Obama Visits the Pope
[Guest post by DRJ]
Barack Obama visited the Pope today, and Pope Benedict XVI took the opportunity to emphasize their differences on abortion and stem cells. Newsweek and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend must have anticipated this would happen because yesterday they published a pro-Obama rebuttal — “Is Obama More Catholic than the Pope?: Why Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the pope does.”
The article states many American Catholics are more likely to identify with Obama than the Pope on issues like abortion, homosexuality, and stem cells. It also portrays the Pope’s brand of Catholicism as an anachronism that suffers in comparison to American liberal-secular Catholicism and Protestantism.
Newsweek and Townsend may be right about American Catholics — they aren’t often on the same page as the Pope — but, if so, it’s a difficult day for the Catholic Church.
— DRJ
it’s a difficult day for the Catholic Church
Why? A little bastard spawn of a Kenyan bigamist and a Kansan underage hippie is going to threaten a tradition that predates Julius Caesar?
nk (7a7679) — 7/10/2009 @ 3:43 pmA lot of it depends on what is meant by “American Catholics.” There is a great difference between the group who attends Mass weekly and the group who is often derided as “Christmas Catholics” or are baptized and non-practicing Catholics. The media likes to lump them all together so that they — and liberal Catholic apologists like assorted Kennedys, Fr. Richard McBrian, etc. — can claim that social liberalism is much more widely accepted within the Church.
American Judaism has had the same thing for some time now. There is a gulf, most notably in the views about Israel, between observant Jews and those who are “ethnic Jews,” i.e. descendant from Jewish families but sometimes non-observant for generations.
JVW (fc6da8) — 7/10/2009 @ 3:50 pmThat probably should read “mainline” Protestantism.
Hoystory (08dea2) — 7/10/2009 @ 3:51 pmCome on, DRJ. Stalin said “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Where is Stalin, where is Stalinism, where is Bolshevism, where is Communism, and where is the Papacy? And Stalin did not need a couple of sockpuppets to talk for him.
nk (7a7679) — 7/10/2009 @ 3:52 pmDRJ – You could have added Nancy Pelosi to list of American liberal-secular Catholics based on her ignorance of church doctrine.
daleyrocks (718861) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:05 pmHoystory – Can you elaborate on your suggested edit?
daleyrocks (718861) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:06 pmFormer long-time Catholic here. A lot of people identify themselves as Catholic but don’t participate in church (our parish had 500 families on the roll but not many came to mass except on Christmas and Easter). I think there’s also a difference between liberals and conservatives in the Catholic Church just like other denominations. So I really don’t think either way describes the American church. Where the church is growing (Africa, for example) it’s majority conservative, but not here.
JEA (65a650) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:07 pmNewSpeak may wish otherwise, but Obama is to Pope like immoral is to Catholic. The parishes I work with are in no way closer to Obama. And liberal non-practitioners who do not follow the religion’s major tenets are not Catholic, they are something else.
Ray (50c3a0) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:18 pmJEA (4:07 pm), are you agreeing that Catholics who attend church regularly tend to have more socially conservative attitudes than irregular attendees? The data strongly indicates this to be the case. Scroll down and view the break-down between “Regular Church Attendance” and “Nonregular Church Attendance.” You will see a consistent chasm in approval of various social concerns between the two groups.
JVW (fc6da8) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:25 pmHoystory,
Many of the mainline American Protestant denominations are more liberal and secular, but I think there are regional differences. For instance, I was raised an Episcopalian and today that’s about as liberal-secular as you can get, but there are also many conservative Episcopal dioceses and parishes in the U.S. It’s not unlike the polarization we see in politics.
DRJ (6f3f43) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:31 pmThat’s my experience. Keep in mind that a lot of the regular churchgoers in my former parish are either older or Hispanic, both of which tend to be more conservative.
JEA (65a650) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:31 pmI just read Ms. Towsend’s article. I didn’t really want to, since I think the Kennedy’s are pretty much contemptible people and that Newsweek is just Tiger Beat for self-regarding Obamaphiles. What made me do it finally was the obnoxious headline that DRJ quotes above. Though it is not repeated in the article, we do get this obnoxious construction from Ms. Townsend: “Catholics back home won’t care [about the Pope’s disagreement with Obama on several issues], because they know Obama’s on their side.”
This may be the biggest piece of garbage ever retched out by a Kennedy — and is most certainly the most sophistic thing any member of that brood has ever written or said about the Church. If Ms. Townsend is a regular attendee of a particular church, I would think that her pastor would need to sit down with her and discuss with her the concepts of incredulity, heresy, and schism.
