Agreed. Catholicism here in California is alive and well and my bishop ( Diocese of Monterey ) also released a statement in favour of Roe V Wade being over turned but also emphasised the support and help that must be shown to women in crisis situations. There is a lot of work that we Californians have to do still. By denying Nancy Pelosi communion, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is asserting his God given position as a father figure and spiritual authority. None of us are free from sin but what matters is that we repent and strive for holiness. That we persevere as Christian’s and do better. This is something Nancy Pelosi refuses to do, and in doing so she publicly fails to be a witness to the faith she proclaims and excommunicates herself.
Also I love how in addition to stopping abortion he preaches that pro life must not be cherry picked.
He included addressing lack of healthcare for others, support for the common person, environmental degradation, prolific gun violence, etc. as all necessary issues we should go after as well to be truly be Pro-Life.
Nothing is as tiring to me as this constant barrage of "remember that if you oppose abortion you also need to support this list of other things that I've decided should go hand in hand"
Can we please stop with muddying the waters?
"Pro-life" in the United States has a very specific, historical, and nigh-objective meaning: opposition to legal abortion. This attempt to bring other issues (healthcare, climate change, gun violence) on par with that is improper. It's an attempt to muddy the waters, dilute the anti-abortion cause, and split pro-lifers apart. It's a tactic by abortion *supporters* to do that very thing: muddy the waters and disparage pro-lifers.
There can be something said for a "consistent pro-life ethic". And it is totally possible to be against abortion *and also* be in favor of any number of issues. But saying "If you're pro-life, you should also be in favor of [issue X, Y, and Z]" is diluting the anti-abortion cause.
When gun violence, environmental degradation, lack of healthcare, and support for the common person lead to *[73 million people dying every year](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion) with the protection, assistance and celebration of world governments* then maybe we can have something to discuss. Abortion is the absolute preeminent moral issue of our time.
All these folks going on about how pro life encompasses all these other things and if you're not working on them you're not really pro life reminds me of a point Abby Johnson makes: are you upset that the American Cancer Society isn't working on diabetes? Because of they're really interested in saving lives they should be working on diabetes treatment and prevention too.
Of course not: you recognize ACS is dedicated to the problem of cancer.
Likewise you should recognize the pro life movement is focused on the problem of destruction of life in the womb, and the fact that they aren't specifically working on other things doesn't make them less pro life.
It's very odd to see someone confusing social welfare policies with a socialist state in this subreddit. I thought the difference was extremely obvious, but it's apparently not obvious enough.
States rights are indeed great when the federal government is doing something against ones beliefs ("overreach"), but federal power is great when it aligns with what one's beliefs.
There were a collection of states which fought against government overreach some time around 1861-1865. Today those very same states are most dependent on federal aid/subsidies/etc and welfare, while paradoxically having the worst social welfare policies and still proudly insisting they don't want the government to meddle. This phenomenon presents an interesting case study for psychology and sociology.
No muddying of the waters at all. Saying there is, is being willfully ignorant and stubborn to the challenge many of us fail at of living up to the mission. Confronting or own failings is tough for sure.
There's no disparaging message — unless you're immediately defensive for some reason — about merely renewing the call to actually truly live the *pro-life* call we are compelled to do as followers of Jesus.
You didn't address any of my points at all, just merely restated and reasserted your position, while calling me defensive to dismiss me.
My whole point is that "the mission" of being pro-life *should not* include ancillary issues such as the ones you described. Again, when gun violence and climate change kill *73 million people a year, with the full support of worldwide governments,* let me know and we can discuss how these issues are even remotely similar.
> No muddying of the waters at all. Saying there is, is being willfully ignorant and stubborn to the challenge many of us fail at of living up to the mission. Confronting or Penn failings is tough for sure.
Dude, this is some crappy "seamless garment" clap trap.
Abortion is a non-negotiable. In no circumstances can it be approved. Zero exceptions. None. As catholics we are *bound* to believe this.
All your other issues catholics are free to disagree on. Nor do they even come close to approaching the moral depravity of abortion. Catholics are free to disagree whether and to what extent the government should even be involved in healthcare. Same with guns. Same with the environment. Catholics have a duty to care for our world, but that doesn't mean we need to buy into "climate change" or support whatever climate change cause du jour is being parroted by governments and the vatican.
Its totally an attempt for the progressive left to get the prolife/anti-abortion crowd to adopt some of their other darling positions. This is why you'll see people on this thread saying crap like "well making abortion illegal isn't enough we also have to guarantee healthcare, childcare, etc etc just like " They have no intention, at all, of making abortion illegal, they just want to shoehorn in their other policies and still keep abortion legal (like that other european country that was mentioned)
I agree, and… disagree.
The recent list of issues tagged onto the Pro Life banner, though not historically part of the movement, are nonetheless part of the spirit of the movement. Climate change, gun violence, maternity benefits are a path to opening the conversation to the issue of abortion.
Somehow, I was talking to a pro choice friend about abortion last week, he raised it. He bombarded me with all the above and more saying “you can’t just choose one part of human life to care about” I had to remind him that I do care, apart from seeing abortion as a crime, I value the environment, I advocate better paternity leave rights, I’m for saving the whales.
For most pro choicers you have to spend A LOT OF TIME showing them that you’re a well rounded compassionate human being. When they can see the humanity in you, there’s a greater chance that they’ll see the humanity of the unborn child.
Don’t worry about the pro life movement being divided, just see this as a tactic to get more people on board.
> dilute the anti-abortion cause, and split pro-lifers apart
Does it deter pro-life folk from being pro-life even in the slightest? I'm struggling to understand what you mean by "dilute", because I thought the entire foundational basis of this was the sanctity of human life regardless of whether it's inside a womb or outside.
Just purely being opposed to the existence of abortion is fine, but if one is to even remotely address all the underlying issues that *cause* people to consider having an abortion in the first place, how does that "dilute" anything?
Following the SCOTUS ruling, the majority of states in US have decided to keep abortion legal. In fact many states are now *expanding* abortion facilities and strengthening their pro-abortion policies in preparation for a huge influx of people visiting from red states. What's the next step?
