Comments for A Cautionary Tale at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 34 out of 20 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sun, 19 May 2013 03:04:26 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13821 Yes, Lincoln was very pro-life. Just ask any citizen of Atlanta c. 1865, after they stood their surveying the dead women, children and aged people, the burned-out Churches, the decimated city and countryside, etc. Please, sir. - Dan Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:26:32 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13816 tz, and others, you cannot be unaware of the difference between intrinsic evil and prudential judgment. People can disagree about whether a war is just or unjust. People can certainly disagree about what the unintended consequences of some policy might be (and it is ridiculous to assume your prediction is guaranteed to be the right one). We cannot disagree about murdering babies. If the Democrat says "I'm for murdering babies" and the Republican says "I'm for winning the war", you cannot vote for the Democrat just because you think the war might not go as planned, maybe. This is about YOUR soul, too. Voting for child murder makes you culpable for it. - joeclark77 Thu, 11 Oct 2012 05:29:56 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13533 @Bill Your passion about the problems our country faces comes through in your posts. A couple of points of clarification: I did not state that The Weekly Standard piece was the end of the discussion. Rather, its author argues for what you seek: the presentation of reliable data so that political analysis can happen. Next. I am aware that Catholic charities are supported by tax monies but those tax revenues need to be tied to a sustainable national economy. The data about the fiscal insecurity of our national economic policies is out in the public sphere. What seems to be coming is a crisis that may make the point of government subsidies moot. The culture needs to change and it isn't going to change because of government initiatives. Jeanne Jugan and Dorothy Day, Francis de Sales and Don Bosco are the leadership models we need. Obama, Romney, et al, are in some ways distractions. Every era has been crisis filled. Ours is no different and we need to step up as individuals, families and friends. - Beth Mon, 24 Sep 2012 02:17:24 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13528 First, what about 'good guy' Rick Santorum's demand Catholics vote for pro-abort Spectre over 100% prolife Toomey a few years ago? Second, ok, even if I think the maybe squishy corrupt candidate that is nominally pro-life but like Bush jr won't defund Planned Parenthood will incinerate 50 million in the middle east, cause ww3, and lead to mass poverty, famine, and starvation, I must vote for him? - tz Sun, 23 Sep 2012 13:44:28 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13524 Beth, Private charity is miniscule compared to the medicaid budget. The Vatican has one billion dollars in investment savings. If the Pope gave it all to Medicaid, it would cover less than one full day out of 365 days of medicaid bills. The medicaid budget is over 400 billion dollars per year. The Vatican has one billion. The Vatican gave $200,000 each to Haiti, Iraq, and Japan after their troubles. 17644 Catholic parishes gave 60 million dollars to Haiti....that amount would keep only 1090 elderly in a nursing home for one year. Catholic old age homes run by nuns are getting 60% of their income from medicaid which covers 60% of the elderly in nursing homes. When a nun nurse in such work eats supper, 60% of her supper is coming from medicaid money. You are envisioning Ryan's cuts as having no effect on the nuns supper or on females opting for $400 abortions now that fewer of them have pre natal, delivery, and post partum covered by medicaid. You and the Weekly Standard would be correct if the females getting pregnant were raving saints. They're not. They're people who loved Nelly Furtado and Timberlane singing "Promiscuous Girl". They have sex on the first date. They're clubbing. That's not the behaviour of raving saints. Do you think the Weekly Standard is objective sociology? Can the Bishops maybe find and commission a real sociology group that is not connected to a partisan paper. - bill bannon Sun, 23 Sep 2012 10:41:28 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13521 @Bill Bannon Jonathan Last at The Weekly Standard explored the idea that decreasing medical subsidies would increase the incidence of abortion. It seems there is no reliable statistical evidence to say that the outcome Schneck and others envision would actually occur. Perhaps in the days to come whatever solid research pertaining to this issue exists will be given its day in the sun. Nonetheless, our basic charge as Christians remains: change the culture which promotes irresponsible sexual activity and at the same time help families and women in financial crisis. If government programs are reduced in scope (to prevent financial collapse), than, yes, parishes and parishioners