Thanks. I was unable to take your post into account when I made mine, as yours had not yet been posted and although being raised Catholic was certainly interesting, it did not give me future-seeing superpowers.
Thanks in return, and I apologize for the snarky tone in my post. It was inappropriate.
Hey, no fair! I already asked that question.
No, it’s not “hand-waving”, it’s a quite justifiable reaction to a hate-filled rant that amounts to “I hate the Vatican because I read somewhere that they did bad bad thing, and you’re dumb, and nyah-nyah”.
Okay, that was what I was trying to tease out of you. Thank you for obliging. Now, here’s the thing, that’s not Catholic doctrine.
The Church is clear: if a pro-life and pro-choice candidate are running for office, you cannot vote for the pro-choice candidate because he is pro-choice, but you may vote for him if you are voting in spite of his pro-choice position, if and only if there are “proportionate reasons” for doing so. See USCCB document that I can’t be bothered to look up at the moment.
You say “nuclear war” or something of a similar magnitude is the only “proportionate” reason, and I say no, it’s not that simple. You have to consider (1) the office in question; (2) the candidate’s stated positions; and (3) the candidate’s track record and past history.
Be careful in advancing your position as the “Catholic” position. There are lay people, priests, and bishops who all disagree as to what counts as a “proportionate” reason, an the spectrum of disagreement is wide.
Yes. That is Dei Fide. Read these:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Christ_in_the_Eucharist.asp
http://www.catholic.com/library/Real_Presence.asp
Jesus used unleavened bread and wine free of chemicals at the Last Supper. And that is what we do. The Church has no authority to change what Jesus did. If the girl could not receive due to an allergy then God knows that and he won’t hold it against her for not receiving. For her parents to make a stink like that is just another example of people who are more interested in grandstanding than they are in understanding then teachings of their own Church. The Eucharist is not some smorgasborg where you get what you like, and it isn’t Burger King where you have it your way.
I of course will leave the OP to give his own view of transubstantiation, but I will point out that the fullness of the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist is present in both the bread and the wine – that is, the Body and the Blood. So someone who cannot take any wheat at all loses nothing, theologically speaking, by taking Holy Communion under just one species, the wine.
But it can’t be any food, no. It must be bread and it must be wine, and the wine must be of grapes and the bread of wheat.
The fact that he can? No, I didn’t go into all the details about how that happens, but as you point out, there’s an actual path to doing so. So, it can happen. Someone saying a diocese is “COMPLETELY autonomous” is making things up.
**source: **www.catholic.com
YOUR ROLE AS A CATHOLIC VOTER
Catholics have a moral obligation to promote the common good through the exercise of their voting privileges (cf. CCC 2240). It is not just civil authorities who have responsibility for a country. “Service of the common good require[s] citizens to fulfill their roles in the life of the political community” (CCC 2239). This means citizens should participate in the political process at the ballot box.
But voting cannot be arbitrary. “A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law that contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals” (CPL 4).
Some things always are wrong, and no one may vote in favor of them, directly or indirectly. Citizens vote in favor of these evils if they vote in favor of candidates who propose to advance them. Thus, Catholics should not vote for anyone who intends to push programs or laws that are intrinsically evil.
THE FIVE NON-NEGOTIABLE ISSUES
These five issues are called non-negotiable because they concern actions that are always morally wrong and must never be promoted by the law. It is a serious sin to endorse or promote any of these actions, and no candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any of the five non-negotiables.
- Abortion
The Church teaches that, regarding a law permitting abortions, it is “never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or to vote for it” (EV 73). Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide.
The child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child’s, who should not suffer death for others’ sins.
- Euthanasia
Often disguised by the name “mercy killing,” euthanasia also is a form of homicide. No one has a right to take his own life (suicide), and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.
In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include doing something intrinsically evil to another person (cf. EV 73).
- Fetal Stem Cell Research
Human embryos are human beings. “Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo” (CRF 4b).
Recent scientific advances show that any medical cure that might arise from experimentation on fetal stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there no longer is a medical argument in favor of using fetal stem cells.
- Human Cloning
“Attempts . . . for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through ‘twin fission,’ cloning, or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union” (RHL I:6).
Human cloning also ends up being a form of homicide because the “rejected” or “unsuccessful” clones are destroyed, yet each clone is a human being.
- Homosexual “Marriage”
True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recognition of any other form of “marriage” undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in what is an objectively immoral arrangement.
“When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral” (UHP 10).
WHICH POLITICAL OFFICES SHOULD I WORRY ABOUT?
Laws are passed by the legislature, enforced by the executive branch, and interpreted by the judiciary. This means you should scrutinize any candidate for the legislature, anyone running for an executive office, and anyone nominated for the bench. This is true not only at the national level but also at the state and local levels.
True, the lesser the office, the less likely the office holder will take up certain issues. Your city council, for example, perhaps never will take up the issue of human cloning. But it is important that you evaluate every candidate, no matter what office is being sought.
Few people achieve high office without first holding low office. Some people become congressional representatives, senators, or presidents without having been elected to a lesser office. But most representatives, senators, and presidents started their political careers at the local level. The same is true for state lawmakers. Most of them began on city councils and school boards and worked their way up the political ladder.
Tomorrow’s candidates for higher offices will come mainly from today’s candidates for lower offices. It is therefore prudent to apply the same standards to local candidates as to state and national ones.
If candidates who are wrong on non-negotiable issues fail to be elected to lower offices, they might not become candidates for higher offices. This would make it easier to elect good candidates for the more influential offices at the state and national levels.