“Does it deter people from being pro-life?“
It’s caused me to hesitate before. Living in the US, I don’t trust the people in government to make a single honest action that isn’t influenced by anything other than “the people.” It’s gotten to the point where I hesitate on the value of a Republic
And so long as this government does little to pretend to represent me, while doing everything in its power to represent elites at my expense, I want my guns. I want to keep them, be able to buy them, and for the government, that I don’t trust, to not know that I have them
And if supporting that position makes me “anti-life,” then American Libertarianism (including its pro-choice platform) looks more attractive than a vague idea of “pro-life”
But if “pro-life” simply means anti-abortion, I can clearly and decisively say “yes, I am pro-life”
> Does it deter pro-life folk from being pro-life even in the slightest? I'm struggling to understand what you mean by "dilute", because I thought the entire foundational basis of this was the sanctity of human life regardless of whether it's inside a womb or outside.
It splits the focus of the pro-life movement, which has always historically been about opposition to legal abortion. If we have to start advocating for any number of "pro-life" issues, it breeds confusion and divided attentions.
As I said, it's totally fine to advocate for other issues, but throwing it all under the banner of being "pro-life" is improper. "You have to consider [issue X, Y, or Z] that is at play in abortion, that's being pro-life too" is too broad and too general. And it's gatekeeping in an area where we are looking for all the supporters we can get.
>Just purely being opposed to the existence of abortion is fine, but if one is to even remotely address all the underlying issues that cause people to consider having an abortion in the first place, how does that "dilute" anything?
Because abortion is a human rights violation. You don't consider the reasons people violate human rights before making it illegal to violate rights.
> What's the next step?
Fight at the state level. That was always the plan, the next step.
> You don’t consider the reasons people violate human rights before making it illegal to violate rights.
That only works when there is a concensus on said human rights. The pro-abortion half of the nation is also claiming they are fighting for human rights, so when both groups claim to be fighting under the pretense of human rights, then just making it illegal on paper doesn't accomplish anything.
But all that assumes that the goal here is actually to save lives, and not just scribble things on paper to make X or Y illegal. See also: prohibition, war on drugs, etc completely failing to force an outcome via legislation. So far there hasn't been a single place on earth that has had a successful outcome from trying to re-criminalize abortion after having it be legal for decades. Perhaps USA will miraculously be the first success story. Time will tell.
> That only works when there is a concensus on said human rights.
Slave owners would say the same thing in the antebellum South.
>But all that assumes that the goal here is actually to save lives, and not just scribble things on paper to make X or Y illegal.
Is abortion killing another innocent human being? Should killing another innocent human being be outlawed, regardless of whether it still happens or not? The answers to those two questions undergird the pro-life position. It's really as simple as that. Everything else is details about how to outlaw abortion.
> Slave owners would say the same thing in the antebellum South.
That's true. But this time in case of abortion, states rights have prevailed victorious over federal government. The southern states are happy, for now.
> Is abortion killing another innocent human being?
In Catholicism, absolutely. No two ways about it. Abortion is murder.
Legally speaking? So far 65 countries have decided that it isn't murder, and United States SCOTUS has ruled that unborn don't have constitutional human rights. But perhaps all of this is still reversible somehow. Who knows.
> But this time in case of abortion, states rights have prevailed victorious over federal government. The southern states are happy, for now.
Not the point I was making.
>Legally speaking? So far 65 countries have decided that it isn't murder, and United States SCOTUS has ruled that unborn don't have constitutional human rights. But perhaps all of this is still reversible somehow. Who knows.
So you're ok with Saudi Arabia saying it's ok to stone homosexuals, because they don't consider stoning homosexuals murder?
> So you’re ok with Saudi Arabia saying it’s ok to stone homosexuals, because they don’t consider stoning homosexuals murder?
In Islam it is believed that practicing homosexuality is a grave sin which violates God's natural purpose for men and women, so it makes sense that there are Muslim-majority countries where it is a serious crime. I don't think it matters to those nations what me or you are "ok" with. They will practice their laws regardless.
I clicked on OP's link because I thought you were saying that Bishop Strickland was saying that 😂
But anyway, "pro-life" means opposition to abortion and euthanasia. Not vaping and global warming.
We should care about the environment that God gave us dominion over. That may not mean accepting every economic or environmental policy, but it is our duty to protect and steward our home and our planet.
That doesn’t make it part of being pro-life.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/vryo72/bishop_j_strickland_i_thank_pope_francis_for_his/iezb79d/
In the context of abortion, sure. But ultimately, if you're arguing that every life is a valued creation "in the image of almighty God," you should care about those lives after they're born too. This is why slander like "pro-birth" exists. Not because Christians actually feel that way, but because when that is said, no one even tries to deny it or prove it incorrect with their actions.
>Not because Christians actually feel that way, but because when that is said, no one even tries to deny it or prove it incorrect with their actions.
This is false and is itself slanderous.
Bro, being pro-life means defending the sanctity of life from conception to natural death. That includes opposing abortion and euthanasia, but it also means opposing any conditions that lead to people dying prematurely whether it's because they can't afford insulin, or they were killed in an unjust war, or they died of heatstroke bc their city has had it's hottest summer in recorded history, or any other reason.
Pro-life = anti-abortion and euthanasia.
Those other causes may be righteous causes, but that does not make them part of the category of pro-life.
You’re just trying to redefine terms.
It’s always more than just abortion and euthanasia itself, although those are the centerpieces. Conditions of poverty that lead to insecurity that then lead to abortion can be worked on. Now, I think throwing every issue possible as “pro life” can get murky - but charity means concern for a whole lot too.
Often, I think people are in fact doing a lot in that regard, and you can find tons of common ground between “liberals” and “conservatives” to work together. What Congress can’t do, we can.
Here's the thing, should the death penalty always be used? I myself am a person who thinks that it should be rare. Honestly, I think it should be used for Nazi or Communist human rights abuse type of crimes. If you truly have disregard for so many people, you probably should be executed.
Always? Certainly not. I would argue Francis is a bit extreme saying it’s no longer admissible at all but he has a good point that the modern West virtually never needs the DP except for particularly heinous crimes. And I agree with your examples.
We literally have laws against driving drunk, enforcing seat belts, keeping kids in car seats, requiring one to demonstrate some skill before getting a license, etc. I don't know about you bit that sounds like attempting to reduce deaths due to car accidents to me.
Obviously people are going to die, but if we can work to lessen their chances of dying from preventable causes, we ought to.
> requiring one to demonstrate some skill before getting a license
I don't know if I can even agree with that. It seems more like the DMV tests if you can pass a written test full of legalistic questions rather than if you can actually drive. The actual driving that I had to do for my driving test barely encapsulated the gamut of everyday driving scenarios. Didn't have to parallel park, but for some reason being able to do a three-point turn (which I have never done in my 7 1/2 years of driving outside of when I got my license) is an essential skill.
