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Alexis,

There are millions of Roosevelt Democrats (my father was one of them) who still remember the policies which restored a fair chance for a working husband being able to support a family...and they still vote like it is 1938.

In the last 50 years we have seen too much "social re-engineering and generally the national Democrat Party has en had the following agenda:

* No-questions-asked divorce (this is a "right" even if the other spouse isn't ready to "call it quits"
* Broad acceptance of single parent families, abortion as a means of birth control
* Government sponsored support of homosexual lifestyle and rejection of opposition as "non-tolerant" and "hateful"
*Successful non-enforcement of sodomy laws
* Acceptance of Rule by Judiciary if it promotes the agenda
* Rigid enforcement of prohibiting Christian religion from hindering the "agenda" when possible
* Promoting abortion as a "good" and teen pregnancy as "bad" (How old was Mary??)

FUTURE AGENDA as society permits:
Euthanasia
Polygamy
Invalidation of sexual child abuse if "consensual"
Further weakening of parental rights; forfeiting them to the State
Rationed health care, especially for the "nonproductive" elderly
Persecution of domestic "enemies of the state"

If you are younger than 30 you probably think I'm a crank; I'm a student of History and if you look at the last 60 years of politics in the USA the trend is crystal clear. The Republicans are definitely not faultless, but at least there is some semblance of Christian morality left in the party platform.

I don't expect to change your political persuasion; just some food for thought that may make sense to you in 10-20 years. By then it will be too late.

We are not too far away from an American "kristallnacht." If you don't know the meaning of this word, please look it up in Wikipedia. Fortunately our Christian hope is not placed on hope in this life; but in eternal Life.

Christ is risen!
Fr. Deacon Paul

Father Deacon,

I do know the meaning of kristallnacht.

I also don't care whether the government allows gay "marriage" or polygamy, and personally don't think sodomy laws should exist. The government is not my moral compass, thank goodness. The government can decide "marriage" exists between a cow and a peanut for all I care.

I'd also remind you that I'm from a very conservative town in a very conservative county in a very conservative state in a very conservative region of the Deep South. Our local and state Democratic officials are oftentimes nothing like what I imagine you are used to in the Northeast.

Alexis

1. Change comes incrementally. The forces of the Evil One are strong. We serve Christ and advance the Gospel of Life one step at a time, knowing even that we will be pushed back from time to time and have to start all over again. To simply suggest that because progress is slow that it is not worth the effort is to give up. It is to say that Christ is not our strength.

2. To give up is to deny Christ, our hope. The Church does not present us with tactics for restoring legal protection for innocent life, from conception until natural death. But it does present us with what is right, and the goals to work for. To give up is not to hope, not to trust in Christ.

3. Also bad is to abandon the the innocent - as you and others appear to be doing. Someday you will stand before the Lord with those who died because you didn't act. You will be asked to explain yourself. What will you say? Progress was not quick enough. The work was hard. The forces of evil were too strong. So I abandoned you! Do you think Christ will say "well done good and faithful servant"? Or will he say something else?

4. I can respect that some might fear war. But one can be a Catholic and support just wars (including the current conflicts). One cannot be Catholic and support abortion, euthanasia, and the rest. Why do you reject this? Even if you put the two at the same moral level (which you cannot) have more then 40 million innocent been killed in the current conflict? Then tell me as I asked earlier, what are you getting for your support that is worth the 40 million lives? You should have a very good answer and I ask you to post it. Or better yet, I ask you to follow the Church on these issues!

There are things on which we must never compromise. When we do others die. And we die.

Admin,

I do follow the Church! I think abortion is just as horrible and sinful as you do. But there are hundreds of thousands of people who are INNOCENT who have been killed because of the War in Iraq as well, yes?

I haven't "given up" on the innocents slaughtered by abortion, as you have insinuated. I have simply come to believe from past evidence and from my view of John McCain that abortion would've continued to be legal throughout his presidency. So to put it into equations, I thought those killed by abortions would be about the same under Obama or McCain, while I thought that those killed by the War in Iraq (why is it just, by the way?) would probably be greater under McCain. So in my view, I was choosing life.

Do you honestly believe that as a faithful Catholic adhering to all of the Church's doctrines (including the ones about the True Church of Christ being the Catholic Church - a dogma I don't often see enforced on this Forum, by the way) that I would willingly vote for the candidate who I believe would take more innocent human lives than the other? Well, I wouldn't.

