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Ed Pope weighs in on US presidential election

Dave Rogers said:
Maybe so, but I think that's the default Catholic position on abortion. What's interesting about this statement is that it's leaning away from that position by saying that the anti-abortion side in this election is so awful that it's OK to consider the pro-abortion side to be the lesser evil. It seems to me it's as pro-Harris as the Pope dares to go.
Dave
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I may be wrong, of course, as may you be as well: but that is how this struck me too.
 
TragicMonkey said:
That was generations ago. Vatican II sort of half-killed Catholicism in the US: it upset the old (old old old) school traditionalists by introducing too much modernity. It upset the moderns by sticking to too much tradition. American Catholicism has never recovered from that. The total number of church-participating Catholics falls, those who do go are "cafeteria Catholics" and "cultural Catholics"* rather than truly devout, and those who actually truly deeply believe in the actual religious part of the religion either don't go to church at all or are recent converts still flush with the enthusiasm of the novelty -- which will dwindle over time, and likely not last into a second or third generation before burning out.

American Catholics are Catholic in the way that sherbet is ice cream: the vague shape and usage is the same, but it really isn't the same thing at all and if you thought it would be you will be disappointed.

*Like my mom's family, who if you ask will claim to be Catholics and believers but actually only go to church for the milestones of sacraments as coming-of-age cultural rituals rather than genuine theological beliefs. Best example: the sacrament of Confirmation is supposed to be when a Catholic reaches adulthood and as an adult chooses for themselves to "confirm" their religious beliefs in Catholicism and thence participate as an adult. In actuality, my family -- like millions of other "Catholics" in the US and elsewhere-- has reversed Confirmation into the opposite: it becomes a sort of graduation, and after it you're an adult and can decide not to go to church or be Catholic any more. All of my generation on that side of the family was made to go to church until Confirmation, as soon as we went through that it was just fine to stop being religious entirely. You've done it, you've finished religion, and now --in the vague and entirely nonsensical theology of these kinds of Catholics-- you're going to Heaven because you met the requirements and got your diploma, even if you never "use" the religion again! This is the muddled confusion of people going through the motions of following cultural constructs out of a feeling they're supposed to, not genuine religious belief in the religion.

American Catholics follow the actual official religion of Catholicism about as well and often as players follow the actual rules of Monopoly. Have you read those rules? Nobody plays that way. You're supposed to auction off unbought spaces!
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Some interesting stats here:

9 facts about U.S. Catholics

#6
About three-in-ten U.S. Catholics (28%) say they attend Mass weekly or more often. Larger shares of Catholics say they pray on a daily basis (52%) and say religion is very important in their life (46%).

Overall, 20% of U.S. Catholics say they attend Mass weekly and pray daily and consider religion very important in their life. By contrast, 10% of Catholics say they attend Mass a few times a year or less often and pray seldom or never and consider religion not too or not all important in their life.
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So a significant number do appear to still be "True Believers" but nowhere near 1000%. I guess a few of these do care what the Pope has to say.
 
American Catholics generally align with the public as a whole when it comes to abortion rights:
Overall, about three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (76%) say abortion should be illegal in some cases but legal in others. Just one-in-ten say abortion should be illegal in all cases, with no exceptions, while a similar share (13%) take the position that abortion should be legal in all cases, without exceptions.

About seven-in-ten Catholics say abortion should be legal if the pregnant woman’s life or health is threatened (69%), and two-thirds say it should be legal if the pregnancy is the result of rape (66%). At the same time, roughly two-thirds of Catholics say how long a woman has been pregnant should be a factor in determining abortion’s legality (63%), with larger shares opposing abortions in the late stages of a pregnancy than in the early stages.
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TragicMonkey said:
Does anybody except the pope care what the pope thinks? On any topic? The papacy has been going downhill for the last fifteen hundred years.
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I don't care. And I don't think most American Catholics care one bit. But there are definitely some that do.
 
TragicMonkey said:
American Catholics follow the actual official religion of Catholicism about as well and often as players follow the actual rules of Monopoly. Have you read those rules? Nobody plays that way. You're supposed to auction off unbought spaces!
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I have, actually. And I've played it that way. It's better. Much better.
 
Giving that it's the head of their church doing the election interference, all US based catholic charities should lose their status and be taxed like any other for profit business.
 
I hope DJT never learns that when the pope speaks Ex Cathedra he is considered infallible.

I can easily imagine him running around Washington saying, “I’m infallible. I’m infallible.”
 
Ladewig said:
I hope DJT never learns that when the pope speaks Ex Cathedra he is considered infallible.

