Are the perspectives of Pope Benedict and President Obama the same?

Monday, July 13, 2009


Since the election of Barrack Obama, many U.S. Bishops have not been as hospitable as our current pontiff. I’ve came across some reasons whythe pontiff may have been more hospitable. Some of these reasons may be:

  • The Vatican has been dealing with politicians for centuries.
  • European culture is different since Catholics have lost the battle for abortion so they concentrate on other issues
  • The pope found a connection from his view expressed in his recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth) with Obama’s commencement address at Notre Dame

So what is it? Could it be that the pope looks at the big picture?  The pope agreed on the issue of bio-ethics and life with the previous administration, but I feel that was the only issues they saw eye-to-eye. Our current president has shown light of other issues, such as the need for:

  • Charity
  • HealthCARE
  • Community
  • Peace /Love

President’s commencement address at Notre Dame and Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical seems to be words that remind me of my post reviewing “A Civilization of Love” by Sir Grand Knight Anderson.  From my past posts you may have seen a bias toward this president. Now it’s time to test this man to his words.  I feel that many of his ideas of volunteering and providing for the greater good is what jesus would want. In general I feel that abortion is one great issue, but not the greatest issue. The greatest issue is to love everyone no matter what. Jesus did and we must trust that this president may not be our pro-life president, but he may be the president of hope to change our culture to a culture of love. Maybe the pope is taking this message of love from JP2 and our lord and sees something in our president that the bishops have not seen, Hope. Maybe our president can provide hope for our community to become more charitable, loving, and proactive. On the same note people like the CatholicHack have the correct idea that we need to have hope that he will become our pro-life president. As I see it he is three quarters there, he does not believe in capital punishment and he want to try to “reduce the number of abortions”.

So is the Vatican more political, in order, to deal with politicians with whom they disagree or does the pope like President Obama outside some ethical gaps? I think not , when our the pontiff and president shook hands, was a start of an ongoing dialog that may change our presidents heart on this issue.

Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/13 at 11:59 AM in News,Politics, | (0) Comments

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

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

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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