This is crazy - I thought Catholics were urged to vote for Kerry and now

I see this in the NY times? Bishops are now getting together to urge people to not vote for Kerry based on one issue, abortion? Why is that unborn life is revered so much more than life already here?
I'm Catholic and I can not understand that. I consider myself a spiritual person but I think religion is screwing up people's minds and common sense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/12/politics/campaign/12catholics.html?th

...they'd get a visit from the Revenuers pretty damn quick!

Catholic priests would do well to practice their religion and preach it less until they can keep their hands off the alter boys.

said a few months back that Kerry should be excommunicated because he's pro-choice.:wtf:

You see, to the anti-choice crowd (and by association, the right wing) "Abortion" is the only issue Buscho has to run on. Everything else in his record is an affront to conservatives and just about everybody else to boot.

And since the gay marriage thing, which worked very well for them during the Dem Primaries and before, has dried up, they are desperate to get something going to shore up the base.

check out this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1040010

So they are trotting out Abortion and hoping that old nag has enough legs on it to get them through 22 or so days.

Haven't you noticed?

I'm stealing this from another DUer...I'll do a search for the idea-person later :P

The Republicans control the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive branch. Now, why haven't they just passed a law outlawing abortion?

Is it because then they wouldn't have a wedge issue?

Is it becuase they don't want their own daughters getting back-alley abortions?

I used this line of reasoning (more fleshed out, of course) with my mom over the weekend, and I think I now have her leaning to Kerry!!!

There are enough moderate Repubs who wouldn't vote for that...they wouldn't be re-elected in their districts.

But in the next four years, if * is re-selected, we can look for this attempt.

Republicans..SHAME ON YOU!

:spank:

And the Repukes *DO* have the votes to pass abortion bills, which is why THEY HAVE passed abortion bills. The question isn't "Why don't they pass abortion bills?" - It's "Why do they keep passing UNCONSTITUTIONAL abortion bills?"

They keep leaving out the exception for the mother's life and health in order to insure that the bill will be struck down as unconstitutional and then they still have their wedge issue and can say "You see? I'm on your side, but those activist liberal judges keep getting in the way"

leave bush in, and it'll happen very soon. take him out, and it'll probably still happen before long. many republicans may not *want* to happen, but we don't always get exactly what we want. they have a tiger by the tail. they've sided with the batshit crazy fundie christians, our own would-be taliban. and that would-be taliban is gaining power all the goddamned time. the cigar chompers may well lose control of their own fucking party someday soon, if they haven't already.

we'll see roe v wade overturned. that's my prediction. i bet it'll happen in the next decade. and that'll just be the fucking start. because things tend to get away from the schemers, eventually.

so..
to all you cigar chompers out there: you brought these fundie fucks to the hoedown. and the swine shall lie down with sheep. and i don't know which of you i hate worse. i hope your pet fundies fuck you in the end, since it seems almost inevitable they'll fuck the entire nation before this is over.

unfortunately, the wealth wing of the republican party feels, probably with good reason, that a religious nut takeover won't affect them much. at first. they'll still have their private schools, and their private parties, and they can always move their capital overseas to a more civilized clime. like europe. hell, like china. it might get just that fucking bad.

Must've had a brain glitch there. :crazy:

The right knows they would not have enough votes to outlaw Abortion. Also the the last time the Abortion issue was up in the Supreme Court, we barely won 5-4.

That seems like a direct contradiction of the Pope's statement earlier this year that one should consider more than one issue; a direct inference to Kerry's stand on abortion, and a basic absolution to anyone who votes for him despite his position.

When did the pope say this? What statement? If this is true, I would really like to see this for some discussions I am having with some other Catholics.

much appreciated...

be sure to remind them that the Pope publicly condemned Bush's invasion of Iraq.

sins. We must also remember true Catholics, like Bishop Gumbleton, who protested this unjust war from the start.

Catholics should be very careful about swallowing the Church's political line this year. It has nothing to do with religion -- everything to do with increasing the Church's political and financial power.

The Catholic church has financial reasons for backing Bush. Some are obvious -- school vouchers for Catholic schools, cases before the Supreme Court, which now has an historically high proportion of Catholics on it (at least Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas - an evangelical with Catholic education), and which may consider cases of financial importance to the Church -- priest molestation, school vouchers, requiring church organizations to pay for women's birth control, funding for religious social service projects . . . . the list goes on and on.

The Catholic Church has always been very political. Martin Luther's "reformation" was to a great extent political, as was Henry the Eighth's. They were responding to what they perceived as power and money grabs by the Catholic clergy. For obvious reasons, Catholic schools do not explain these historical controversies to Catholics. As a result, many Catholics do not understand the true nature of the Church as a political force as opposed to the religion as a faith and spiritual source. Essentially, Pat Robertson's got nothing on the Pope. In fact, when it comes to money, the Pope and Pat Robertson operate rather similarly. (Sorry for the cynicism, but it is warranted.)