JVW (fc6da8) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:32 pmKeep in mind that a lot of the regular churchgoers in my former parish are either older or Hispanic, both of which tend to be more conservative.
No doubt, but I would also hazzard a guess that there is a direct correlation between one’s willingness to attend Mass on a weekly basis and the degree to which one is in communion with the Church’s teachings. My parish is generally young and white, Asian, and Hispanic, yet from talking with my fellow parishoners I don’t sense much deviation from the teachings of the Holy See.
JVW (fc6da8) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:37 pmThere are two diffent kinds of Catholics, those who pratice their faith and CINOs, just as there is two different kinds of Jews. To say that it is a sad day for American Catholics is a little overboard as anyone who has been baptised in the Catholic Church, but never received their First Holy Communion or were confirmed, is not considered a “true” Catholic except by those that don’t know any better (usually non-Catholics).
Obama will continue to push his pro-abortion agenda, and even those who are not Catholic but who have strong beliefs in their faiths, will begin to resent his dishonesty about this issue.
retire05 (14b261) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:38 pm“No doubt, but I would also hazzard a guess that there is a direct correlation between one’s willingness to attend Mass on a weekly basis and the degree to which one is in communion with the Church’s teachings.”
No doubt
JEA (65a650) — 7/10/2009 @ 4:53 pmIn other news, half of self-identified Catholics don’t actually lead Catholic lives. A shocker, I know.
HowdySir (0d70bb) — 7/10/2009 @ 5:05 pmBut then again, there is the Evangelical stronghold which is politically as well as socially conservative and blamed to a great degree for the polarization within the Republican party. In So. Cal, it is a force to be reckoned with.
I saw this at Tapper’s twitter. It won’t make a difference but at least he will continue to stand for the heart and soul of traditional Catholic beliefs. The Kennedys? Never.
Pope gave the Obamas a small booklet from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith about bioethical q’s
Dana (8d88ef) — 7/10/2009 @ 5:11 pmThe Pope doesn’t represent American Catholics? That’s not his job. He is supposed to represent God. Some Popes have been better at this than others. This is the same lost argument that “the Church has to get with the times.” God is unchanging. If you don’t like what God says, then you must change because you are wrong.
Bart998 (0a0a21) — 7/10/2009 @ 5:25 pmNo Catholic with any clear understanding of the tenets of the faith would write such an article. It is no surprise this came from a Kennedy either. Totally galling though that Obama had the unmitigated nerve to pass along a request from Ted Kennedy to the Pope to keep him in his prayers.
Mary (1dc631) — 7/10/2009 @ 5:26 pmJust a nitpick, nk: Julius Caesar was born about 100 years before Jesus, and well before the earliest Christian churches. ‘Tis Caesar that predates Catholocism, not the other way around.
Respectfully,
Steverino (1b3695) — 7/10/2009 @ 5:55 pmErr, Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus before he was Consul or dictator. It was actually his first big job at age 40 or so, a life-time job, which he obtained by bribery and fraud, and then passed down by will to his great-nephew Octavian (Augustus) and to all the rest of the plague of Caesars.
Not to nitpick, just pointing out our quaint traditions — not necessarily holy traditions.
nk who may be the reincarnation of Cleopatra as a big brown dog (8dc111) — 7/10/2009 @ 8:01 pmNO. He isn’t. He holds the opposing view on several key matters of church dogma. This makes him less Catholic than His Holiness.
The fact that, in America, his are the more “popular” views (and frankly I actually doubt that they are) merely makes him more popular, not more right.
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 7/10/2009 @ 8:55 pmWhile Julius Ceaser may have held a title that is the technical, classical title for the Pope, dones’t mean he was the first. There can not have been a Roman Catholic Church until after Christ, and thus no Pope.
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 7/10/2009 @ 8:57 pmAmerican liberal-secular Catholicism and Protestantism.
Both liberal and secular and also religious? Sounds like a contradiction in terms or an oxymoron.
When I see left-leaning people corrupting and dumbing down, as one example, the field of education (of grade schools and universities), I don’t know why the hell they can’t keep their paws off of religion, unless that religion happens to be funky and oh-so-hip (eg, Eastern mysticism).
However, if the surveys pointing to religiosity as tending to make people, regardless whether they’re liberal or conservative, are correct, than I guess a liberal Christian is better than a secular liberal.
Mark (411533) — 7/10/2009 @ 10:08 pm^ ie, religiosity tending to make people more generous
Mark (411533) — 7/10/2009 @ 10:09 pmLest ye forget, before ‘His Holiness’ served God, he served Adolf Hitler.