need to pick up the slack and provide resources that will promote the choice for life. Giving more money to the Sisters of LIfe and other such apostolates is what we need. As I say this, though, it's important to recall that abortion is not only sought by the poor. Lots of middle class and upper class women have them. It's not how abortion is paid for, it's the abortion itself. And so a reminder, the Forty Days for Life campaign is about to start on Sept. 26. - Beth Sun, 23 Sep 2012 04:55:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13518 The Catholic writing world is not even seeing that both political parties have an unhealthy relationship to abortion. Democrats favor abortion enabling laws and republicans (Ryan) want $800 billion in cuts to fed mediCAID each of the next ten years. Medicaid covers 37% of the country's pre natal, delivery, and post partum care that takes place. Ryan is against abortion but his cuts would increase them. Right now in NY, single females making above $31K in expensive rent NY city must, if they sinfully get pregnant, pay all birth related bills while they watch their clubbing friends who make $30K and less obtain full coverage from medicaid. A ten week abortion costs $400. If such females are going bare on health insurance, an abortion is likely if they have no mom nearby to watch a child. As the Ryans of the country reduce medicaid, that number of sinning single females whose birthing bills are not covered will rise and abortions will increase. No Catholic paid writer seems to notice because we dumb down all issues to reach an IQ level that seems somewhat low as being the average Catholic perhaps nationwide. We need a Catholic statistician to ascertain whether Ryan by medicaid cutbacks would cause more abortions in the long run than Dems who write pro choice laws but who might make abortions less likely by their medicaid inclinations. That the topic is invisible in the Catholic paid media bespeaks our dumbing down tendency to over simplifications. - bill bannon Sun, 23 Sep 2012 03:37:28 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13510 Thank you Smitty. Grump too. I have voted in 5 presidentail elections and have never voted for the Democratic candidate. As of this election cycle, I am done voting for the Republican alternative either. A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil, and I don't understand how Catholics or any other kind of off-brand Christian would vote for Romney/Ryan. It's time for a "Common Good" party. - Tim Sat, 22 Sep 2012 12:04:49 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13508 @ DifferentMark: You might take notice of the creepy leading edge of porno that the NFL squeezes into its commercials. You might take notice of the network of NYC and US sports casters / journalists who are openly attacking Tim Tebow for modeling Christian behavior for young men. Professional sports in the US is moving from away from the previous emphasis on character-building and virtue to pure adolescent indulgment of appetite and vice. - Chris in Maryland Sat, 22 Sep 2012 08:28:04 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13505 @Larry Well, lots of democrats and republicans vote for sustaining "unjust wars" in the Senate and the House. Both sides of the aisle... Re: health care. Because one opposes Obama's health care program does not mean that said person does not want people to have health care. It's not an either/or situation. Personally, I contribute healthy charitable donations to clinics rooted in Christian medical ethics. Yes, I know that these same clinics may benefit from block grants, etc., but I give to them directly because I am confident that they don't perform abortions, etc. I have a modicum of discretion regarding my contribution's recipient in a way that I don't with the taxes collected from me. This is why I don't contribute to Catholic Charities, United Way, etc. I want to know who is getting my money and what they are doing with it. Re: tax issues. It seems to me that most voters would like to see tax reform. What's missing from the larger public square is a thorough delineation of ideas from both sides about how any proposed reforms are rooted in solid economic theories AND supported by at least correlative data that argue for a proposal's strengths. Re: discriminating against gays. As with many other issues, the ideas and values surrounding human sexuality deserve a more complex discussion than is typically had. Slogans can't substitute for debate or conversation. To have questions about the nature and implications of advancing gay rights is more often than not characterized as bigotry here in the New York metropolitan area from which I write. Children in utero are a curious phenomenon. On the one hand, our society recoils against a mother drinking wine or whiskey as fetal alcohol syndrome could result from such behavior. Yet... dismembering a child with curettes or surrounding it in saline solutions which burn it are considered a good thing if the woman who conceived the child so desires. If the fetus is wanted, it's a child. If