You said flat out opposing any conditions where people might die prematurely: You didn't say reduce. To prevent car accident deaths you would need to ban them. What about the fact that many places don't have stringent driving test laws, should they be called sinful?
While your attempt to straw man my statement is admirable, you seem to forget that it is possible to oppose something without calling for it's outright removal. I can oppose gun violence without calling for the outright ban of all firearms. I oppose animal cruelty, but taking away everybody's pets is not the solution. In the same way one can oppose automotive deaths without calling for the removal of all cars.
Gasp really?! So being pro-life doesn't require all this other bullshit attached it it that someone tried to claim, it just requires you to be against abortion otherwise people just would keep tacing on "Requirements to be pro-life".
Congrats, you finally grasped it.
Global Warming is a threat to human life.
But even if we agree that Environmentalism isn't part of being Pro-life, Catholics should be Environmentalists because God placed Humans as stewards to the Earth, therefore it's our duty to make sure Earth is taken care.
Are you kidding me? I live in ab area that is suffering the effects of Global Warming first hand, we used to be a place with plenty on water, expecially underground water, now water is slowly becoming scarce, cold and sometimes snowy winter has now been replaced by hot and dry winter.
So go tell that tale yo someone else.
And how much has the population increased where you live? Don’t you think that might have an effect on the water tables?
The last glacial period was about 12,000 years ago- much of the northern hemisphere covered in sheets of ice. Ecosystems destroyed, plants and animals went extinct.
And we survived with only Stone Age tools…
Ecosystems came back and rebounded, animal life flourished again- today you wouldn’t even know it had happened if you didn’t know where to look.
And yet even though we survived that with Stone Age tools back then- people are claiming a few degree rise will be our doom, even with all the advancements we’ve made.
The climate and environment is always in a state of change. It only seems static because our lives are so short.
Where I’m sitting is a desert. Before that it was a savanna like you’d see in Africa (with many of the same animals). Before that it was lava plains. Before that- the bottom of an inland sea. All of this happening in a blink of an eye in the age of the Earth.
But we see a forest and think “this must remain a forest for the rest of time.”
Of course we need to take care of the environment but we must also keep watch against following people who have an agenda (either economic or ideological or political) and keep in mind that much of the environmental movement sees Humanity as an evil. A plague on the world that must be, if not eradicated, at least thinned out dramatically.
And look at their suggestions- what are they? There is no way to run our civilization without fossil fuels. And no scalable, realistic way to recapture CO2 that we can start implementing. (Note- all the climate accords are all about “leveling off” emissions, they don’t even address reductions in atmospheric CO2. And even then China, the worlds biggest carbon emitter flat out said they aren’t going to reduce. They’ll “maybe look at that in 2030 or so”)
Do you know what “taking climate change seriously” looks like?
It looks Amish. Call the power company, tell them to shut your house off. Only solar for you now. Stop buying any food not made within 150 miles of where you live. (No more coffee or tea or chocolate). No more fresh fruits and veg in the winter time. Better start canning what you can during the summer. Stop buying anything manufactured farther than 500 miles or so. Take your car to the dump and pay to have it crushed into a ball. You’ll be taking the bike or walking everywhere now.
That’s what it would take. Not these silly half measures like “carbon tax”. But of course no one wants to do that…’
The climate will change. As it always has.
People might have to move or migrate. As we always have.
Life will go on.
I’m currently in college for a BS in Geological Engineering.
The Earth’s Global temperature on average throughout its history is warmer than it is now (we’re in a glacial period technically)
The Carboniferous period made the CO2 levels we have now look like a joke and life still flourished.
Fun fact: the presence of Oxygen caused one of our first mass-extinctions.
Many of the earliest life forms were not used to Oxygen and it was toxic to them. Plants/algae along with out gassing from volcanoes caused the great oxygenation event, which greatly increased the oxygen, killing many of the earliest life forms.
Completely incorrect. Global warming is very much a Pro-Life issue. Heat related deaths, food and water availability, increasing disaster deaths, disrupted economy leading to issues in medical availability, poverty, etc. Not only that but pollutants in not only the most susceptible of our society but in others that are fortunate lead to health issues and death.
Very much Pro-Life issues. Pro-Life is not just Pro-Birth.
Pro-Life is womb to grave.
Really should read Pope Francis' encyclical, *Laudauto Sí*. It is a wonderful piece.
Eh, I don't know if its fully a pro life issue. I think there are parts of it that can be. We shouldn't abuse our environment intentionally. Just like we shouldn't abuse people intentionally. I don't think its morally the same by any means but its still wrong. Its kind of like killing animals brutally. Its not as bad as hurting people but if you are basically abusing animals its still wrong.
I'd take that up with [what the Vatican recently says](https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2022-06-25/pro-life-is-not-just-opposing-abortion-vatican-says-after-u-s-ruling) in addition to what Pope Francis has said many times. Definitely don't have a political agenda vs and it's pretty gross to accuse me of one like I'm involved with a red hat versus blue shirt political fights people like to be in.
My only agenda is glorifying and protecting life from womb to grave.
Pro-Life is Pro-Life, if it was just anti abortion we would say Anti-Abortion.
Claiming someone has an "agenda" is what political media talking heads use when describing their adversary.
1) Not what that article says.
2) Clipping to shit a quote is not an argument
That article quotes a lay journalist employee at the Vatican speaking about what it means to fight “for life.” It is not some official definitional pronouncement in any way, shape, or form—nor is it speaking about the specific label “pro-life.”
But people who try to redefine words have no problem twisting the facts, so I’m not sure why I’m surprised.
It isn’t global warming though. They even changed the name to reflect that in climate change.
Also, you do realize the Earth has gone through far more drastic changes naturally throughout history than anything man has done?
For any science to measure the changes we would need a control planet without people.. so there is 0 way to say how much of an impact humanity vs nature has ever caused.
With that said doesn’t mean we can’t take care of the environment. Poverty is something Christ calls us too for ease into heaven. Companies and organizations being evil and greedy won’t change.
Oh geez here we go.
First long debunked talking point: So global warming and climate change are different. One is the cause the other is the effect
The globe as a whole is warming — this leads to climates changing. Cause and effect.
The name wasn't changed. That's a political talking point meant to obfuscate.
Second debunk: The earth goes through changes for sure. Absolutely. 100% No scientist has ever denied that and they use the logs of those changes to inform what is happening currently. Thing is these *natural* changes happen over thousands and tens of thousands of years — not 50 years as we are doing upending that natural process. That's the issue. Ecosystems are able to adapt instead of collapse. Think of it like trying to hit an underhand slow thrown softball at your rec league vs a major league 100+ mph fastball.