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 7/10/2009 @ 10:34 pmand the point is…?
steve miller (772b6e) — 7/10/2009 @ 10:59 pmI was unaware that American Catholics endorsed abortion, homosexuality, or stem cell research. I haven’t seen American Catholics arguing for partial birth abortion nor supporting the activities of gay activitists but Kathleen Kennedy must have a better insight on Catholics, given her family’s strict adherence to the teachings of the Church. But we can count on objectivity from such an impartial source and Newsweek’s historical hostility towards Leftists and especiallyc Obama.
Thomas Jackson (8ffd46) — 7/10/2009 @ 11:13 pmLest ye forget, anonymous assholes can post on the internet.
carlitos (730478) — 7/10/2009 @ 11:23 pmit’s irrelevant what Roman Catholics in American want to believe. The Pope and the Church set the belief system. Roman Catholics who don’t believe what the Pope asserts aren’t clever or cute — they’re disobedient.
If you don’t want to be obedient to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, why, exactly, do you call yourself “Catholic”? Is it because you’re afraid of being left outside the only source of salvation? If so, doesn’t it seem odd that you are trying to stay in the church even though your disbelief guarantees that you are no longer in the church?
When the Pope speaks of his own opinion, it’s his opinion. When the Pope speaks with the authority of the Vicar of Christ, what he says is what the Roman Catholic Church must believe and hold true. The things that the sweet children in Newsweek write about are cute, just like fingerpaintings are cute, but they are not Church dogma and they are not correct.
I just don’t get this “I want to be called ‘Catholic’ but I don’t want to believe the icky things of the faith.”
Show some integrity and stop calling yourself “Catholic.” You’ll sleep better.
At least, here on earth. Afterwards, not so much.
steve miller (772b6e) — 7/10/2009 @ 11:29 pm#30
Nice post.
Such Catholics are buffet Catholics like Pelosi or Kennedy. You believe or you don’t.
Thomas Jackson (8ffd46) — 7/11/2009 @ 12:12 amLest ye forget, before ‘His Holiness’ served God, he served Adolf Hitler.
Good thing that’s not a cheap, stupid talking point.
Anyway, I suppose so, in the sense that membership in the Hitler Youth as required by law constitutes “service”. By that logic, Barack Obama “served” Ronald Reagan if he held a draft card in the 80s.
In any event, history has shown that God has found a more reliable servant in Benedict than Hitler did.
Mars vs Hollywood (f062b9) — 7/11/2009 @ 2:56 amComment by steve miller — 7/10/2009 @ 11:29 pm
Couldn’t have said it better.
+100 – Thank you.
no one you know (7a9144) — 7/11/2009 @ 6:57 amComment by steve miller — 7/10/2009 @ 11:29 pm
Bravo Steve! Great comment.
The Emperor (bd9cf8) — 7/11/2009 @ 7:15 amThis may be the biggest piece of garbage ever retched out by a Kennedy
I understand the sentiment, but it doesn’t come close to even the top 100 in the Kennedy pantheon of despicable/criminal behavior, to wit:
– Joe Kennedy manipulating the stock market in order to pocket millions, while simultaneously screwing millions of American investors out of their life savings;
– Joe Kennedy getting into bed with the Mob in order to facilitate illegal bootlegging on the East Coast during Prohibition;
– Joe Kennedy forcing his mentally – disabled daughter to undergo a frontal lobe lobotomy, after which she emerged much more severely disabled than previously, and was immediately sent to live in an undisclosed nursing home for the rest of her life. The family never discussed their daughter’s whereabouts after the botched operation, and the details of her life were only revealed after Joe Kennedy’s death;
– Joe Kennedy sending his many hatchet men across the country with millions of dollars for bribes to local county politicos to encourage fraudulent voting in order to get JFK elected;
– JFK sleeping with Sam Giancana’s mistress while serving as POTUS;
– JFK sleeping with an East German spy while serving as POTUS;
– Bobby Kennedy convincing JFK to go along with the Bay of Pigs invasion;
– Ted Kennedy hired another student to take a test for him at Harvard – after being expelled, he signed up for a 4 – year hitch in the army; his father used his connections and power to get his time in the service reduced to two years:
– Ted Kennedy’s abandoning of Mary Joe Kopoechne after driving his car off the road into the ocean, then offering up the most duplicitous and self – serving explanation ever offered by someone who’s just gotten away with vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident. All covered up dutifully by the vast Kennedy sycophants in the MA press, political establishment and law enforcement.
