www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall President Obama

I stand with John and Joe.

Ryan Black

Maybe it is the 5 years that I spent in Missouri, but I need sources for all the assertions above especially the one about St. Thomas Aquinas.

I stand with Jesus, not with Obama, McCain, Paul, Putin, Bush, Brown, Medvedev, Abdullah, or any of them.

This might be a sobering lesson for some:

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

Go to deaths and look at the lower right hand corner, and I guarantee that your first impulse will be to ask God to forgive us our stupidity.

Alexandr

If I'm reading it right abortions account for 3/8 of all the deaths in the world. Very troubling.

CDL

You underestimated. I stopped the clock and did a quick calculation and came up with abortions accounting for 68.1962% of all deaths.

May God have mercy on us.

Alexandr

This thread has increasingly deviated from its original topic...

It has now become a topic exclusively about abortion rather than the President. No one on this thread has said that they condone abortion, yet they are being pounced on and judged for their vote. Orthodox priests and monks do not judge on a person's vote.

However, here is a tidbit that I would like to throw in about this subject since it has deviated:

No woman, fourteen or twenty-four ever wakes up in the morning saying "oh today looks like a good day to undergo an unpleasant, frightening procedure which will kill my unborn baby and render me guilt for the rest of my life". NO one ever flippantly CHOOSES such a horrific experience upon themselves--atleast not in this country where most abortions are undertaken by unmarried women.

Infact, most abortions happen because our youth and young adults have had 'the naturalness of premarital sex' imposed on them through every possible media and even their schools, without EVER having the consequences of those uncommitted relationships equally emphasized to them.

When pregnancies occur both the young men (which usually run away) and the young women, most of who don't even love each other enough to get married these days, and who have not finished their educations, nor have jobs to support them, parents who will not support them or will disown them, not to mention no medical insurance to pay for the exorbitant medical bills which doctors charge in this country for normal pregnancies, and thus, what we have is the horrible act of abortion--an action taken most times out of desperation...

So, perhaps the very act of murdering the unborn itself is not grey, but there is so much grey that needs to be addressed to save babies from being conceived and then murdered!

The same battle (our obsessively sexual culture and media) which no one person or organization seems to want to fight (although it has been attempted by the Evangelicals) is also the same culture of the devil which causes some in holy places to fall to commit the most grievous sins on children. (In Greece, an archimandrite was recently charged as being part of a racket with professionals such as businessmen and doctors that was involved in internet child pornography with children and even an infant as young as six months old) IS THAT NOT as hideous and grievous a crime against humanity and life????

Therefore, when I see Hollywood and the smut it sends out to the world battled equally hard, then I will say that maybe the numbers of abortions will go down.

The industry which feeds this garbage is a battlefront which should be organized and protested. So, if abortion gets outlawed, but the promiscuous sexual mentality to permeate every single second of our lives, (just count how many subjects you see about it just signing on to your server every day), young teens will probably seek out illegal ones or seek them out in other countries (most countries now) where they are legal.

Maybe making abortion illegal will force Hollywood to stop...or maybe it won't. The devil is not known for his logic.

ONE teen dared to have her baby, and was fortunate enough to be in a committed relationship where the young man offered to marry her: that was Sarah Palin's daughter. YET, even among those who are vehemently anti-abortion, I heard few words of great admiration and support. Instead her premarital sin was emphasized. Lots of folks seemed shocked...that is where the evil one is also deceiving. She wasn't one solitary case of a girl having premarital sex. She was simply the one you found out about because she got pregnant and did not have an abortion.

We are living in days where a GREAT idol (sex) is being served and worshipped, and unless that idol is fought, the casualties of serving and worshipping that idol (child pornography, abortion, sex slavery of children and women, etc.) will continue to be racked up in numbers.

In any case, there is also a bad case of REaction from the liberal sector in this country. Some of the things they are doing (President Obama wanting to make legal horrific late term abortion--something even more demonic, as the baby can live outside the womb and be adopted), seems to be more of a reaction of hatred to the way some people fight abortion than, perhaps, to their own rational thinking. Doesn't popular psychology say that if we are getting the wrong reaction from someone, perhaps we should alter our own approach? I don't know; this is just a thought, and we need to think of what we can do. President Obama, whether we like it or not, for whatever reason we are happy about that, or not, is our leader for the next four years, so perhaps we should 'think' of how we might change his mind.

Personally, I see a very troubled world that has lots of shades of evil stemming from the same one source, and I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel.

