What in tarnation is he doing running for President if not to uphold the rights alluded to in the Declaration of Independence - you know, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness…
I’d say public healthcare is pretty important when it comes to securing safety and happiness.
Since the vast majority of religious people do not live their lives in total lockstep with the official church dogma, I fail to see what this has to do with anything. If you want to call him a hypocrite, there’s better ammunition out there. Furthermore, the pope was not speaking ex cathedra in any of those examples, so he can respectfully disagree.
If he’s not a Catholic, what is he? He’s certainly not Orthodox or Protestant or atheist or agnostic. I think the only point where you can stop calling him a Catholic is where he himself renounces the church. You can call him a bad Catholic if you like, but be careful not to hold him to standards that the rest of the church doesn’t follow.
There were repeated calls from Catholic bishops (and higher ranking church officials IIRC) to deny communion to John Kerry and there have been for other Catholic politicians who were pro-choice. Have there been any calls to deny Santorum communion yet or is that just something they do for those who would keep abortion legal?
These don’t conflict. One can accept God used Evolution & still bemoan that Evolution is being used to promote atheism. Just like one can accept the Bible & bemoan that it’s used to promote bigotry or whatever.
Abortion is a bigger moral concern in Catholic thought than climate change, publically-funded health care, & evolution. But has any pro-choice Catholic politician in the US ever actually been denied Comunion?
Er, so? The fact that violation of prohibition A is a larger concern than violation of prohibition B may explain less vigorous enforcement of the latter, but not an absence of any sanction whatsoever – consistent failure to sanction indicates complete lack of concern for B, not mere lower priority.
When candidates have been denied communion, that’s always been a decision made at the level of an individual bishop or pastor. The Church as a whole mostly stays silent on particular candidates, precisely because neither party in the US is really a match to Church teachings.
I really don’t care what his religion is. He’s pushing for a theocracy like in the Middle East and pushing his beliefs on those of us who vehemently disagree. Rational thought seems to be foreign to him.
Whether he’s a “good Catholic” or not, promotion of a particular set of religious beliefs has no place in American politics.
Really? What is the definition of dogma in this case?
What about being pro-death penalty, which he is and the Church is not. He is also pro-“enhanced interrogation”, meaning pro-torture, which the Church is also against.
I don’t think it actually matters, except insofar as he is constantly portrayed as being in lockstep with his religion. That’s fine, but it makes it odd that he is portrayed as being such an adherent to his religion when he is just like anyone. He follows dogma to some degree, but also clearly doesn’t in some cases.
I have thought all along Santorum had little appeal to most Catholics. Interestingly it turns out the actual vote results support my thinking. He has lost the Catholic vote in every contest, except Louisiana, by a substantial margin. His strongest, most reliable support has come from evangelical Protestants.
I don’t think that makes him “un” Catholic but it certainly puts him outside the mainstream.
There’s nothing that he believes that the Catholic Church says “You’re forbidden to believe”, and there’s nothing that he doesn’t believe that the Catholic Church says “You have to believe.”, as far as I know. He just believes a lot of stuff the Catholic church thinks is wrong. But there’s a difference in the Catholic Church’s eyes between “His beliefs are wrong” and “his beliefs are heretical.”, and as far as the Pope is concerned, Santorum is just wrong on the listed issues (and, I guess, as far as Santorum is concerned, the Pope is wrong on those issues.)
But there’s no rule in Catholicism saying you have to agree with the Pope. You can think the Pope is a damn idiot who believes a lot of stupid things and still be a good Catholic as long as you don’t cross the line into actual heresy, and Catholics have a long tradition of disagreeing with the Pope on stuff.
Neither Kerry nor Santorum would be contravening Canon law (at least from my meagre understanding).
Perhaps their positions are contrary to the spirit of it, but the prohibitions listed here apply only to perpetrators. Worth distinguishing between “homicide” and “killing” too: homicide, like murder, is a term more or less defined by the state.
So with that clarified, it’s a bit of a “No True Scotsman” to say that someone that fulfills the doctrinal requirements of being a Catholic and professes Catholicism fails at that task.
That said, given that the Church has upheld the excommunication of “Call to Action” members, it may be argued that either of them are schismatic.
I think he is a Protestant, actually. Maybe Irish Catholic. But I grew up around evangelicals, and Santorum sure seems to want to be seen as one of them.
There is a large Charismatic movement within American Catholicism, who are very close to Evangelicals in their religious behaviour and often political outlook. They’re still Catholic, though.