My apologies for the long post, but that family has made most Irish – American families such as mine sick to death of their family’s terrible legacy, and it’s stain on the American character.
Dmac (e6d1c2) — 7/11/2009 @ 1:22 pmMs, Kennedy is grotesquely misinformed. However, Dmac’s post illustrates why Ms. Kennedy is so misinformed.
Learn about what real practicing Catholics believe and live here:
http://www.stthomasmore.net/home.html
newsletters of this org are archived on the website and provide much information on contemporary Catholicism.
drone (dd9f7b) — 7/11/2009 @ 6:55 pmTell me this is not ignorant racist hatespeech disguised as spirituality..
Why? A little bastard spawn of a Kenyan bigamist and a Kansan underage hippie is going to threaten a tradition that predates Julius Caesar?
this from NK your first post. I feel like commenting,,actually I feel like kicking his ignorant hateful ass..but if anyone can not see how much like the Hitler and the hate he spread against the Jews NK is then I cannot explain it..
I want so much to say what I feel but the rules are No Personal Attacks so I will just let the decent people read this and think for themselves..
VietnamEraVet (8918ab) — 7/11/2009 @ 7:39 pmPS please dont insult the Catholic Church by associating yourself with them..NK
Does anyone else feel the stench of this kind of remark?
What part of it is untrue? And who claimed sprituality? I thought I made it clear that I was talking about a strong tradition and institution. Barack “Goddamn America” Obama visiting the Vatican is like a fly landing on a rock (Wright brother Obambi being the fly and the Vatican being the rock). Of consequence to the fly, of no consequence to the rock.
nk (cb92c2) — 7/11/2009 @ 7:50 pmAnd aren’t you the same VietnamEraRearEchelonGoldbrick who left this comment in the other thread?
Guess conservatives are once again depending on liars to carry water for them and once again scream when someone discovers it…Hateful. fearful, lying racist, homophobic bigots..with a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other…No different from the Taliban, who also hate American ideals..
Comment by VietnamEraVet — 7/11/2009 @ 7:27 pm
nk (81764b) — 7/11/2009 @ 7:54 pmnk,
VEV is a Bush-deranged fool who always leaves in a huff because the people here are lying, racist, bigoted homophobic, scaredy-cat, poopy-headed, Christianists who hate America and its values. IIRC, he’s also a Truther. Now that I’ve summed it up for him, maybe he’ll leave early.
By the way VEV, I almost never carry a Bible around, so one hand is usually free.
Stashiu3 (3fc50f) — 7/11/2009 @ 8:04 pmBy the way VEV, I almost never carry a Bible around, so one hand is usually free.
Comment by Stashiu3 — 7/11/2009 @ 8:04 pm
I have hollowed my Bible out to fit a gun.
nk (d5dd10) — 7/11/2009 @ 8:08 pmI think VEV must have just finished up another stint in the nut hut. Hasn’t been around for a while.
daleyrocks (718861) — 7/11/2009 @ 8:09 pmHaving a free hand makes mag changes soooo much simpler.
AD - RtR/OS! (619f68) — 7/11/2009 @ 8:30 pmVEV likes President Obama, walks in the park, calling people chickenhawks, President Obama, bashing conservatives, French Vanilla ice-cream, the thought of VP Cheney and President Bush being perp-walked in chains, 9/11 conspiracy theories, President Obama, the DNC, long slow wet kisses that last for days, puppies, President Obama, calling people who disagree with him Nazis, dandelions, long screeds about stolen elections and unjust wars by fascist Republicans, and coming here to spout his delusional rants.
Turn-offs? Reality.
Stashiu3 (3fc50f) — 7/11/2009 @ 8:31 pmThomas Jackson,
Gallup ran a poll of Catholics three years ago which indicated that a majority of Catholics believe that homosexual relations and stem cell research are moral.
The fact that American Catholics have a different worldview than that of the Vatican priesthood is a pretty well understood phenomenon, having been observed for decades; Vatican teachings about contraceptives and masturbation, for example, are widely ignored by Catholics in the US.
You can respond, I suppose, that such Catholics are not real Catholics; but at that point you’re engaging in circular definitions … Catholics believe X because anyone who doesn’t isn’t a Catholic. That’s not very informative if the question is: what do the people actually going to Catholic churches, and professing to be Catholics, actually believe.
aphrael (9e8ccd) — 7/11/2009 @ 9:02 pmThe problem with your logic, Aphrael, is that a Church’s beliefs aren’t a matter of opinion and they aren’t subject to vote.
