Voting Catholic Perspective

Monday, November 03, 2008


Who should we vote for president? Well last I checked the Pope did not come out and say who he thinks should be president. In the last election I can see why people voted for Bush a second term, Kerry was catholic and pro-life. My stance on pro-life is the following:

 

I nor my fiancée will never have an abortion for any reason. We both believe that abortion no matter what point is murder. We do believe that as Christians we all should never think that abortion is an answer, but not everyone in the U.S. are Christians. We should not be making laws for or against abortion. Since we as Catholics should already be practicing not to have abortions this should not be an issue. We also believe that in cases of rape or when the mothers life is in danger there is an exception to that even for us.(Please don’t flood my comments this is my view) Since stephanie is attending school to be a medical doctor, if she ends up in a field in which should could perform an abortion, it’s her right to deny treatment unless of course the mother’s life was in danger. She would instead consult with them talk about having some time to think about there situation. If they still would want to go through it as a doctor she would point them to a safe place to get it done.

We need to investigate why either candidate is the best for God and country. Now the kicker, I voted for Barack Obama. Obama may have voted for a law like abortion, but I have said before I am Pro-life neither candidate are true pro-life. No matter abortion or death penalty both are evil.

 

The Faithful Citizenship document, however, states that if a candidate opposes an intrinsic evil but is indifferent to other important church issues—such as capital punishment, reducing poverty, ending the war in Iraq—a Catholic voter could support another candidate for “morally grave reasons” and not be compromised in the eyes of the church.
  In other words,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, “you’ve got a pro-choice candidate running for office and (a voter says), `I think there are morally compelling reasons why I should vote for this candidate’ because, for example, this candidate is in favor of health care for children and treatment for pregnant women. That would be a compelling reason.” (http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=15265)
  So why did I vote for Obama? Let me point out what Archbishop Chaput said:
  So can a Catholic in good conscience support a “pro-choice” candidate? The answer is: I can’t and I won’t. But I do know some serious Catholics — people whom I admire — who will. I think their reasoning is mistaken. But at the very least they do sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And even more importantly: They don’t keep quiet about it; they don’t give up their efforts to end permissive abortion; they keep lobbying their party and their elected representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can support “pro-choice” candidates if they support them despite — not because of — their “pro-choice” views. But they also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it.
  What is a “proportionate” reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life — which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed

  What is my proportionate reasoning? I first want to layout why I am not voting for McCain. The only reason to vote for him is because he is Pro-Life, but is that only a label or will he do something as president? Chuck Baldwin said it best:
  “Dare I remind everyone that the “pro-life” GOP controlled the entire federal government from 2000 to 2006 and nothing was done to overturn Roe v. Wade or end legal abortion-on-demand? When George W. Bush took the oath of office in January of 2001, over one million innocent unborn babies were being murdered in the wombs of their mothers every year via legal abortions in this country. And when George W. Bush leaves office in January of 2009, over one million innocent unborn babies would still be murdered in the wombs of their mothers every year via legal abortions in this country. Eight years of a “pro-life” President and six years of the “pro-life” GOP in charge of the entire federal government and not one unborn baby’s life has been saved. Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land, and abortion-on-demand is still legal in America… How can John McCain, and his fellow Republicans in Washington, D.C., look pro-life Christians and conservatives in the eye in 2008 and expect that we take them seriously when they say that they are “pro-life”? If the GOP had truly wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade and end legal abortion-on-demand, they could have already done it. They controlled the White House, the U.S. Senate, and the House of Representatives for six long years, for goodness sake. The reason they did not do it is because they did not want to do it. They merely want to use “pro-life” rhetoric as a campaign tool to dupe gullible Christian voters every election year. And the disgusting thing about it is—it works.”(http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2008/cbarchive_20080822.html)

Taking Abortion aside if you want to vote for a man that has:

Pope John XXIII, in his encyclical, Peace on Earth, listed healthcare as among those basic human rights which flow from the sanctity and dignity of human life. As well, McCain thinks that the current war is just. While still a cardinal, Pope Benedict said:

 

”The Holy Father’s judgment is also convincing from the rational point of view: There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a ’just war.’”

Obama does not want to be in war. He wants to give healthcare to everyone. He is faithful to his wife and children. He may be on extreme side of the fence in one issue as grave as abortion, but he states that he wants to limit the abortions done in the U.S.. At least he is honest and not placing a Label. I will leave everyone with the following video:

 

Posted by Catholic Chump on 11/03 at 02:56 PM in News,Politics, | (1) Comments

Responsibility

Monday, September 01, 2008


Posted by Catholic Chump on 09/01 at 04:32 PM in Lifestyle, | (1) Comments

The Antichrist: Obama Slandered!

Friday, August 08, 2008


Today, It was brought to my attention that Obama is the Antichrist. I would like to start out by saying, if he was the antichrist do you think he would be running for president,really? Or maybe conjure up some demon cronies to make hell on earth?