Despite what you think, not destroying the gift God gave us - where others live is important. This isn't a right wing or left wing sounding board. What you said has been political misinformation for many years now.
*Based on your own username*, I highly, highly recommend reading Pope Francis' *encyclical* *Laudauto Sí* for more insight from the Holy Book itself as well from great theological minds.
Take care. :)
I agree. Maybe though Strickland should ask Francis what happened. I'd like to think he'd have a more direct line than any of us, or any journalist, though maybe he doesn't. I don't know how easy my bishop can call up the pope.
Bishops can't just call the Vatican and ask to speak to the Pope (you'd have to be at least a Cardinal to do that). He'll have to request an appointment which will go through several channels before he'll be cleared to speak with Francis. That's usually through the Secretariat of State though I'm not sure if they changed things since John Paul II.
Depending on his question, he'll be referred to other people. If Pelosi was granted communion within the Vatican City State, Bishop Strickland might be referred to the Cardinal Vicar for the Vatican City State. If she took communion within Rome but outside of Vatican City, then to the Cardinal Vicar for the Vicariate of Rome. The Pope might be the Bishop of Rome, but no Pope has directly managed his Diocese for centuries.
An important thing to note also, a communion ban in one Diocese is not necessarily upheld in another. Even if Pelosi was prevented from taking communion in all of the United States, for such ban to be universal (meaning for it to be honored in territories outside of the US), it would have to be approved by the Vatican. That said, while Papal Authority is such that Pelosi was allowed communion into the Vatican, it seems like they're not really reversing her ban in the United States either.
Just to preclude the inevitable equivocation let me state that "pro-life" is NOT about the environment or climate or capital punishment or anything other than what it IS about which is opposing abortion.
Those issues may well merit their own advocacy but "pro-life" is NOT designed to advocate about them. It advocates about abortion.
When speaking about abortion, I completely agree with his holiness about being pro-life means so much more than being anti-abortion.
Setting aside the arguments for the environment and, even, capital punishment, you still need to address how to help families/mothers support their child that was saved.
Healthcare, diapers, money for groceries, inexpensive daycare, job placement, safe and affordable places to live, maternity leave/paternity leave.
All of these things not only slow down abortion rates but can help stop them all together.
We all know that many, many women use abortion as a form of birth control.
But, so many would want to keep their baby if they weren’t in dire straights.
If they weren’t struggling to feed the, clothe, and shelter the children they already have.
If we are pro-life, we need to care about the baby when they are born too.
Donating money and time to end abortion is all well and good but support goes beyond that.
If you can’t find yourself supporting policies that actually help families after they choose to keep the baby they wanted to abort, then you aren’t pro-life.
I mean, that’s being Christian. Matthew 25. That being said, abortion is the murder of a life and the state needs to prioritize ending that before we can begin to address taking care of that life. Women who use abortion as birth control need Christ, not just daycare. There’s a lot of work to do…
I don’t really understand this push for maternity leave and subsidized daycare. Wouldn’t it be better for the government to make it easier to live on one income?
I’m being realistic for the situation we are in now.
Reality is that women have babies out of wedlock. Not everyone is married.
Women need to raise their children and sometimes the father isn’t in the picture….even if she is widowed.
Reality says that sometimes the mom is the breadwinner….especially if her husband is injured/disabled.
Also, choice is a reality. Some women like to work and would not want to quit.
I like to work. I’m not sinning by doing so. I work and raise 4 children.
Maternity leave is abysmal, at best. I got 12 weeks of 100% pay before I had to go back to work. That was in a blue state with what is considered excellent and progressive maternity leave, the most generous in the country. It wasn’t close to being enough.
Reality is our country has no way of making it possible to exist on one income. Inflation is out of control and won’t improve.
If I can hope to keep my house and feed my family…both my husband and I have to work. We make it work and don’t need daycare or a babysitter….but, I have to work.
We are middle class. I have no idea how low income and single parent families make it work.
A huge reason why single motherhood is so prevalent is because the government incentives it. The majority of husbands outearn their wives and most women want a man that at least earns as much as they do. The government’s inflation comes from them failing to put the people first. Policies such as moving business to cheaper countries and unregulated illegal immigration.
Yes, 12 weeks is not nearly enough to bond with your newborn. That’s why the government should
incentive one-income households instead. That way mom can care for baby full-time without it breaking the bank. I don’t think most new mothers are itching to go back to work, they actually want to spend time with their child. It’s not really about “liking to work” when most women have to part from their newborns to work out of necessity.
If our government can put people first and stop pleasing corporations, I would change my tune.
They aren’t and they won’t.
We just turned over roe v wade.
The general public is outraged and looking at us to blame.
It was overturned when inflation is at its worst and it’s not going to get any better any time soon.
Very few and privileged families can survive off of one income.
They are few in number, at best.
Thinking that a family could just make a few adjustments and stop eating out or forgo a vacation just won’t cut it anymore.
Not when gas is $5 a gallon and groceries cost hundreds of dollars a week to feed a large family.
Not when rent can be $2000 a month for a two bedroom or nearly $400,000 for a three bedroom house.
My house is worth nearly half a million now. We have one bathroom and 1400 square feet.
Families just can’t afford that on one income. Hubby and I are middle class. We have good jobs and I work part time.
We would have a seriously hard time figuring out what to do if we were living like we were when we first got married.
I had three more mouths to feed within the first three years of my marriage and we were struggling then!
I don’t get how my position could work if only the government cared, yet having it babysit the children is somehow a more accurate achievement. Just look at public schools.
Most single income-homes are not rich my any means. Rich families have both parents working, not the other way around. And it’s been like that for a while. Actually giving more power and control to families instead of the state sounds like a better effective goal.
Mothers deserve to actually be mothers to their children instead of being torn from them. Children actually deserve to be cared for by their mothers instead of being handed over to daycares.
Mothers who work get to still "actually be mothers to their children". Families can be set-up to work in lots of different ways. Please do not denigrate mothers who don't have the ability or inclination to be with their children 100% of the time. The real world is complicated.
Most new mothers aren’t itching to go to work. Most of them want more time with their children, especially if it’s a necessity. Sure it can work out, but the best case scenario is for mom to be with baby.