HOW TO DETERMINE A CANDIDATE’S POSITION
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The higher the office, the easier this will be. Congressional representatives and senators, for example, repeatedly have seen these issues come before them and so have taken positions on them. Often the same can be said at the state level. In either case, learning a candidate’s position can be as easy as reading newspaper or magazine articles, looking up his views on the Internet, or studying one of the many printed candidate surveys that are distributed at election time.
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It often is more difficult to learn the views of candidates for local offices because few of them have an opportunity to consider legislation on such things as abortion, cloning, and the sanctity of marriage. But these candidates, being local, often can be contacted directly or have local campaign offices that will explain their positions.
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If you cannot determine a candidate’s views by other means, do not hesitate to write directly to him and ask how he stands on each of the non-negotiables.
HOW NOT TO VOTE
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Do not base your vote on your political party affiliation, your earlier voting habits, or your family’s voting tradition. Years ago, these may have been trustworthy ways to determine whom to vote for, but today they are not reliable. You need to look at each candidate as an individual. This means that you may end up casting votes for candidates from more than one party.
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Do not cast your vote based on candidates’ appearance, personality, or “media savvy.” Some attractive, engaging, and “sound-bite-capable” candidates endorse intrinsic evils and so should be opposed, while other candidates, who may be plain-looking, uninspiring, and ill at ease in front of cameras, endorse legislation in accord with basic Christian principles.
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Do not vote for candidates simply because they declare themselves to be Catholic. Unfortunately, many self-described Catholic candidates reject basic Catholic moral teaching. They are “Catholic” only when seeking votes from Catholics.
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Do not choose among candidates based on “What’s in it for me?” Make your decision based on which candidates seem most likely to promote the common good, even if you will not benefit directly or immediately from the legislation they propose.
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Do not reward with your vote candidates who are right on lesser issues but who are wrong on key moral issues. One candidate may have a record of voting exactly as you wish, aside from voting also in favor of, say, euthanasia. Such a candidate should not get your vote. Candidates need to learn that being wrong on even one of the non-negotiable issues is enough to exclude them from consideration.
HOW TO VOTE
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For each office, first determine how each candidate stands on each of the five non-negotiable issues.
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Eliminate from consideration candidates who are wrong on any of the non-negotiable issues. No matter how right they may be on other issues, they should be considered disqualified if they are wrong on even one of the non-negotiables.
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Choose from among the remaining candidates, based on your assessment of each candidate’s views on other, lesser issues.
WHEN THERE IS NO “ACCEPTABLE” CANDIDATE
In some political races, each candidate takes a wrong position on one or more of the five non-negotiables. In such a case you may vote for the candidate who takes the fewest such positions or who seems least likely to be able to advance immoral legislation, or you may choose to vote for no one.
Lapsed Catholic here.
Are you “conservative”, in that you wish the Church would go back to the pre-Vatican II ways? Mass in Latin, for example? Are there areas where you find the church itself too liberal?
No offense, but you’re probably not going last all that long here then.
Is it still a sin if there is no reasonable expectation to believe that their view on abortion has any import in that politician’s term? For instance - it’s a special election to fill a vacant House seat due to the death of the previous holder. The House is heavily weighted on either side of the spectrum. The candidate’s position on abortion simply won’t be a factor - but their vote on Issue X will.
He CAN but he won’t just because Liberals in the press are in a feeding frenzy.
The Church has stood for 2000 years only because it has resisted attempts by political forces to destroy it. The Caesars, the Huns, the Barbarians, the Muslims, the Fascists, the Comminists, Napolean, Hitler, Stalin… .need I go on?
You think the Pope is going to drop-kick a Successor of the Apostles just because you think he should?
Yes, I understand that’s the “Catholic Answers” position, however (1) that position has been criticized by many in the Church, and (2) “Catholic Answers” does not speak for the Church; your quoted text has not been given imprematur, and is not a text, such as the USCCB statement on voting, which talks about the “proportionate reasons” doctrine.
Thank you. I find your answer to be much more informative than this one: "The Eucharist is not some smorgasborg where you get what you like, and it isn’t Burger King where you have it your way. " I was unaware that Church doctrine states that each item becomes both body and blood.
Ignorance fought!
Now, OP, how about my other questions from way back on page 1?
Why not? Jesus spoke about taking care of the poor dozens of times in the gospels. He never mentioned abortion. Now I agree that abortion is a serious matter and should be opposed, but voting based on this single issue seems to disregard Jesus’ sense of priorities.
I’ll guarantee you we’ll have a presidential candidate who wants to repeal the new Health Care law, before the winter snow has melted.
You are getting into detailed hypotheticals. When it gets nuanced like that, I could not answer unless I was there. In those cases, one must be guided by a properly formed conmscience, and I emphasize “properly formed”, formed according to the faith, not according to Oparah or Katie Couric.
I think this statement is out of place in a thread like this and in MPSIMS in general. To be honest, this seems more like an Ask the Conservative thread than Ask a Catholic.
True.
Of course, the OP didn’t exactly say that a diocese is “completely autonomous.”
He said, “…when it comes to management and administrative affairs, each diocese and its bishop are COMPLETELY autonomous.”
That is a true statement. Your counter examples had to do with violation of doctrine, with illicit conferral of a sacrament, and NOT “…management and administrative affairs…” A bishop can (with long process) be removed; he cannot be ordered to transfer a priest from Parish A to rehab.
ETA: Well, he COULD be “ordered.” But there is no way to enforce that order.
Agreed. You’re all right in my book. Pax tecum.
Because people have different ideas on how to take care of the poor. Jesus did not specify that they had to be taken care of by Caeser stealing the money from your pocket and redistributing it.
Killing an innocent child is a gross sin. Jesus did not need to state the obvious.
Thanks for agreeing that the Vatican could have done something.