are found in the poor countries themselves, gives rise to exploitation and frequent conflicts between and within nations. These conflicts are often fought on the soil of those same countries, with a heavy toll of death, destruction and further decay. The international community has an urgent duty to find institutional means of regulating the exploitation of non-renewable resources, involving poor countries in the process, in order to plan together for the future.

Pope Francis has already made his concern for the poor paramount. It is widely known that he chose his name after St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the poor. But it is less known that St. Francis is also the patron saint of ecology. John Paul II named St. Francis the patron saint of ecology in 1979, precisely for this theological connection to poverty.“It is my hope that the inspiration of Saint Francis will help us to keep ever alive a sense of ‘fraternity’ with all those good and beautiful things which Almighty God has created,” Pope John Paul II later explained. “And may he remind us of our serious obligation to respect and watch over them with care, in light of that greater and higher fraternity that exists within the human family.”

Imaginary national borders, imaginary value systems, imaginary sky faeries...

We certainly do let the imaginary compel our actions in life... politics, economics, philosophies, religion, etc.. We defend and even evangelize the imaginary we may believe in e.g., (politics and economics) while indicting others for the same if the imaginary is that with which we may disagree with.

Such is human nature... to rationalize holding others to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. That could be an additional reason we are destroying the planet.

I don't watch Matthews, there are others better.


SEE THE DIFFERENCE? YOU'RE STARTING TO SOUND REPUBLICAN.....

Chris Matthews has no apparent principles. He reminds me of the kids that follow the bully around hoping for a little bit of recognition.

I'm sure you understand the point I was making.

Sorry if asking for a bit of respect bothers you.

but at least it's respectful.

Fairy tales have nothing to do with good government. Tweety may know politics, but he is shortsighted when it comes to governance.

who went to a Jesuit Law School and actually is a practicing Catholic interested in religions! Not to mention, it is not an accident that the religious comments that JK has made sounded like what I heard at various Holy Cross (a Jesuit college) when we visited our daughter - incidentally Chris Matthew's college. Kerry's personal Catholic beliefs are likely closer to those of the Jesuit Pope Francis than Santorum's beliefs.

Not to mention, anyone who visited the Vatican knows that it is essentially in Rome (even though it is not part of Rome). The move actually made the Vatican embassy CLOSER to the Vatican - and safer as it is now in the guarded Italian embassy. This move obviously reduces costs and improves security.

The problem is that Matthews bought a Republican lie - designed to enrage Catholics.

He didn't buy the lie; iirc he was pointing out it was a lie manufactured by the rethugs.

I was going by the OP and what I heard at the end - knowing that Mathews knows there are Catholics there.