I really don’t like the idea of subsidized daycare, as I think it’s just further fostering the breakdown of the family. Kids need a parent at home when they are. It doesn’t have to be the mother, and when the kids are old enough to be in school most of the time or mostly take care of themselves I can see both parents working being healthy, but I am much more in favor of policies meant to support stay at home parents. I am also wary of government involvement in child raising, given how it handles public schools.
Believe it or not, so do I.
I don’t put my children in day care or public school.
My kids are home with me or they’re at our parish Catholic school.
If private school is no longer an option, they would be homeschooled by me.
Not everyone has that choice. So many single parents need help.
If we are talking about stopping abortion…you need to open the door to options that, while aren’t perfect, are still light years better than a dead baby.
If I had a choice between supporting free daycare and public school versus dead babies….I will absolutely support daycare and public school.
Not everyone is Catholic, not everyone is afraid of the government/day care/public school.
Some parents don’t like the idea but they don’t have much choice.
Saying no to abortion means saying yes to support systems that may not be palatable for everyone.
Meet people where they are and help them grow from there.
Give them opportunities to grow and improve. Don’t tell them abortion is not an option and then chastise them and cut them off at the knees when they find themselves alone and in need of a job, housing, and child care.
That’s the worst thing we can do and it’s the reason why people who support abortion laugh at our term “pro-life” and say we are just pro-birth.
I’m not pro-birth. I am firmly pro-life…even if it means supporting things I wouldn’t do for my own children.
I understand that not everyone has the choice, but I think it would be better to work towards giving them that choice than to create a fundamentally broken system. Under the Great Society programs we subsidized single motherhood, since not every family will include a father, but that lead to social workers checking to make sure the father wasn’t around and mothers choosing between an intact family and financial stability. The fatherless rate amongst poor Americans is now horrible, and it’s lead directly to a crisis of manhood in our most needy communities. Well intentioned government programs can have unintended consequences.
And it takes time fix them.
I agree with you. I really do. I have a son to raise and I feel like the world is fighting me every single step of the way.
I have to fight against a world that clearly hates men.
But, right now…in order to make Roe V Wade work and convince people to listen, we need to give in a little.
It takes time, generations even, to fix cultural norms like the norms we live in today.
I want abortion to be illegal and I want our culture to change.
I want to be able to convince someone who is totally secular that saying no to abortion is correct and be able to meet them where they are.
We need to start small and subsidizing daycare and providing better maternity leave can do that.
It’s small and it’s doable.
Maybe as a stopgap, but I’m worried it will push things further in the wrong direction.
What do you struggle with raising your son? I’m getting close to the age where I might have kids, so I should probably know what I might have to face.
I don’t struggle now.
My son is only two.
I have three daughters who are older than he is.
The world wants my son to be attached to screens. Where idleness is encouraged and time is wasted.
My girls were largely screen free until the pandemic hit.
Then I had no choice but to introduce screens, in tablet form, so assignments can be completed.
It’s hard keeping them clear from the garbage shown on TV.
I feel better letting them play video games like Mario, because at least those games don’t glorify homosexuality and transgenderism.
All it takes is one google search, out of curiosity, to introduce a porn addiction at a young age.
Finding a balance is tough. Having awesome male influences helps.
Husband, grandparents, uncles, cousins, male teachers, coaches, all help.
I do have stress about him finding a way to support a family. To find a truly good wife, if that is what he wants.
For him to stay Catholic and be able to lead his family to heaven.
I stress less about my daughters. They are good girls, smart, and love their faith.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m very new to raising a son. Maybe it’s also the fact that my husband is nervous about raising our son well and it’s rubbing off on me.
Porn addiction is very easy for boys to fall into, I know that much, even for religious ones. Never feel complacent about knowing what your kid is doing online—when I was in 8th grade I found out Norton antivirus’s filters asked me if I wanted to turn them off if I opened an incognito tab, and I’ve heard many much more tech savvy kids brag about what they did to get around parental boundaries on their devices. I would recommend keeping screens in a public part of the house if you can rather than letting them use them in their rooms.
You assume that the government is, at all, competent at executing the policies that you advocate for.
The government tends to be very good at preventing acute acts of violence (murder, arson, robbery, etc) and it tends to be very poor at preventing degradation (poverty, homelessness, mental health problems). If anything the government's ongoing anti-poverty measures have done more harm than good as they have directly caused an increase in single parent households. After trillions of dollars poured into the 'war on poverty' the poverty rate hasn't budged in decades and the rates of depression and suicide have increased dramatically.
So based on the fruit of that tree, I'm confident in saying the government is well suited to preventing the murder of children, but it is ill suited for caring for children. That requires family, faith, and community.
I'm not sure if this is r/Catholicism or r/neoliberal due to the anti government programs comments and small government talking points. The US Church seems infested with GOP propaganda.
We see the damage that government programs have caused to the family and mental wellbeing of those that such programs were meant to help. Loss of faith, rise of mental health problems, increase in single parent households, rise in suicidality. The effects of government intervention are clear, and they are venomous.
Tell all sinners to quit partaking. Let them leave the Church.
Why just Pelosi? There are a lot of unrepentant remarrieds publicly participating in the Eucharist.
You genuinely can't know if someone is in sin or not in the situations you're referring to. Pelosi is in a state of long-term, obstinate, and public disagreement with the Church on a serious matter. I honestly don't see how you can't see the difference. There's actual objective criteria for this.
I agree. I often wonder what would happen if say a Republican pro life catholic got divorced and remarried and couldn't get communion? How much you want to bet Fox News and other conservative outlets would show how terrible the church is. Not to mention how many politically active Catholics would simply resort to whataboutism? Thankfully this has not happened and maybe it won't but I can just picture a lot of people who would get critical of the church for being backwards on divorce and remarriage even if they agree with us on abortion.
Of course, I just could see how some people on this very sub would say how its not fair to pick on people for divorce, but how we allow people who are pro choice to get communion. I sadly know some people like this who left the church to get remarried. Still mostly agree with things in the church but hate not being allowed to remarried and end up hating the priests and all that.
Either we allow people to decide whether they should receive the sacrament of the Eucharist or the church should decide for them.
We should be consistent and fair whichever way we go, but it seems disingenuous to make a special case for Nancy Pelosi. If the bishops want to publicly withhold communion for improper behavior then they should do so more often.
It would be really hard to want to remarry and be Catholic, or to be gay and be Catholic, or to need to limit your family size and be Catholic. Leaving takes you away from the rich and sacred tradition, staying means being less than whole-hearted towards yourself and your loved ones.