the fetus is not wanted, then it is considered less than human and the mother a mere gestational unit. What kind of anthropology is that? It's the one we are surrounded by and it is deeply disturbing. - Beth Sat, 22 Sep 2012 06:22:30 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13499 Larrry is right there are many pro-life issues to consider. What Larry leaves off or is unaware of is that for Roman Catholics there is a crystal clear order of importance for these issues. Top of the list as most important is the prohibition against taking the life of innocent children, including abortion. Larry or others may research this in the Catechism or in Splendor Veritatis easily enough. So if a candidate believes in the slaughter of the innocent (I.e., is pro-choice or in favor of abortion), that would override all the pro-life issues of lesser importance. Much like Douglas' own unequivocal opposition to murder did not excuse his support for pro-choice slavery, a candidate's support for issues of lesser importance would never excuse a stance in favor of murdering innocent children (I.e., abortion). And the Roman Catholic voter who has a well-formed conscience would be obliged to oppose such a candidate. - G.K. Thursday Fri, 21 Sep 2012 21:06:34 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13498 Different Mark, you wrote: "Televised sports contribute to the abortion culture? Wow! That's a new one." Well, it would be wouldn't it, since it is very difficult to preach the perfectly obvious to millions of Catholic fathers who would ordinarily have thrown the TV out decades ago were it not for televised sports and their vicious attachment to them. Through TV we and our children are being endlessly propagandized on the life issues, on sexual issues, on Church issues and little by little separated from the doctrine of the Church and communion with the Church. Just this evening I learned of the following incident from a young woman in the cattle futures business: "Last week a cattle industry colleague of mine called to relate his afternoon's activity. He was driving with his four children, aged 9 to 1, when the following conversation took place in the car: 4 year old girl: Can two girls get married? "6 year old boy: NO, SILLY! Two girls can't get married. It has to be one boy and one girl. 9 year old girl: Nuh-uh. I saw on TV where two girls got married. "This is what it finally took for this man, this husband, this father, this guardian and protector, to FINALLY understand the full horror of what is being done to his children. . . ." Multiply that one incident times thousands in the life of every Catholic and Christian family for the past fifty years and we will no longer have to ask the very dumb question of why our children and grandchildren are falling away in droves, why they are "shacking up," why there is only the slightest difference in moral attitude and formation between our children and the public at large, why we have a culture of death.. The problem is not fundamentally abortion, gay marriage etc, but our supine acquiescence in being endlessly propagandized by the enemies of the faith. In trying to make this argument over the past thirty years I inevitably come up against televised sports and their place in the life of Catholic fathers. The gatekeepers are narcotized. The enemy floods in. Sons and daughters are seduced, babies are murdered, marriage re-defined, our politics corrupted, our convents and seminaries emptied, our children uneducated and unformed in the faith. Yes, one could lay all this and more at the feet of Catholic and Christian dads watching, watching, watching . . . - Lee Gilbert Fri, 21 Sep 2012 20:18:21 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13497 President Obama, while a state senator in Illinois, voted several times against providing ANY care to babies born alive from attempted abortions. Matching that against perceived ambiguity of Romney on this issue should not be difficult. TeaPot562 - TeaPot562 Fri, 21 Sep 2012 20:01:06 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13496 Smith writes: Only those who truly oppose abortion will get my vote. me: So how do you make that determination of genuineness? I can recall within days of getting the nomination McCain in 2008 blanketed the airwaves touting his support for stem cell research while implying that he favored armed conflict with Iran, North Korea, Georgia etc. etc. This is pro-life? This is what I mean by "checking the right box" on abortion for political expediency. And Mitt Romney...can anyone seriously argue that this guy cares a fig about abortion one way or another--beyond what "box he had to check" to get the GOP nomination. After your lawyerly response to my post I can only conclude that your position is that in this election Catholics have to vote Romney or write in a fantasy candidate or not vote at all. And this will be the same as long as the party platforms on abortion remain as they are, because abortion trumps all else...fair enough...Actually its hard to disagree in this case because the Dems have gone out of their