Faith and Politics

[daisan]

The Pope has renewed the call for Catholics to defend the dignity of life at every stage.

Yet this article discusses the problematic merger of faith and politics, stating:

"At a fundamental level, voters and candidates who are very active Catholics will always have a difficult time with the current issue divisions in the country," she said. "So

Comments

[seirra81]

My biggest problem is that they seem to not care about people beyond birth. There are 47 million people without healthcare, millions of people living in poverty, millions of children that don't have enough to eat. And no religious figure steps up to say "hey, this isn't right, we need to do something about this. children shouldn't be starving in the united states." In all honesty, the abortion issue ranks very low on my list of important candidate issues. Right now i'm putting quite a bit of weight on foreign policy, and not just policy so much as "would other world leaders think our president is an idiotic bumpkin or an intelligent human being." I guess I think on some level EVERY issue is a moral one.

[daisan]

I guess I think on some level EVERY issue is a moral one.

Yep, that's pretty much exactly what I'm struggling with. What's worse? Killing someone or inflicting misery upon them? I mean, I honestly would rather someone shoot me in the head than take me as a slave, or kill every member of my family and lop off my limbs. Who committs the greater sin in God's eyes...someone who has an abortion or someone who tortures people?

A question for clarification: who are "they" in your comment? Because the Catholic church (particularly the Pope) says stuff all the time about people living in poverty and free trade and human rights and all that. In fact, the US Council of Catholic Bishops recently called it a "moral and social wound to the nation" that there are people living in poverty in the US and called on the legislature to do something about it. http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=22654

[seirra81]

I actually agree with the pope in that article. Most of the time when I'm referring to anyone in the religious sense, it's Christians in general. Keep in mind that the people I generally talk about are the ones I encounter in person. Where I live there are a lot of Southern Baptists and they are so beyond ignorant, it's disgusting. They are like a bunch of Rush Limbaugh's running around (and tend to hero-worship the guy too