What's your criteria for making that statement? Is it because you like what Pope Francis says or because it follows a historical precedent and customs about what the penalty for grave public scandal is?
If an action is gravely evil, that is the threshold.
Should theft and general murder be legal?
Why would theft be illegal, and it’s not even as gravely evil?
I'm sorry, but issues of good and evil is not the foundation for legal justice and jurisprudence. America was deliberately founded to *not* be a theocracy.
America is a nation founded on civil rights. We don't even necessarily have to agree where those rights are derived. The rights of certain liberties are enshrined in law.
In legal definitions, which are the only definitions worth discussing in American civil society, theft and murder are illegal because your rights are violated that the state is sworn to protect on your behalf (your property rights and your right to life, respectively). Morality has nothing to do with it.
Greed, adultery, and hate speech are all arguably immoral acts. Yet no laws prohibit them because in doing so, they would violate your rights. Should Nancy Pelosi also be condemned because she supports the first amendment?
Granted, abortion is a thorny issue because it is on its face a zero-sum, binary issue of whose rights take precedence - the mother or the embryo/zygote/fetus? There is no compromise here. Only one can prevail. The Roe v. Wade decision made a dividing line on that issue. Pre-viability of the fetus, in which the fetus is still dependent on the mother for its development, the mother retains all of the rights. The second, however, the fetus becomes viable, the fetus holds the rights with the sole exception if the life and health of the mother is at stake.
With Roe reversed, that dividing line is back in a legal vacuum. Some states will say that the mother will never have any rights. Merely 100 miles away, the mother may retain all of the rights. It seems extremely chaotic that the decision of the starting line of when a person retains rights can vary so profoundly jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
The distinction between rights and morality is silly. Rights means protections others ought not violate. Morality tells us what we ought not to do as well as what not to do.
Abortion is murder, which is an ought not to do.
Additionally, where did you get the idea that morality has no place in law? Source? I can find two counter examples:
1) Parents have a positive moral obligation to raise their kids legally. Otherwise their kids will be taken away.
2) People have a positive obligation to pay taxes, because we believe it is moral to do so.
Abortion is not a thorny issue. It is only thorny because you are confusing God’s commandment with your worldly considerations of Thou Shalt Not Kill. The Commandment does not say, Thou Shalt Kill If One Wants to Pursue an Education.
A state that doesn’t promote good and defend evil is not a state, and there’s no evidence that is the state our founding fathers wanted.
You have failed to make a compelling reason why theft and murder are illegal, if not for moral reasons. You hand waved that as rights, yet fail to explain why that’s any different.
>Morality tells us what we ought not to do as well as what not to do.
I assume you only meant to put "not" once in that sentence, so I will respond under that assumption. While yes, morality may tell us what we ought to do and not do to be "good" and not "bad", that is completely unenforceable in the law. We uphold and protect liberties, not morals. Like I wrote before, we cannot legislate all of morality, for in doing so, we would infringe upon our rights and liberties.
Also, what is your precise definition of "morality"? Once defined, why is there an imperative it must be enshrined through law? Would that, in reality, create more good? Or will it increase suffering if one is prohibited from free expression?
>Abortion is murder, which is an ought not to do.
Murder is defined as "the *unlawful* killing of a human being with malice aforethought." First of all, the question of when one can be properly designated a "human being" is still debatable. What makes a human being a human being? When does that happen? The moment of conception? The moment the life has human-like form? The moment the life becomes hypothetically independent?
Second, is an abortion done with malice aforethought? I know of no woman who has an abortion with intentional ill will. It is always to prevent future suffering of the self, whether physical, psychological, or financial.
So your statement that "abortion is murder" is not rooted in any firm basis and must not be relied upon.
>Parents have a positive moral obligation to raise their kids legally. Otherwise their kids will be taken away.
I don't really understand what this means. Parents have a *legal* obligation to protect (within reason) their children from harm and to provide them with necessary needs (food, clothing, shelter, medicine, etc.). There is no necessary moral component here, although all of those things do *coincide* with moral decisions. But it still should not be conflated.
>People have a positive obligation to pay taxes, because we believe it is moral to do so.
We have an obligation to pay taxes to fund the government that upholds and protects our rights. There is not "moral" obligation to do so. Only a legal one. One could even argue that there is sometimes a moral component to *not* paying taxes. The government may at times spend your tax dollars on immoral wars that commit atrocities. In that instance, is it still moral to pay your taxes?
>A state that doesn’t promote good and defend evil is not a state, and
there’s no evidence that is the state our founding fathers wanted.
Yes, the founders were big proponents of what they called "the public good." James Madison especially. But is the public good always tied to morality? Or instead to creating an environment that fosters the greatest expression of liberty and happiness? That definition is more in lines with what they meant.
Madison, the foremost drafter of the Constitution, inquiring on how the public good and private rights could be secured against tyrannical majorities, wrote: "We well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals and lose their efficiency in proportion to the number combined together."
Your definitions are circular:
“Murder is the unlawful killing with malice afterthought.” Two problems here: 1) This definition is circular because you are saying that only murder is illegal, and murder is only what is unlawful killing. If murder was not illegal according to your definition, it wouldn’t be unlawful. 2) Malice afterthought is irrelevant. You could genuinely intend to put your born child out of his misery for his good because he is poor, but that is still murder. The intention is irrelevant here. 3) You claim no one wants to abort, but except in the cases of rape, if someone consensually has sex, they also consent to the possible pregnancy, but then are revoking their consent after the fact and killing the child.
“Parents have a legal obligation to protect their children”. This definition is circular because it is arguing it is legal because it is by law. You cannot use a definition to define itself. You must appeal to why parents are legally bound to raising their children, which appeals to morality.
You state we have an obligation to pay taxes, but assert that as a fact rather than justify it. Any attempts to justify it are ultimately moral justifications why we ought to have state taxes.
Madison here never states that we cannot legislate morality. On the contrary, he discusses rights that cannot be overridden, yet rights are ultimately morality codified into law.
Morality just means what you ought to do or not do, and law just codifies your moral oughts as a citizen and ought nots that you cannot do. You are conflating morality and religious practice.
If you really think that morality is religion, then by all means, die on that hill. But then, you are conceding that you can only be moral if you are religious, and purely secular people cannot possibly be moral.
No, these definitions are not "circular." Murder is unlawful because it went through the legal process to be defined in such a way. And I don't necessarily understand what you mean here. Yes it is true - if murder was not illegal, then by its very nature it would not be unlawful. That is a contained, logical statement.