Alexis

FUTURE AGENDA? This started in the 60's when the creation of medicare/medicaid starting pushing the cost of care out of the reach of the uninsured.

You know, my mother always said never to publicly discuss money, politics, or religion - and I've just broken all three rules in one post!

Alexis

Alexis,

I think you should spend more time prayerfully studying the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Your views here and elsewhere are impossible to reconcile with Catholic magisterial teaching and Tradition, especially as it pertains to social responsibility.

God bless,

Fr. Deacon Daniel

RSV Joshua 24:23 He said, "Then put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel."

There's a saying, "The Law is an effective teacher." It can effectively teach what is good or what is evil. And when evil, even those who should know better can accept the compromise that, after all, it's allowed, it's the law, it's really ok.

The Christian can find himself living in an alien, amoral, pagan environment, society, culture. He knows then his job is to transform it, to conform it to the Gospel. But when he is where the Gospel has already been acknowledged, however imperfectly, what is he to do when an active, militant, pernicious effort of de-evangelization is orchestrated through the Law, through government policy and through the media? Is it correct then to say "I also don't care whether the government allows gay "marriage" or polygamy, and personally don't think sodomy laws should exist. The government is not my moral compass, thank goodness. The government can decide "marriage" exists between a cow and a peanut for all I care." Those who oppose the Gospel certainly do care; proclaiming not ourselves by Christ, so should we.

To Fr. Deacon Paul, Fr. Deacon Daniel, and AJK:

Do you advocate the return of sodomy laws? Your posts seem to imply that you do. If that is indeed the case, could you please explain how you reconcile that with the Church's teachings concerning the pastoral care of homosexuals?

Sincerely,

Ryan

Ryan,

I realize that I was not specific enough. I was referring to Alexis' arguments on abortion and here:


Obviously to take such a position as a Catholic and a citizen cannot be reconciled with the stewardship we should exercise over how we are governed.

Sorry for the confusion...

FrDD

Dear Alexis,

Perhaps I am not understanding you clearly...

Are you insinuating that we are in Iraq to kill the Iraqis?

You do realize that, whether right or wrong, (and let's not forget the Democratic party was fully behind it at the time), we have liberated Iraq.

Many of our servicemen have been killed. In their honour, for liberating another country, we should not speak in fallacies.

The deaths of so many are primarily because of Muslim fanatics who have infiltrated--killing innocent people of their own faith..

If these insurgents are trying to make a point, their point is about as rational as cutting one's nose off to spite their face.

Again, I respect your opinions. Infact, some of what you shared gave me cause to think. I honestly wanted to understand.

I don't agree with you on moral issues not being important, however. I see that your generation has been pretty much conditioned this way by society, so I don't fault you. I was a little surprised to hear it from you though since you have been reared in the South...though I can see that the South is not immune from popular culture in the form of mass entertainment and the media, though your schools may be more conservative.

I also respect that so many are against this war which BOTH our Republican and Democratic leaders thought was a good idea. However, when speaking about the war, please let's be clear. Americans are not there to kill!! We have not waged war on the Iraqi people. In honour of our servicemen, in their very own words, we need to support the end of this exercise so that it can be deemed a success for the people of Iraq--or else all these deaths will have surely been in vain, don't you think?

Have a nice day!

Alice

From my perspective, my remarks addressed a much, much broader range of issues noted in the post to which I was responding than just to sodomy laws. Nevertheless, your question is a fair one, but the basis of the question needs clarification.

Has the "Church's teachings concerning the pastoral care of homosexuals" advocated that sodomy laws be repealed? Does the teaching condone sodomy under certain circumstances? Do you? Should polygamy or polyandry also be left without legal sanctions? Are sodomy/homosexuality and polygamy or polyandry on the same moral plane in the ethical teachings of the Church? Finally, and this goes to the central point I was raising, where are we now, and where are we going. The legal dictum is that silence implies consent. It is one thing for a law not to be enacted, thereby only indicating an implied consent (e.g artificial birth control). It is another when a law has been enacted and has spoken and when it's repeal can indicate an explicit consent (e.g. abortion). The latter can easily go from explicit consent to actual advocacy, and by that I especially mean legal advocacy, where the law then becomes an effective teacher of what is evil.

Personally, I think that this war with Satan has been somewhat lost. Personally, I think the demons are running wild. Every time I read a headline about a bizarre killing, I understand demonic possession, which can be temporary. Not all those possessed walk around foaming at the mouth 24/7. When obsessive passions take over a person, he opens himself to possessions.