May our Lord have mercy on everyone, and especially our young people from all faiths, families, backgrounds, and Western countries, who are so confused (ask any priest, youth worker, girl's and/or boy's Catholic or public school Principle, parent in the know, or pastor) for they live in, to various extents depending on the particular person and depending on their extent of secrecy, in an alternate universe...a universe of coed college dorms where drinking and sex are practically rights of initiation, childhoods whose innocence is abruptly halted as they are taught graphic sexual education at younger and younger ages, television shows and movies geared to them with crass and overt sexual innuendo and overtones or undertones, (gone are the days of TGIF shows on ABC that were pure and family oriented and which I used to watch with my son and daughter), teen magazines that in my days didn't even mention sex, but now condone sexual activity, internet access of images and material (even innocently--like looking up the White House for a school report), of anything and everything evil, sexual, demonic, etc, etc., etc.....

You see, there is alot of grey woven into everything murderous, grievous, and hideous that we hear about and shudder about...and the evil one lurks secretly with delight in all those shades of grey, blinding us in our sense of helplessness, or our fool's paradise, in order for us to see only the black and white.

Lord have mercy on us all--everywhere in the predominantly Christian world!

In Christ, our Hope,
Alice

A brilliant post, Alice, on all points !

The great gift that the Eastern Church can --and must-- give to the world is theosis: especially loving asceticism.

Occasionally, one still hears the commadnments being preached, but almost no one talks about how to keep them and to build up one's strength to keep them. The Eastern Church's praxis of prayer, fasting and almsgiving does precisely that.

If the Eastern Church would better share this, by word and example, it could administer the necessary antitdote to the spiritual poison which Alice correctly identified in our culture: addiciton to the passions and the consequent loss of self control and justice towards the neighbor. A regimen of prayer, fasting and almsgiving can cure these and lead to concerted social action for the good.

-- John

At the bottom of the page is written something like "Abortions aren't included in the numbers of deaths." I included them making the total deaths over 8 million. Since abortions are 3+ million that makes it about 3/8. But I may have figured it wrong.

Alice,

While I essentially agree with you I've been haunted for years by the young woman seeking marriage in my church when I was a United Methodist pastor who boldly proclaimed that she had had an abortion and then said that what troubled her about her sad feelings since was the fact that "I feel sad that I feel sad because she wished she could be like her friend who had had seven and was never bothered by it."

I told her that I was encouraged that she felt sad. It showed that she has some hope of redemption. I don't recall my exact words. It was 31 years ago. But I sure remember hers. I'm not as sanguine about the attitudes that some young women have about flushing "tissue" out of their fetuses.

CDL

It is really a horrible shame to see people making excuses for voting for pro-abortion candidates! As I read the reasoning of those who have done so I am greatly saddened, because it is clear they are hiding behind rhetoric. To hear posters describe pro-lifers as merely angry and lacking compassion is so far from the truth. Yet it is the caricature that the pro-abortion people and their willing accomplices in the media have created of us. We can see that some people here who claim to be faithful Catholics and Orthodox really believe that there are issues that are more important than the right of life of their fellow Americans.

I have posted many times that if people who are truly concerned about respecting life would vote for only pro-life candidates within their chosen political parties then the Democrat Party could go from being pro-death to being pro-life in a few election cycles and the Republican Party could become much more solidly pro-life. Yet, especially in the Democrat Party few are willing to do this, or even to give it serious consideration. They hide behind nice rhetoric and don’t actually do anything.

I think the issue here before us who are truly dedicated to life is how to speak to the people who have bought into the pro-abortion rhetoric? It is all very nice to say we must first change hearts but we see precious little of that coming from the pro-abortion side (which uses the line as rhetoric to stop the discussion). All of the compassion comes from the pro-life side, with the pro-lifers being the ones who provide alternatives to abortion. How do we witness life in a way that can cut through the media hatred of us that many good people buy into?

As always, let us pray for one another and let us pray that the Lord will lead our country towards life.

And let us pray for President Obama, that the Lord lead him from the forces of death that surround him regarding the protection of innocent life into the forces of life.

Amen!!

Amen, Amen and Amen!
I almost feel like a Baptist!
Stephanos I

Note: I have placed in bold type certain sections in the post by the Administrator for my own emphasis.

Ryan


My Dear Friend John:

While you suggest that Catholics like John and me and Orthodox like Joe are being unfair to you, you, in turn, are unfair to us.

As to your accusation that we are hiding behind rhetoric, you are simply wrong. We voted the way that we did because we believed it to be the best choice among impossibly difficult alternatives. Is it possible that we are wrong--of course, which is why we are willing to read threads such as this and to endure insults and unfair judgments that are hurled against us by fellow Christians. Furthermore, my belief that that it is possible that I am wrong is the reason why I went to confession after having cast my vote for President Obama. What I was told by the priest who heard my confession is that we were faced with no good choice.