Put it another way: if a majority of Americans believed slavery was okay, would that make slavery right? Or are right and wrong established by a higher, immutable authority?
Steverino (1b3695) — 7/11/2009 @ 9:06 pmSteverino: I am not making a moral claim. I am not saying anything whatsoever about right and wrong.
I am making the claim that the only way to know what a majority of people who claim to be X believe is to ask them.
To then say that “well, then that means you aren’t X because X believes Y” may be satisfying, but it isn’t helpful at answering the question.
I mean, to use the numbers I quoted above, it looks like by some definition, 60% of American Catholics aren’t real Catholics. But … they’re the ones going to church, paying the tithes, etc. To claim that they aren’t “real catholics” and then try to make some statistical statement about what Catholics believe while excluding them just generates noise, not information.
aphrael (9e8ccd) — 7/11/2009 @ 9:13 pm#45
Catholics like Pelosi and Kennedy for example.
Such Catholics are Catholics in name only. If you do not follow the tennets of the church you are not Catholic. You can claim to be Catholic just as you can claim to be a donkey. It doesn’t make you one.
As for the Gallup polls, they are so convincing. I’d always shape my policies based on a poll.
Thomas Jackson (8ffd46) — 7/11/2009 @ 9:15 pmWell, I’m not saying you should base your policies or your beliefs on the poll.
I’m saying that if you want to predict how practicing Catholics are going to react to something, or what the odds are of significant tension between practicing Catholics and the Church hierarchy, you aren’t going to find the answer to that question by saying, well, everyone who disagrees with Church teachings isn’t a practicing Catholic. You’re going to find the answer to that question by polling practicing Catholics.
Maybe you aren’t interested in the answer to that question. But the authors of the article DRJ linked to were, and I am, because the answer to that question helps shed light on the answers to two other questions: what is the future political influence of Catholic teachings likely to be on American politics and how likely is it that the American Catholic church will end up fissioning off from the Catholic church as a whole.
Both of these depend on what people who claim to be Catholics think; even if the “Catholics in name only” get run out of the church, their number is going to greatly influence the size of the resulting rump Church.
aphrael (9e8ccd) — 7/11/2009 @ 9:27 pmAs for the Gallup polls, they are so convincing.
It’s interesting that when it comes to the major hot-buttom issue of abortion, a minority of Catholics (40%) in America believe that medical procedure is moral, while Obama, based on his sentiments regarding even late-term abortions, is more of a flat-out liberal, if not ultra-liberal.
OTOH, a larger number of Catholics compared with other Christians (or “non-Catholics”) do appear to express typical liberal opinions on other issues, particularly on out-of-wedlock births and homosexuality. In that case, Newsweek does have a point.
Moreover, one can say a lot of Catholics do share the attitudes of most members of the local chapter of the ACLU or NOW. Or that the well-known liberalism of, for example, the Kennedy clan and their ties to Catholicism do go hand-in-hand.
An odd contradiction to me in that the increasing leftism (or “progressivism”) of Western culture seemingly would automatically go against the grain of religion, Christian or otherwise. That it would naturally breed a mindset of anything-goes, feel-good secularism. So praying to the altar of Hollywood showbiz or Green-Earth environmentalism would theoretically be more appealing to such people. Or what’s happened over the past 50 years to much of the populace in very secularized Europe, where churches have increasingly become merely historic-only or quaint landmarks.
I still recall reading years ago how people in Mexico — to name one society closely associated with Catholicism — who gravitated to that branch of Christianity tended to be more (to paraphrase) Third World-ish, while Mexicans who gravitated to more of a Protestant mindset were more successful and stable.
Regardless, I’ll say the one, or only, good thing about leftist religiosity is that since religiosity in general apparently makes a person more generous, a liberal Christian — a liberal Catholic — is better than a secular one.
Mark (411533) — 7/11/2009 @ 10:04 pmAn odd contradiction to me in that the increasing leftism (or “progressivism”) of Western culture seemingly would automatically go against the grain of religion, Christian or otherwise
And as a matter of historical record, the liberal movements in 19th century Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy were all extremely anti-clerical.
aphrael (9e8ccd) — 7/11/2009 @ 10:09 pmApprehending the name of “Catholic” but denying the basic tenets of what is Catholic doesn’t make them “Catholic” anymore than calling myself a Chrysler makes me an automobile.
Those who deny the authority of the Pope to set dogma and practice are, by definition, not Roman Catholic.