Our society is only going to get worse and worse, and more and more pagan...The past three decades have increasingly desensitized a generation of people growing up to that which is impure, ugly, crass, immoral, unethical, etc., and they have even desensitized those who can see it differently.

As much as I love computers, I believe that the access of impurity which is readily at the fingertips, and even the chance of reading and seeing the most impure and demonic images and words, has forever changed us, and has corrupted a whole generation...

Sometimes I see the music videos of groups from my teenage years in the 1970's being advertised for CD's on television. I am always shocked at how innocent these pop stars look in their countenance compared to pop stars today, and compared to many people in the younger generation.

That is only one thing, however. Personally, I have given up. All the things we are fighting will be the law of the land and because of our influence, the laws of other countries...

Science will not stop, sexuality in the media and in our entertaiment and music industries will not stop, the gay agenda will not stop, pornography will not stop, nothing that is unchristian or impure will stop.

It is kind of funny how when AIDS first came about, I thought a new era of conservative morals would be ushered in. Those days now seem conservative in comparison.

We are on a runaway train...I don't believe that politics will help--conservatives (and I am one, and I thank Pres. Bush for his moral and Christian courage in trying) just put a temporary halt on what seems to be inevitable.

Only Christ can help us and have mercy on us, and woe to us when He does.

Alice, thoroughly discouraged

Fr. Deacon:

Of course I am aware that Church teaching does not condone sodomy in any case, and neither do I, and I'm a bit perplexed as to why you pose that question.

Let me make my position clear, so that it not be misunderstood. While I accept as true the consistent witness of Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Church that all sexual acts outside of marriage are sinful, I question what good will come from criminalizing homosexual acts that are between consenting adults. What would be the penalty for violating the law? How are the laws to be enforced? Shall we also outlaw all other sexual sins between consenting adults? How will such laws actually bring anyone to repentance? How will the support of Christians for such laws bring those outside of the Church to the faith? How will we appear other than as being mean-spirited by advocating such laws? Does not St. Paul teach in the Epistle to the Romans that the penalty for homosexual conduct is the very condition of degradation to which those who engage in such acts subject themselves?

Sincerely,

Ryan

I will have to respond to all the rest later, but I will say...

Father Deacon Daniel,

I will look at the Compendium, and will of course reconcile any belief that I ignorantly hold with the Teaching of the Church. It's my joy to do so, of course.

Alice,

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I don't think morals matter. I think morals matter a great deal, in fact. I'm honestly confused.

As far as the War in Iraq, of course I don't think we're there to kill innocent Iraqis! But innocent Iraqis are often the unintended victims of these conflicts, with most people placing the number of deaths in the hundreds of thousands. Yes, I suppose one could say we "liberated" Iraq, but only in a certain sense. New sectarian warfare wreaks as much havoc and destruction as Saddam's regime. Take a look at the life of the Christian population pre- and -post-. Not pretty.

You say that the Democratic party was fully behind the War, but our sitting President didn't even vote for it. Believe me when I say that I was the only person in my ENTIRE sophomore class in high school who was arguing against the War in Iraq before it began. And it is precisely because I care so much about our servicemen that I would like this to be resolved as quickly as possible. No, I don't think we can just rush out now that we've jumped in (which I still think was a gigantic mistake, costing the lives of thousands of our servicemen and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis), but I don't think we should just be standing around waiting for the Iraqis to get their act together, either. And McCain's rhetoric to me implied to me at the time that he would've liked to keep us in Iraq for longer than I thought necessary or appropriate.

I have a question for all here: since many of you are pushing that the laws of our government reflect or mirror the Teachings of the Church, should we be working to outlaw divorce?

Here's the thing. I am for the outlawing of abortion because it is murder, pure and simple. The evil of abortion can be arrived at irrespective of one's religious beliefs, as the Church tells us. But things like divorce and gay "marriage" are entered into by consenting adults, so there is no victimized party that is not self-victimized. Actually, I'd have to take that back for divorce, since only one partner needs to want a divorce to obtain one.

So should we be working to outlaw divorce?

The thing is, as far as I know, I believe (as I said before) in all of the doctrines of the Church just as much as any of you do. If having to believe that sodomy laws have to exist or that the state can't (mis)define marriage any way it wants is part of Church dogma, then if someone would quote the relevant material I will gladly accept it.

Alexis