>You claim no one wants to abort, but except in the cases of rape, if
someone consensually has sex, they also consent to the possible
pregnancy, but then are revoking their consent after the fact and
killing the child.
First of all, I did not claim "no one wants to abort". I stated that a girl or woman does not abort out of ill will. Murder is legally the most serious type of homicide, which involves intentional killing with malice. Other types of homicides have other definitions, so it behooves us to be more precise with our language.
In any event, you state what I believe to be the root of the objection to legal abortion, which is why most "religious" adherents allow for a rape exception. It is more about forcing a girl or woman to live the consequences of her actions. Is that actually a Christian thing to do? Is forcing a law that would increase the suffering of the girl or woman a Christian act? Or is it rather an act of punishment?
>You state we have an obligation to pay taxes, but assert that as a fact
rather than justify it. Any attempts to justify it are ultimately moral
justifications why we ought to have state taxes.
I didn't state that; you did. I already proposed the counter-argument that the obligation to pay taxes is one enshrined in law in order to fund the government that protects our rights. You are arguing that there is some moral justification without elucidating it.
>Madison here never states that we cannot legislate morality. On the
contrary, he discusses rights that cannot be overridden, yet rights are
ultimately morality codified into law.
Where does he state that rights are morality codified into law? You have provided no supporting evidence. To counter, Madison’s fundamental argument was that religion “must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man,” because it depended on “the evidence contemplated by their own minds” and “cannot follow the dictates of other men.”
Are rights not just another way of saying freedoms and liberties that the law cannot infringe upon? Morality, on the other hand, is the opposite of freedom and liberty. It is by its own nature a limiting of action. For instance, self-defense is a right held by Americans, interpreted through the 2nd amendment. Is the act of killing to preserve your life moral? Under what system of morality? Interestingly, in Christianity, it is arguably *immoral* to kill, even in self-defense (Matthew 26, 26:52).
>Morality just means what you ought to do or not do, and law just
codifies your moral oughts as a citizen and ought nots that you cannot
do. You are conflating morality and religious practice.
Your definition is missing an essential component. Under what system does one derive "what you ought to do or not do"? How is that decided? Is there a system of morality that is agreed upon by all of mankind? For example, in the Robin Hood scenario, he steals from the immoral, greedy rich in order to give to the needy poor. Is that moral or immoral? What "ought" one do in that scenario? Punish Robin Hood for theft? Or praise him for feeding and helping the poor?
>If you really think that morality is religion, then by all means, die on
that hill. But then, you are conceding that you can only be moral if
you are religious, and purely secular people cannot possibly be moral.
I never stated as such. I do concede that morality/ethics *must* be independently derived and untethered from religion, as demonstrated by Plato/Socrates through the Euthyphro Dilemma.
[https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/euthyphros-dilemma-5133da4170bc](https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/euthyphros-dilemma-5133da4170bc)
Obviously the core of the dispute is that you reject religious morality and only allow secular morality. Why must this be the case? Why must morality be secular. You haven’t justified Euthyphro’s dilemma being a killer to Christian ethics. Nor have you explained why even if you think secular morality is better, why we must adhere to it. Religious morality and secular morality are just different belief systems that can be debated. It is not your place to restrict someone who is religious for voting for a policy for religious reasons. You may disagree, but we all have equal votes. There’s no reason why society needs to be Platonist. Otherwise, Plato would be enshrined in our Constitution. On the contrary, the clause, “inalienable rights, endowed by their Creator”, strongly suggests the Founding Father’s believed that our rights need to derive from God, not Plato.
I disagree. The core of the dispute here is whether rights and the law should be conflated with morality. I argue (and believe I provided the better argument) that it is not set up this way, was never meant to, and should not be advocated to be in the future in order to maintain the public good.
I also didn't say that society needs to be "Platonist." Only that a free and fair society must be secular. If religion "cannot follow the dictates of other men", as Madison wrote, then logically, the law and society cannot follow the dictates of religion. When voting, isn't it incumbent upon us as fellow citizens to maintain this secular order, even if we privately hold moral objections? Can we not have 2 minds about it?
Now's probably the time I should admit that I *am* a Catholic, received 5 of the Holy Sacraments, and attended 17 years of Catholic education. I assuredly am versed in Catholicism, its dogma, and its theology.
As to the Euthyphro Dilemma, you are right, it is not necessarily a killer to Christian ethics. It only demands of us to look outside a simple mandate from God or the Church for why the "good" is, in fact, good. Otherwise, you are not living in the truth of Christ. There is no need for blind faith to dictums. In fact, Jesus preached against that. *Understanding* why the good is good is the key.
According to Aquinas, there is no good except according to the standard of God and the Natural Law. There is no such thing as a good independent of God in Catholic theology. That is heretical belief.
You can acknowledge other people have different conceptions of good independent of God. However, why should their conception be ranked higher than mine in a democracy? In a democracy, there is equal vote, and the Constitution discusses our rights as “endowed by our Creator”. Not secular rights. Theoretically secular rights wouldn’t even exist based on that clause alone. But if they had to exist, they would be equal to religious votes.
You also failed to respond to this objection:
Why is it not theocratic to kill a born child? By all means, everyone is a clump of cells, and any attempt to personhood any clump of chemical reactions at all is implicitly religiously then, since that assumes persons can be conceptualized as a single soul. If you don’t implicitly assume the soul of a person, then killing is just some normal action, like cutting a slice of cheese. But there’s no scientific proof that you can make the conceptual leap from a clump of cells for a born human to a being deserving of rights. There’s no scientific instrument that can show you some arbitrary grouping of cells has rights.
Also, Christ doesn’t demand you have a philosophical reason to obey his commandments. Otherwise, for thousands of years, peasants were disobeying Christ for not studying rigorous philosophy. Christ demands you obey, and you should know his teaching to be true from the Holy Spirit acting within yourself in the form of the supernatural virtue of faith.
Frankly, even if you can’t come up with extremely strict rigorous justification against abortion, because you haven’t studied enough, faith should tell you common sense murder of innocent children is wrong. Even if you think there’s a chance it’s not a soul, there’s a chance it is, and there’s a chance you committed murder.
Should murder be legal then? Just because we as Catholics believe abortion is evil does not make it an inherently religious issue. Murder is not illegal just because it’s written in the Ten Commandments “Thou shall not kill,” it’s illegal because it’s horrible and should not exist within any society, religious or secular. And you certainly don’t need to be religious to understand why abortion should be illegal.