However, it feels nice to call oneself Catholic, because it brings in all sorts of good feelings and transcendence without any of the necessity of, you know, actually conforming to Roman Catholic belief and practice.
You can believe whatever you want to believe, and you can call yourself a Catholic, but the Roman Catholic Church reserves the right to determine what beliefs comprise Roman Catholic theology. Primary among them is that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ who sets what is authoritative belief and practice, and (sorry to point this out to the Catholic wannabees) you don’t get to pick which theological and moral positions you want to believe.
I can set up a hamburger stand and pretend I’m a McDonalds, but only the McDonalds corporation can authoritatively mark those franchisees whom are “real” McDonalds. And anyone who calls his business a McDonalds but who decides that pulled pork sandwhiches are “Big Macs” has my bemused attention, but does not in any way make him a “McDonalds.”
Why this is hard to understand when it comes to what Roman Catholics believe but easy to understand regarding Chrysler and McDonalds is beyond me.
steve miller (772b6e) — 7/11/2009 @ 11:07 pm#49
Aphrael:
You consistently mistake Catholics with oractising Catholics. Just as there are people who identify themselves aS JEWS AND DO NOT OBSERVE JEWS RELIGIOUS INJUNCTIONS THERE ARE MANY SELF IDENTIFIED cATHOLICS WHO DO NOT PRACTISE THE TENETS OF THE CHURCH.
You cannot be a Catholic and support homosexuality nor abortion. Any more than you could be a Catholic and support rape, murder, and taking the Lord’s name in vain. Calling such people Catholic is at best a joke. Why would you describe Kennedy or Pelosi as a Catholic?
The influence of the Catholic Church is a matter of debate. Its separation from Rome is the fantasy of seculartypes who neither understand how the church works nor the people who believe in it. Churchs that have abandoned their faith are dying such as the Anglicans and Episcopalians. Its sad but true and one need only look at the UK to see what happens to religions that become flabby in their faith.
But cheer up the secularists are absolutely rabid in their religious beliefs.
Thomas Jackson (8ffd46) — 7/12/2009 @ 2:42 amTalk about ignorant.. NK posts this..talking about Obama and the Catholic Church
Why? A little bastard spawn of a Kenyan bigamist and a Kansan underage hippie is going to threaten a tradition that predates Julius Caesar?
That’s right folks NK would have us believe the Catholic Church predates Christ!! (Julius Ceasar born 100 bc died 44 BC..)
VietnamEraVet (8918ab) — 7/12/2009 @ 5:32 amNK another
Nk another Bible toting hate hate peddler..
VietnamEraVet (8918ab) — 7/12/2009 @ 5:34 amVEV has apparently escaped the asylum again.
JD (783baa) — 7/12/2009 @ 8:53 am…or else he just debuted as the new contributing nutbag columnist at HuffPo.
Dmac (e6d1c2) — 7/12/2009 @ 8:59 amI dunno. I asked “what part of it is untrue? Apparently, VEV disagrees me with about the Papal tradition having its roots in pre-Christian Rome, but agrees that Obambi is a “little bastard spawn of a Kenyan bigamist and a Kansan underage hippie”.
nk (138b5c) — 7/12/2009 @ 9:02 amComment by VietnamEraVet — 7/12/2009 @ 5:32 am
The Emperor (1f3684) — 7/12/2009 @ 10:36 amYou are wasting your time VEV. Here, red is blue. Black is white. Up is down and down is up. Good is bad and bad is good. What matters is the party you belong to. If that statement in question was made by you or some other anti-Bush, you would have been hearing calls for banning and censorship. But not so when it is made by one of their own. Forget it. It’s not happening. Hate is love and love is hate.
Hey, Emperor…some time back you called me a liar, and I asked you to provide proof of any lie I had told. Did you ever find one? If not, will you apologize to me publicly and admit here that you were wrong?
Steverino (69d941) — 7/12/2009 @ 10:42 am“Up is down and down is up. Good is bad and bad is good. What matters is the party you belong to.”
Lovey – We mostly care about honesty, which is why you catch so much abuse here. It is something of which you seem congenitally incapable yet blame others for your defect.
daleyrocks (718861) — 7/12/2009 @ 10:51 amLovey – What religion is Obama?
daleyrocks (718861) — 7/12/2009 @ 10:58 amTHERE ARE MANY SELF IDENTIFIED cATHOLICS WHO DO NOT PRACTISE THE TENETS OF THE CHURCH.
Of course.
That much is clear.
So: what percentage of self-identified Catholics in the US are people who disagree with one or more tenets of the Church, and what does that say about the ability of people who do believe in the tenets of the Church to motivate such people to particular political actions?