I can easily imagine him running around Washington saying, “I’m infallible. I’m infallible.”
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Your imagination is better (or more diseased) than mine.

shuffling, yes, driving in a golf cart, maybe.
 
Ladewig said:
I hope DJT never learns that when the pope speaks Ex Cathedra he is considered infallible.

I can easily imagine him running around Washington saying, “I’m infallible. I’m infallible.”
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Trump already believes that about himself. He believes when he tells a lie it becomes true.
 
thaiboxerken said:
The Catholic Church didn't have much to say about Hitler either.
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They actually had quite a bit to say about Hitler.

arthwollipot said:
Yes, most Catholics tend to at least pay attention to what he says. In this case he appears to have said that it's okay for them to vote for either candidate.
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arthwollipot said:
I believe there was much fuss about JFK becoming President because he was Catholic and it was thought that he'd be taking orders from the Pope.
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A generation before him, there was a fella named Al Smith that lost on account of being a Papist. JFK was seen as a leap forward in American pluralism. Just took Catholicism being the single largest denomination of American Christians. Its also funny on account of Catholicism being essentially the default Christianity in movies.

acbytesla said:
I don't care. And I don't think most American Catholics care one bit. But there are definitely some that do.
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In my experience, most American Catholics say they care but don't really. I know a couple of very lefty converts and they really hang there hat on some rule about your conscience being how you get to deciden what's a sin. I also know quite a few gay Catholics, they basically think the church will come around eventually.

arthwollipot said:
I have, actually. And I've played it that way. It's better. Much better.
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I can't get anyone to try, so I've never played it by the rules. I hear it goes quite faster. Between auctioning the properties and no lottery when you land on free parking. I've even fought with folks on weather that's actually the rules.
 
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Once again, just because you ban abortion doesn't mean you are stopping abortions or are very "pro life". Abortions actually saw an increase during the most recent Republican adminsitrations. All that happens is the women seeking abortions are put at risk.

If you really want to prevent abortions, invest in education, financial stability, and healthcare. Will that stop all abortions? Of course not. But, you will see a dramatic decline.

And if you scream at the top of you lungs about "saving babies" but can't say much about gun violence, sexual assault, child poverty, or US foreign policy leading to children being bombed, shot, and burned, you're not a Christian. You're an *******.
 
Egg said:
Well, that's a fair point. Biblically, the poor treatment of immigrants is about as high on the list as any sin and sure, the Catholics have been anti-abortion for maybe 1900 years longer than the Evangelicals. But, although considered morally wrong, Catholic leadership has often taken a more nuanced view than legally allowing abortions = killing babies.


On the face of it, "killing babies" does seem morally worse than "kicking out migrants", whereas from a legal point of view, one of the proposed positions still allows the individual to make the moral choice, the other doesn't.
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No. Rigid prohibition of abortion by the RCC is far more recent than that.
 
catsmate said:
No. Rigid prohibition of abortion by the RCC is far more recent than that.
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While it's probably true that American Catholics are more independently minded, politically, than other countries.

But, there are about 260+ million adult Catholics in the US. How many of them are in swing states, not sure. The way he framed his position: lesser of evils, one kicks out immigrants, the other kills babies. One is not like the other.

Even if only about 15% of them always follow Pope's guidance, that's a big bloc that can have an effect when the whole country is about 50/50 almost down to a few people.

And 75% of Catholics view the Pope favorably, so there's that.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religio...olics-express-favorable-view-of-pope-francis/

There'll be a post-election analysis on it, but I think it will have a little more sway than pundits believe.
 
ahhell said:
A generation before him, there was a fella named Al Smith that lost on account of being a Papist. JFK was seen as a leap forward in American pluralism. Just took Catholicism being the single largest denomination of American Christians. Its also funny on account of Catholicism being essentially the default Christianity in movies.
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In 1960, Catholics were only 22.8% of American Christians. Protestants far outnumbered Catholics.

Protestantism has always been the dominant religion in the US.
 
Protestantism isn't some monolith. There are 4 major denominations of Baptist, 2 main types of Methodist, nondenominational Christians, Pentacostals, etc. Protestanism basically just means "not Catholic or Orthodox" (or Adventist or Mornon depending on who you are talking to). While people who identify as Protestant outnumber Catholics 2 to 1, Roman Catholicism is the single largest denomination.
 
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ahhell said:
I can't get anyone to try, so I've never played it by the rules. I hear it goes quite faster. Between auctioning the properties and no lottery when you land on free parking. I've even fought with folks on weather that's actually the rules.
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We would be better at math if we played by the rules.

Selling houses and hotels for half price, paying the 10% tax to unmortgage properties, etc.
 
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