McCain seems to be throwing all the punches, but come on! Anyone that is educated can figure out that this ad is full of quotations out of context and is down right deceiving. The Republican nominee’s advisers brush off the charges, arguing that the spot was meant to be a “creative” and “humorous” way of poking fun at Obama’s popularity by painting him as a self-appointed messiah [1]. How ridiculous can McCain get in this election. I am a centrist. Antics like this just makes obama’s case for president that much stronger! Creative? Creative to make indirect references from a popular christian series called “Left Behind”. Or is it just subliminal advertising? In general I think the party antics has gone to far from name calling now to slander? Can our politicians grow up?

Its funny, but have not heard Barack Obama slandering anyone on the right, so far. In fighting dirty politics, it seems that Obama sticks to his campaign of change. Maybe change is needed and seems he has shown this in his campaign, so far. In closing, who really is the Antichrist? I feel that Obama is living more like a good Christian than McCain only by viewing the campaign punches. Obama who is happily married and not divorced unlike his counterpart McCain.

Posted by Catholic Chump on 08/08 at 10:42 AM in News,Politics, | (0) Comments

God’s Gift

Friday, July 25, 2008


God has created everyone different and presents different blessings to each person. From my personal life, I would like to talk about my own struggles, and about a comment Michael Savage had made recently. Let me start out by presenting some background.

Five years ago, I was a sophomore in college struggling with many of my classes. My major problem in my classes were completing exams. It took me two times longer to read passages and organize my thoughts to write it down. As well, the many times it took me just to concentrate on the task of completing the exam. After about twenty years, struggling through classes, having people incorrectly interpreting what I’m trying to describe to them, and not being able to understand why I cannot hold back my thoughts, I was formally diagnosed with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.

Looking back further, my mother took me to many psychologists for years. In that time, they all diagnosed me with attention deficit disorder, and all were partially correct. I remember, as a child, feeling inferior to other children. In elementary school, I was placed in special education courses for English and Writing. As for the other courses, I was in normal classes. Many children saw I left the classroom during those times, and teased me because I was absent. I remember it took me twice as long to read and analyze the reading assignments at school. Eventually, I stopped placing effort in all school related activities.

In fact, ran away from my problems with school, and I didn’t want to attend school any more. After graduating from high school, I enlisted in the United States Navy. Eventually, that was cut short because after boot camp I received a medical discharge. At this point I had no other choice but to go to college.

Let’s fast forward to my sophomore year of college. My fiance and I were at Barnes and Noble, she was looking through a medical psychology book and found a description of the many problems she saw me struggling with in school. It indicated that I was dyslexic. At that point, I wanted to investigate the possibility of being dyslexic. I used school resources to examine if I was dyslexic. At the end I was discovered to be dyslexic with attention deficit disorder.

For a long time, I felt that God had cursed me. Why can I not function like everyone else? I found that I had a high intelligence quotient, but I am only processing at 2/3 of my full potential. After getting more time on my exams and some projects, my grades improved. I went from a B/C student to a A/B student. It was great, but I still felt inferior; the fact that I needed the extra time and a special room to take my exams did not help my self-esteem. “God has given me a curse”, is what I would think for a long time. Eventually I graduated from college and started to work.

More problems have came up from my disabilities. People look at me and think I am a “know it all” or an arrogant person. In business, it is not enough to only be competent in the work given, but also learn to interact with people. WHY, GOD? To learn to be humble is what I have learned. I had the guts to start going to confession after ten years and now I have to suck it up and go to the doctor. Today, I am now on some medications to help me with my attention deficient disorder and he recommended a book to help me with my confidence and self-esteem. In the last few days, I have had more restraint and am trying to focus on holding back from freely giving my ideas out. I am already having some change in my interaction with others.

I write this post for people to try to at least understand the problems that people face with learning disabilities. I found some positives to being dyslexic that many people may not know about which are:

  • Perception: the ability to alter and create perceptions;
  • Highly aware of the environment;
  • Highly curious;
  • Great intuition and insightful;
  • Thinking and perceiving multi-dimensionally (using all the senses);
  • A lively imagination;
  • Can experience thought as reality;
  • Creativity;
  • Easy adoption of change;
  • Holistic, see the big picture, don’t get lost in details, get to the important aspects;
  • See patterns, connections, and similarities very easy;
  • Concentration;
  • Can be very driven, ambitious and persistent;
  • Superior reasoning;
  • Capable of seeing things differently than others;
  • Love for complexity;
  • Simultaneous multiple thought processing;
  • Not following the crowd;
  • The ability of visual, spatial and lateral thinking. [1]

Although I have a lot a positives, I also have quite a bit of problems such as:

  • Have difficulty taking notes or copying
  • Difficulty with planning and writing essays, letters, and reports
  • Tendency to read inaccurately, or without comprehension
  • Inconsistent spelling
  • Tendency to confuse verbal instructions
  • Confuse phone numbers
  • Severe difficulty with learning a foreign language
  • Difficulty with perception of spoken language, e.g. following instructions, listening comprehension
  • Low self-esteem. [2]

God has shown me that I need to be humble and to know that I need help. Today I have received help and am relying more on others to help me. Today, I found only through working with others will make me successful, more so than any “normal” person. Since I need people to read or repeat or scribe what happened in the meeting.