I find this entire conversation bizarre. When someone says “a majority of American Catholics disagree with the teachings of the Church on issue [x]”, they are making a descriptive claim about what a majority of self-proclaimed Catholics think; and, if the claim is true, then it may very well be a useful demographic fact. The assertion that “then those people aren’t real Catholics” doesn’t change anything.
aphrael (9e8ccd) — 7/12/2009 @ 11:02 amHere, red is blue. Black is white. Up is down and down is up. Good is bad and bad is good.
That actually is a good description of the mindset of a typical liberal (or “progressive”). Common sense often in short supply while ass-backwards sentiments are in abundance, as is the case with America’s current president.
Mark (411533) — 7/12/2009 @ 11:10 amAphrael, the author of the article claimed that Obama was “more Catholic than the Pope”. It’s an absurd claim, but she’s basing her claim on what some people who call themselves Catholic believe.
My point is that Church doctrine, and what it means to be Catholic, are not subject to opinion. So, to claim that Obama is more Catholic than the head of the Church deliberately ignores what being Catholic really means.
Steverino (who feels a really good curmudgeon could be of any age) (69d941) — 7/12/2009 @ 11:30 amCatholic laity has been inventing and reinventing the religion for 2,000 years.
Pope has final say but fact is the Church will, over time, yield to customs and beliefs so long as they are viewed as being consistent with the “teaching of Christ.”
Just look at the historical difference of how Northern European Catholics practiced in comparison to Southern. Evidence enough that Catholics are not monolithic.
But Barry? Barry doesn’t even cringe at a 3rd trimester abortion? The women who wrote that article is a blithering moron who should get back to the Supermarket and stock up on batteries for her Obama Toys. What a dumb ****, no wonder I can’t read a paper nowadays.
HeavenSent (641cde) — 7/12/2009 @ 11:38 amaphrael – Do you belong to an organized religion with any strong doctrine? Perhaps what you are struggling with is the difference of opinion between strong believers who feel people who do not follow doctrine should not call themselves members of the church and more casual observers of the faith. The Gallup poll you linked was beoken down that way. It does probably change things in peoples’ minds, you can see it in those poll results, but not necessarily in fact, or labelling.
daleyrocks (718861) — 7/12/2009 @ 11:45 amthe author of the article claimed that Obama was “more Catholic than the Pope”. It’s an absurd claim
The writer of the Newsweek article, if she wanted to be accurate, should have stated no more than that Obama was in sync with the majority of the American congregants of the Catholic church. And purely their political or ideological slant at that.
By twisting it beyond that point, she could just as easily claim that, for example, since most students at a high school don’t like taking tests, that any consultant brought in to improve academic performance, and who recommends that tests and pop quizzes therefore be dropped from the schedule, actually represented the school more than the school’s administration itself.
Mark (411533) — 7/12/2009 @ 11:49 amRay wrote:
Well, that’s just it: Catholics who actually go to Mass more frequently than not are far closer to the official teachings of the Church than are the Christmas-and-Easter churchgoers.
In 2004, Catholics gave 52% of their votes to George Bush, a Methodist, over John Kerry, who claimed to be Roman Catholic. More noticeably, 61% of voters (of all faiths) who attended weekly voted for President Bush, while the majority who attended church either infrequently or never voted for Senator Kerry.
The Mass every Sunday Dana (474dfc) — 7/12/2009 @ 12:15 pmThere are people who think that because my church does the Liturgy in both Greek and English; has pews; has frescoes and mosaics instead of Byzantine icons hung on whitewashed walls; does not separate the men and women; and does not require the women to cover their heads; that it is not really Orthodox.
I have been told that I was a sinner for attending the Liturgy and not accepting Communion.
It’s not a simple dichotomy between “practicing” and “non-practicing”. People can love their Church even if they do not live up to all its requirements. They can still not kill, not steal, love their neighbor, tithe to the church, contribute to its charities, even if they do not condemn masturbation and contraception.
nk (138b5c) — 7/12/2009 @ 12:26 pmaphrael wrote:
You needed to read further in the Gallup Poll you cited. Scroll down and you’ll find the poll divided into Catholics who attend Mass regularly, and people who claim to be Catholic who have “Nonregular church attendance.” It is there that you will find the greater differences.
The most striking similarities in the columns is between those who claim to be Catholic but do not attend Mass regularly, and (other) non-Catholics who don’t attend church regularly; in that, the numbers are nearly identical.