I have no doubt that Catholics are sincere about abortion, but there are better ways to lower the abortion rates than to criminalize it -- and the Catholic Church is silent on the social reforms that might lower those rates, like universal health care, support for families with disabled children, free college education, giving families government cash for child support (common policies in Europe).

but it doesn't completely get at what's going on. You have a small number of phenomenally wealthy and totally delusional people like Tom Monaghan (Domino's Pizza fortune) who are kind of like the Scaife and Coors of the "Catholic" right wing. They fund all kinds of insane stuff, from radio networks, to the execrable EWTN cable channel, to unaccredited law schools which teach that there is no separation of church and state in America (and serve as welfare systems for totally discredited hacks like Robert Bork).

These people have managed to curry favor with retrograde individuals in leadership positions within the Church, and this has a multiplier effect as then these leaders begin appearing on their cable networks, speaking at their far-right think tanks, etc. Basically these people are coming fairly late to the game that began in the '70s with the right-wing think tanks and such.

lucre priests

It's that simple. There are some Catholics who are more moderate - the Kennedys, Kerry, Tweety - who take the Pope's statements with a grain of salt, and then proceed with living their lives in modern America, using birth control and such. But many vote the old-fashioned way.

"Liberal Catholics contend that the church has traditionally left weighing the issues to the individual conscience. Late in the campaign, these Catholics have begun to mount a counterattack, belatedly and with far fewer resources.

In diocesan newspapers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, they are buying advertisements with the slogan "Life Does Not End at Birth." Organizers of the campaign say it is supported by 200 Catholic organizations, among them orders of nuns and brothers."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/12/politics/campaign/12catholics.html

I found the second paragraph confusing, but what it is saying is that liberal catholics have placed ads in diocesan papers in OH, PA, and WV. The following paragraph in the article quotes an L.A. bishop as saying that they are looking at broader issues. The "life does not end at birth" is a reminder to Catholics that they need to also consider the lives of all human beings, not only the unborn.

So, there are still many Catholics not buying the NeoCon party line is what I want to say.

American Catholics are famous for their independence. Even if they say they agree with Rome, they'll vote how they please when they get their ballot. I know, I'm one of them. American Catholics have driven the Pope to distraction for decades. ;)

is that the pope not too long ago rebroadcast the importance of the following idea:

if you are voting for one issue like abortion then you should vote against abortion....

however, if you are voting on several issues that are of importance to you, and the candidate you support happens to be pro-choice then the weight of the other issues overrides your 'duty' to vote pro-life.

As Kerry has said, and my view is, I can't dictate my morality to all citizens of the USA.

The US Bishops' views compared to gwb are common on abortion and stem cell research...check out www.votingcatholic.com

From what I understand, non-practicing Catholics are for Kerry, and practicing Catholics who go to Mass regularly, are coming out strong for Bush. There are probably more non-practicing Catholics than practicing.

I'm not sure why, but the ones I know seem to be shaved bush advocates...

"Man Who Sold The World" days

mitchum isn't buying their fairy tales and magic tricks

in 1960 and his views were most likely the same as John Kerry.

See the threads on Dean Roche of Notre Dame.

go about BLASTING him(virtually) in the press and elsewhere......BUT, they never made a peep over Schwartzenegger or a number of other Repugs WHO ALSO SUPPORT PRO CHOICE and happen to be in the conservative movement??????????????????????????????

What's up with that, I ask?????? HYPOCRITES JUST LIKE THE REST!

and these Bishops are, I'm sorry to say, completely wrong.

The Catholic Church I knew was for world peace and helping the poor. These are things which Bush obviously has a very poor track record on. I'm not a practicing Catholic any more, but my morals say that these are far more important issues than abortion.

The others include the extremely wealthy and the easily manipulated idiots. They aren't giving them what they want yet though. It's the continual carrot they keep dangling. As frightening as it would be to see Roe V. Wade overturned, if it happened, then they'd lose a big part of their base once they open their eyes to other issues again.

if they said that you shouldn't vote for either I would understand. But I think that as a good Catholic you have to look at the whole picture. And even if it is just because you want to show the world that the U.S.A.(the people) is not as bad as the administration you should as a good Catholic vote for Kerry. The free will issue aside a Catholic should have compassion for the poor, want everyone to have health care, worry about children living in poverty and be against an unjust war.
I respectfully disagree with these bishops.
Vinnie
http://www.vinnievin.com