The other reason I created this post was to comment on Michael Savage[3] thoughts about people with learning disabilities as being a shame. It made me think about myself and how hard it is for me from day to day to function at work or school. As Catholics, we learn that with adversity comes understanding. I hope from this small example of my life and problems, people will understand what people with learning disabilities go through in life without having knowledge as a child.

I also want people to understand that we have become a society that is too polarized. A society that everything is night or day. People like Michael Savage present facts incorrectly and people listen to him because it is easy. They don’t see the people like myself that could have been caught earlier and had more time to deal with my disability. I was a child that thought I needed to suck it up and school was not my thing. I later learned it wasn’t and I want to learn more everyday. His comment, even if he thought people took it out of context, was a sign that he is incompetent as a doctor (PhD). As I recall, doctor means teacher. As any good teacher one has to do extensive homework, before making comments as Savage did, only to confuse the ignorant. As well as educating the masses in what potentially can cause the problem in the first place.

I found it ironic that Savage called for parents to chide a child with autistic tendencies to “act like a man,” given that many leading researchers consider autism to be an extreme manifestation of the male brain. In fact, one theory that’s attracting attention is that fetuses that produce high levels of testosterone in the womb have a tendency to exhibit autistic behavior as young children. And it seems to me that the messages society directs toward boys about “sucking it up” could actually exacerbate any tendencies to withdraw. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest count, the prevalence of autism among boys is between 2.8 and 5 times that of girls. [4 ]

God has given me a true gift. As with any gift, one just has to learn to use it and overcome its difficulties. As we all need to grow everyday, we should understand that everyone is here for a reason.


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Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/25 at 11:00 PM in Health, | (1) Comments

The Culture Of Death

Saturday, July 19, 2008


In the last week, I have been debating with Mary Kochan from Catholic Exchange. In our back and forth comments, I have formed some conclusions about politics and priorities of people. If you have already figured out, I am not a theology major nor a political science major. So please excuse the verbiage since I most likely will not be using terms that may not be politically correct. I am very versed in law. Since, I was an economics major investigating some time in pre-law at one point. As mentioned before, I will place my own catholic perspective in this post. My major point in the post is as catholics we cannot stop at only abortion or just prioritize abortion first then other evils such as the death penalty later. We must be firm in our pro-life stance.

All the following comments are from Mary Kochan that I will address piece by piece:

Well for one thing your feeling that they are both wrong does not constitute Catholic moral theology any more than someone’s feeling that gay marriage is ok. The fact is that in Catholic moral theology they are not the same: one is intrinsically evil; the other is not. Feel away all you like. I will be perfectly happy to seek the end of the death penalty after abortion is ended.

AND

Chump, the death penalty is not intrinsically evil. Sorry, but it is church teaching that the death penalty may be applied in some cases. It is not Church teaching that all applications of the death penalty in the past were grave moral wrong. The Church and the pope do not use the same moral language about the death penalty as they do for abortion.

In the catechism it does state :

[2267] Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor… Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

As in law, we have to look at the historical significance of the death penalty. Before jesus’s time, criminals were given death, were a danger to society and at that time had no other means to restrain that individual. As the catechism says today that is not the case. By supporting the death penalty you may today be killing an innocent life or worse a person that may repent with enough time that may be another lost soul to fall short of the kingdom of god. We should vote for people that will not support abortion, death penalty and euthanasia. Any form of death should not be over-sighted. As Catholics, we should only vote for those who hold all of our principles, not a few. As I stated in the past the few politicians such as Ron Paul are for these principles. Mary lacks the vision of the power we as citizens have as she said:

“This notion of vote for the person, not the party, simply shows a lack of understanding of the way our system works and the current status of party politics in the US. Voting for a person of any party strengthens that party regardless of that person’s own views. Pro-life Dems are completely shut out of influencing their party platform right now and have been for about 20 years. Their party is also dedicated to the judicial usurpation of power that led to Roe v. Wade and to making sure it does not get overturned.”

In America we have had many parties evolve and change from the time of the founding fathers. People have to look at the problems and rise up in the voting booths. With statements like:“Pro-life Dems are completely shut out of influencing their party platform right now” people will only steer our country into a one party dictatorship. We need to have hope just as we have faith in god. We need to hope that we can change that by voting for the people not the party. It is this thought that is weakening American and strengthening one or another party. It is this idea that people cannot see eye to eye on the issues. By making statements like this is what weakens America. We cannot think of right now, but how can we change the parties and America tomorrow. Remember it is not what America can do for you, its’ what you can do for America.

I hope this post will spark discussion and get better candidates for the future. I would like to see the incumbent party running against the incumbent in office. If that is what America wants by getting both sides standing up against the their own party to show real strength. In many cases may cause some to leave the party to run as an independent. The people need to learn not to vote within party lines but to vote for the individual who is the best fit for the job.

Background:

http://www.catholicexchange.com/2008/07/17/113173/

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Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/19 at 10:13 PM in Politics, | (0) Comments

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