who cares what the effing pope thinks? sorry that wasnt very helpful, I don’t have a different opinion on this but still felt like posting. 
Well, perhaps God-given right is more appropriate.
I didn’t realize that Catholics were allowed to pick and choose which parts of the Catholic dogma to accept. Can a Catholic just decide the Pope is wrong on abortion too?
A good catholic would be a pro-life Democrat.
So, the Pope, who has spent his career thinking about Catholic religious teaching, and who has all of his time to study Catholic religious teaching, and who has an army of people to interpret Catholic religious teaching is wrong.
I’m guessing that you have a family and a job which take away from your time to study Catholic theology on the level of the Pope, but perhaps you have the time and the fortitude to pour over centuries of Catholic theology.
So, why don’t you lay out for us, in accordance with Catholic theology, where the Pope is wrong and how you came to that conclusion. Let us know about all the doctrine and theologians that you’ve studied and how they conflict with the Pope’s assessment of those theologians and doctrine.
Because, otherwise, I’m just going to assume that your assessment of the Pope’s statement is about the same as mine–a non-Catholic.
To be fair to Martin, the Pope can be mistaken if speaking on matters of public social policy – the doctrine of infallibility applies only to “Matters of Faith” and even then it has to be invoked explicitly, and has only been so twice in the last two centuries. BUT even so, the Pope speaks officially for the Church so it may be wrong, but it is the policy and the laity doesn’t get a vote on it.
Y’know, “conservative” Catholics tend to kvetch a lot as to how American/European/“liberal” Catholics like to pick and choose and stretch the bounds, and refer to them derisively as “Cafeteria Catholics”. Yet let a Pope bring up that Christianity (never mind even Catholicism) frowns upon adopting an “I got mine, sucks to be you” policy towards the less fortunate neighbor, and then it’s the Pope who’s talking out of his hat about things he’s got no business with…
By definition, Catholics may not pick and choose which parts of Catholic dogma to accept.
But your error here is in the assumption that the Pope’s opinion on the permissibility of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS in some circumstances, or the claim that UHC is an inalienable right, is Catholic dogma.
It’s not.
Sure, okay. But I have to assume the Pope didn’t just make this up out of thin air. I assume he’s come to this conclusion by studying Catholic dogma. I realize that’s an appeal to authority, but as a non-Catholic, it’s not like I can weigh various levels of expertise in this area.
It would be interesting and informative for the people who are saying they disagree with the Pope to lay out for us how their viewpoint flows from Catholic dogma and where the Pope has made his error in interpreting Catholic dogma.
I agree that would be interesting. But remember that apart from definitive matters of faith and morals, an individual Catholic is not obligated to accept as true plenty of things that the Church as a whole credits. For example, the Church has validated the appearance of the Blessed Virgin to three shepherd children in Fátima in 1917.
But any individual Catholic is free to conclude that this interpretation is mistaken, and that nothing supernatural occurred.
My own short answer is that the Pope’s exhortation must be read and understood in light of his other views. That is, one may not myopically focus on this guarantee to the exclusion of others. The Pope has also said:
The Pope’s comment about health care is not intended to apply to a society that does not ALSO apply his guidance about abortion.
I thought that you agreed with the Pope on abortion and disagreed with his stance on health care? Or am I mistaken? Wouldn’t that be myopically focussing on one stance to the exclusion of others?
No, I support the Pope’s agenda in total: if we reversed our stance on abortion, I’d favor UHC.
So, in countries without UHC, you think abortion should be legal?
ETA: I’m not trying to pester you here, but attempting to understand your logic.
I’d like some clarification too, what Bricker is suggesting seems to be, “I don’t want you to have anything you want unless I get everything I want.”
If A then B. Not B, therefore not A.
You think that’s a logically true statement? Really?
No.
It has nothing to do with the proportions of things I want. It has to do with consistency. It makes no sense to force productive citizens to pay for health care for unproductive citizens when the same society is willing to slaughter unborn children – and, indeed, to spend tax dollars in some cases to facilitate that killing.
I’m having trouble understanding the connection you see between the two issues. Why would it make sense to force production citizens to pay for health care for unproductive citizens just because abortion is illegal?
OK, I understand you better now. Since we live in a society willing to slaughter unborn children, does this mean that nothing else makes sense, and so no other social programs should be supported? Like social security, food stamps, medicare, college scholarships for the military, etc.? What are the things that it’s OK to spend tax dollars on, seeing as how we also use tax dollars to facilitate the killing of unborn children?
Based on what? Either they’ve come to their own interpretation of Catholic dogma (which is what I’m trying to suss out here) or what? They’ve substituted an alternate set of religious beliefs in this area? Does this mean that Catholics are free to substitute alternative theological systems when they choose to do so?
Where are you getting this? This doesn’t follow from the Pope’s statement you’ve quoted here. Is it derived from his other writings?
Where in Catholic dogma does this statement you’ve made come from? What is it in Catholic dogma that leads one to this conclusion?
It’s an interesting assumption that those currently without health insurance, or those with insurance but who would still benefit from UHC, are unproductive. Also, you are not a theocracy. Your government’s hypothetical adoption of UHC might happen to be pope-friendly, but they are not following the pope’s agenda; the pope’s opinion on the matter is irrelevant to whether or not your government adopts UHC as policy. The logical disconnect in your argument comes when it assumes that any policy that is approved of by the Church is adopted because it has the approval of the church. It makes no sense to expect or demand dogmatic consistency from a body that does not subscribe to that dogma.
If you don’t want to support UHC for reasons of your own, fine. But to point at the fact that abortion isn’t illegal as an excuse makes no sense.