Now to your claim that we believe that there are things more important to us than the right to life of our fellow Americans, again, you are simply wrong. For me, I have consistenlty supported Democratic candidates in spite of their tragically wrong position on the question of abortion because I can support the Republican Party on an extremely small number of other issues and my experience of having observed American politics for nearly thirty years has led me to the conclusion that, while there are indeed some Republican politicians who are passionately committed to the pro-life position, on the whole, the Republican Party lacks any real commitment to ending legalized abortion. Disagree with me if you will--I have no problem with that. Try to convince me that I have made a wrong conclusion--again, I have no problem with that, and indeed, I encourage you to do so, because if I am wrong, this is about the worst possible thing about which I can be wrong. But in accusing me of not caring about the right to life of the unborn, you presume to know more about me than you can possibly know.

Now, to your ongoing assertion about how to change the Democratic position from pro-choice to pro-life and to change the Republican position to being more solidly pro-life, I think that it is unrealistic--at this time, exactly because the American public is not solidly pro-life--not by a long shot. When the hearts and minds of enough Americans has been changed, this tactic will become a viable option.

Concerning your questions about how to speak to people whom you are trying to persuade, let me offer a few suggestions--not necessarily to you individually, but to all who are in your camp. Referring to those who consider themselves to be "pro-choice" as being "pro-abortion" or "pro-death" or "supporters of genocide" (as some members of this Forum consistently do) will not have the result of converting them. Many who take the position of "pro-choice" do so with a very heavy heart, believing that the taking of the life of an unborn child is tragic, but at the same time, having been deceived by the Enemy into believing that upholding the right of women to choose to terminate a pregnancy is actually a noble thing. I know--I used to be one of those who believed this. On the other hand, I encourage you, and all who support the right to life, to continue to speak up for the right to life of the unborn. Perhaps there can be some success by turning it into a civil rights matter. We Americans would actually be most true to our core principles by expanding the right to life to the unborn. Remind people that rights are not absolute and that not all rights are equal. Women indeed can make the choice not to have a child, but once a child has been conceived, the child's right to life should trump any right of choice.

Concerning prayer, I agree with everything you say, and surely could not have stated it any better myself.

Finally, with all sincerity, I urge you and those who think about these things as you do to continue to challenge Christians who think like Joe, John and me. The reason why I urge you to do this, is that, as convinced as I am that I made the best of difficult choices when I voted for President Obama, it can become altogther too easy to vote based on a lifetime of loyalty to a particular party without weighing carefully all the factors. Let me state this a bit differently: for the sake of argument, agree with me for a moment that I made the right choice this time (I know that you truthfully don't, but just go along for a few moments). Just because I made the right choice this time doesn't mean that in all elections, voting for the Democrat is the lesser of two difficult choices. Indeed, there are Republicans who are seriously committed to the pro-life movement, and are not simply using the issue to garner votes. Furthermore, I hope that there will come a time when a majority of Americans are truly pro-life, and in such a case, your idea about changing the stance of the Democratic Party and strenthening the stance of the Republican Party will become a truly workable alternative. When such conditions exist, people like me may need help in recognizing it.

May God richly bless you for your steadfast resolve in being an advocate for the unborn. May God move all of us to work harder to convert our culture. May God change the hearts of those who have been deceived into believing that the right to choose trumps the right to life. May God thwart the work of the Evil One. Finally, may God save us all.

Sincerely,

Ryan

Ryan,

I don't understand why Catholics should have to convince Catholics to vote against supporters of abortion. You may call it simply "pro-choice" if you wish but I won't take you seriously until the unborn are given the same choice. To assert that the Republican party is the only choice to the Democratic party and therefore one must vote Democratic even when they disagree with them is not convincing. There are other parties. As long as Catholics and Orthodox are willing to support pro-abortion candidates there will never be pro-life candidates who have a chance of winning.

CDL

Dan:

"Pro-choice" is not my label. I was simply making the argument that calling those who support the right to abortion--even those who are of the "I'm personally opposed but still believe in a woman's right to choose" sort--"pro-death" or "pro-abortion" or "supporters of genocide" is very unlikely to persuade them that they are wrong. Rather, it is more likely that they will simply ignore you.

Furthermore, I was not attempting to convince anyone that he should vote for the Democratic Party. I was offering the reasons as to why I generally vote for the Democratic candidate. Also, I'm very much aware that there are other parties. However, as I'm sure that you are aware, they make very little overall impact on the American political scene.

Lastly, I find your remark about not taking me seriously, together with your implication that I don't support the rights of the unborn, in spite of my comments to the contrary, to be less than charitable. Even though I disagree with your approach to the question at hand, I do take you seriously.

Ryan