way this time to offend traditional Catholicism. Why not just say that rather than couching your argument in hackneyed and unconvincing analogies? Can we please give the Nazis a rest? Is the decision to vote for Obama really akin to the decision to vote for Hitler? Do you really believe that? Do you think this is persuasive to people on the fence or even many who basically agree with you? Also you hardly needed a whole article to recycle this argument. A sentence would have sufficed. It would have been far more interesting to have you wrestle with the issue of why so few US bishops have actually put the matter so starkly. Could it be that many of them don't see the matter as clearly as you do? - jsmitty Fri, 21 Sep 2012 18:23:13 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13495 @Richard. At the cost of 660,000 American lives. Several other countries earlier ended slavery PEACEFULLY. - Grump Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:07:06 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13494 Mr Jordon, Your list, meaningless without life. Jack - Jack,CT Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:37:52 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13493 A fascinating analogy and one which people should think hard about, especially those who complain about people who decide how to vote only on a single issue. Just one item which I thought needed some comment: “There were no Nazis to be found anywhere in Germany after World War II, and yet the party had been elected by large majorities in every election until the war started going badly in 1942.” Firstly, the Nazi Party never achieved an absolute majority of votes in any election held in Germany. Secondly, the last election held in Germany before the restoration of democracy after the Second World War was in 1933. Once Hitler had achieved total power through the Enabling Act he never held any further elections. I know what you mean by saying that there were no Nazis to be found but in fact plenty of Nazis were being identified and many of them were brought to trial or for processing through denazification courts. According to Herbert Hoover’s press release of the US President’s Economic Mission to Germany and Austria Report No. 1 German Agricultural and Food Requirements referred to in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification#cite_note-4): “By early 1947, the Allies held 90,000 Nazis in detention; another 1,900,000 were forbidden to work as anything but manual labourers”. - MikefromED Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:57:08 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13492 The Author Replies: Mr. Smitty, The names "Barack Obama" and "Mitt Romney" appear nowhere in this article. That you immediately associated the "pro-abortion" position with Barack Obama suggests that you in your conscience must know the truth of the matter. As for your question, is the GOP guaranteed my support as long as they, in your words, "continue to check the right box on abortion," by no means. Only those who truly oppose abortion will get my vote. But again, the terms "Democrat" and "Republican" never appeared in the article, other than in the speech by Stephen Douglas. What does it say that you associated Democrats with "pro-abortion" and Republicans with the opposition to it? The choice might not be so stark for everyone, but the sides seem very clear to you. And finally, as for Obama not being Hitler, nor Romney Lincoln, that's undeniably true. Nor have I made any sort of comparison of that kind. How could I have? The names "Romney" and "Obama" don't appear anywhere above, except in your reply. The issue here isn't the candidates; the issue here is the voters, in particular the Catholic ones, who are being called upon to form their consciences according to the definitive teachings of the Catholic Church, which holds: (A) abortion is a grave moral evil, on par with slavery or the killing of innocent Jews, and (B) it is not an evil that can be "balanced against" other political issues. Or will Catholic voters shut their eyes and ears to the greatest moral horror of this generation? Would we really have much respect for, let us say a Catholic college or university president who in the late 1950s said to his students: "I would LIKE to integrate the campus, but I don't want to alienate the students who come here from southern states." I think most of us would know what to call such a man. History's judgment on the tepid in this struggle will not be kind. - Randall Smith Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:08:23 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13491 Televised sports contribute to the abortion culture? Wow! That's a new one. - Different Mark Fri, 21 Sep 2012 11:38:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-cautionary-tale.html#comment-13490 Larry Jordan: Only abortion takes the life of an innocent human being. What possible justification is there for it? So one can fornicate without consequence (seemingly)? - Mark Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:41:19 +0100