There is a word which describes those who protest against the teachings of the Catholic Church: it is Protestant. People are perfectly free to be Protestants; I just have a problem with people who call themselves Catholic who spend their lives proving that they are not.
The very Catholic Dana (474dfc) — 7/12/2009 @ 12:29 pmYou know, the very title of this thread, “Obama visits the Pope,” says something. Our President showed up at the Vatican, and I think that the First Lady even bowed to Catholic tradition and wore a head covering, but that was all they saw: they were tourists visiting a pretty place, took in the sights, and departed without understanding the first thing about Catholicism.
Amy Sullivan reported that the Obamas had finally found a church home in Washington, after five months of having friends and aides research the subject, the non-denominational services held at the Evergreen Chapel at Camp David. There will be no Reverend Jeremiah Wright to deliver fire-breathing sermons; Lieutenant Carey Cash, a Navy Chaplain is the currently assigned chaplain there. Clergy in the Chaplain Service are used to providing non-denominational, non-judgemental services; that’s what the military expects of them.
The very cynical Dana (474dfc) — 7/12/2009 @ 12:50 pmThe major of Catholic church goers do not support homosexuality nor abortion. Newsweek would have us believe that Kennedy and Pelosi are Catholics. They aren’t religious, if they are anything, they are self centered liars.
People can go to church, they can support it, but if they trun around and ignore the tennets of their faith, they are just visitors, Sunday Catholics, play Catholics. Steal from your neighbor, bear false witness, murder, and call yourself a good Catholic? Please.
Newsweek is to journalism what the Kennedys are to the Catholic religion.
Thomas Jackson (8ffd46) — 7/12/2009 @ 1:01 pmWell, I don’t even know why need to go so deep into this. My neighbor put it best, “Townsend’s article was intended to be disrespectful to the Pope and to the Church”.
nk (138b5c) — 7/12/2009 @ 1:09 pmRosary Joe Biden only got religious every six years once he was elected to the Senate.
daleyrocks (718861) — 7/12/2009 @ 1:25 pmnk,
I agree the article was intended to be disrespectful. Newsweek wouldn’t even capitalize “pope” in the subtitle. I left it that way in the post — in quotes — but can you imagine the objections if Newsweek had refused to capitalize “barack obama”?
DRJ (6f3f43) — 7/12/2009 @ 1:34 pmLike I’ve always said about the Kennedys, “The snakes St. Patrick missed”.
nk (138b5c) — 7/12/2009 @ 1:41 pmEmperor, still waiting on your apology
Steverino (who feels a really good curmudgeon could be of any age) (69d941) — 7/12/2009 @ 2:42 pmTeh One might be more in sync with American “Catholics” in their non-beliefs, but the point is, he can’t be more Catholic than the Pope, who by definition sets the terms of Catholicism.
It’s a witty headline, but empty-headed. Snark but no truth.
Catholics who don’t follow the teachings of the church aren’t necessarily Protestants; they are, however, supermarket supernaturalists who pick and choose what they want to believe and discard the rest as inconvenient or even wrong.
The thing is, as a Catholic, if the Pope says it’s true or determinant, then you, as a part of the Roman Catholic church, must hold it to be true as well. You don’t get to pick and choose what elements are true once the Pope has decided.
Teh One will soon learn what happened to Lucifer when he tried to usurp the position of the Almighty.
steve miller (772b6e) — 7/12/2009 @ 3:12 pmThe catholic church is the mother of all abominations, the whore of this earth, and they most certainly are not christians. If they were, there wouldn’t be any pedophile priests, but then too, I’m guessing that priests think that being a pedophile does not break the “vow of celibacy”???
Glad Imnot catholic (b1f594) — 7/19/2009 @ 1:21 pmIf they were, there wouldn’t be any pedophile priests,
Pedophile priests are indeed evil and despicable and yes, being a pedophile breaks their vow of celibacy.
Your logic leaves a lot to be desired, though. So…evangelical Christians aren’t really Christian because Jerry Falwell and Jim Bakker committed adultery, correct? And…every Christian who does anything evil vetoes all the other Christians living their lives right, correct?
The truth is, there are weeds and wheat in every Christian denomination, including the Catholic one, and Jesus warned us it would be so until the final harvest (Matt. 13:24-30), but also that it would be better for a person to die in the sea with a millstone around his neck than to lead a little one astray (Matthew 18:6-7).
Forgot that for a moment, did you? Or perhaps you need to read your Bible more (gentle smile).
the no one you know who is delighted to be a Bible-believing Catholic Christian (1ebbb1) — 7/19/2009 @ 1:47 pm