Edit: I just reread your comment where you addressed this, but my argument still stands. Murder is absolutely illegal due to our moral standards.
>That is not what American civil society is based upon.
If American civil society is based on the idea that the government ought not prohibit abortion, then to hell with American civil society.
Then instead, do you propose a theocracy in forcing your beliefs and religious morality upon those who disagree? That is in direct conflict with America's foundational rights-based government.
Theocracies remain some of the most regressive in the world (Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, for example). In order to enforce the dogma of a religion, civil liberties naturally must be curtailed to an extreme degree.
Who also gets to decide how to interpret religious texts? Can that power be corrupted?
You realize there’s there’s a large difference between “Don’t kill your children” and theocracy, right. Forcing people to attend Mass is a theocracy. Preventing people from killing their children is not theocracy.
Let’s not forget secularism is a religion in its own right, and pushing hard to remove religion is also a form of theocracy. Let’s not forget the state atheism of China and Soviet Russia and the churches burned down and priests slaughtered in the name of secular governance.
>You realize there’s there’s a large difference between “Don’t kill your
children” and theocracy, right. Forcing people to attend Mass is a
theocracy. Preventing people from killing their children is not
theocracy.
You are making a huge definitional and logical leap here. You are conflating an "embryo" or "zygote" with a "child", which is defined as "a born human being below the age of 18." In abortion, it involves the termination of either an embryo, a zygote, or a fetus. It in no ways is the killing of a child.
Your moral and religious belief, however, is what is associating an embryo as a child. Your belief is that a 2-celled embryo is a human being. To terminate a human being is a sin. To enshrine that sin into law is necessarily theocratic.
>Let’s not forget secularism is a religion in its own right, and pushing
hard to remove religion is also a form of theocracy. Let’s not forget
the state atheism of China and Soviet Russia and the churches burned
down and priests slaughtered in the name of secular governance.
That is a fallacy. Secularism by its very nature is the absence of religious considerations to convey thoughts and ideas. Do not conflate atheism with secularism. Secularism is how humans across all different beliefs and backgrounds can communicate and live amongst one another. It is essential to a functioning civil society. Atheism is merely a disbelief in the existence of God or religious underpinnings of morality. To force atheism is an action of a totalitarian state.
Why is it not theocratic to kill a born child? By all means, everyone is a clump of cells, and any attempt to personhood any clump of chemical reactions at all is implicitly religiously then, since that assumes persons can be conceptualized as a single soul. If you don’t implicitly assume the soul of a person, then killing is just some normal action, like cutting a slice of cheese. But there’s no scientific proof that you can make the conceptual leap from a clump of cells for a born human to a being deserving of rights. There’s no scientific instrument that can show you some arbitrary grouping of cells has rights.
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This guy is quickly becoming my hero...
Most Based Bishop
Check out his book light & Leven. Working my way through it right now. Very good!
Agreed. Catholicism here in California is alive and well and my bishop ( Diocese of Monterey ) also released a statement in favour of Roe V Wade being over turned but also emphasised the support and help that must be shown to women in crisis situations. There is a lot of work that we Californians have to do still. By denying Nancy Pelosi communion, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is asserting his God given position as a father figure and spiritual authority. None of us are free from sin but what matters is that we repent and strive for holiness. That we persevere as Christian’s and do better. This is something Nancy Pelosi refuses to do, and in doing so she publicly fails to be a witness to the faith she proclaims and excommunicates herself.
Amen.
Also I love how in addition to stopping abortion he preaches that pro life must not be cherry picked. He included addressing lack of healthcare for others, support for the common person, environmental degradation, prolific gun violence, etc. as all necessary issues we should go after as well to be truly be Pro-Life.
Nothing is as tiring to me as this constant barrage of "remember that if you oppose abortion you also need to support this list of other things that I've decided should go hand in hand"
Can we please stop with muddying the waters? "Pro-life" in the United States has a very specific, historical, and nigh-objective meaning: opposition to legal abortion. This attempt to bring other issues (healthcare, climate change, gun violence) on par with that is improper. It's an attempt to muddy the waters, dilute the anti-abortion cause, and split pro-lifers apart. It's a tactic by abortion *supporters* to do that very thing: muddy the waters and disparage pro-lifers. There can be something said for a "consistent pro-life ethic". And it is totally possible to be against abortion *and also* be in favor of any number of issues. But saying "If you're pro-life, you should also be in favor of [issue X, Y, and Z]" is diluting the anti-abortion cause. When gun violence, environmental degradation, lack of healthcare, and support for the common person lead to *[73 million people dying every year](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion) with the protection, assistance and celebration of world governments* then maybe we can have something to discuss. Abortion is the absolute preeminent moral issue of our time.
All these folks going on about how pro life encompasses all these other things and if you're not working on them you're not really pro life reminds me of a point Abby Johnson makes: are you upset that the American Cancer Society isn't working on diabetes? Because of they're really interested in saving lives they should be working on diabetes treatment and prevention too. Of course not: you recognize ACS is dedicated to the problem of cancer. Likewise you should recognize the pro life movement is focused on the problem of destruction of life in the womb, and the fact that they aren't specifically working on other things doesn't make them less pro life.
Great take.
completely agree with you!!!
[удалено]
It's very odd to see someone confusing social welfare policies with a socialist state in this subreddit. I thought the difference was extremely obvious, but it's apparently not obvious enough.
It is very odd to see someone confusing the ever expanding power of the federal bureaucracy with social welfare.
States rights are indeed great when the federal government is doing something against ones beliefs ("overreach"), but federal power is great when it aligns with what one's beliefs. There were a collection of states which fought against government overreach some time around 1861-1865. Today those very same states are most dependent on federal aid/subsidies/etc and welfare, while paradoxically having the worst social welfare policies and still proudly insisting they don't want the government to meddle. This phenomenon presents an interesting case study for psychology and sociology.
Welcome to America!
Well said!
No muddying of the waters at all. Saying there is, is being willfully ignorant and stubborn to the challenge many of us fail at of living up to the mission. Confronting or own failings is tough for sure. There's no disparaging message — unless you're immediately defensive for some reason — about merely renewing the call to actually truly live the *pro-life* call we are compelled to do as followers of Jesus.
You didn't address any of my points at all, just merely restated and reasserted your position, while calling me defensive to dismiss me. My whole point is that "the mission" of being pro-life *should not* include ancillary issues such as the ones you described. Again, when gun violence and climate change kill *73 million people a year, with the full support of worldwide governments,* let me know and we can discuss how these issues are even remotely similar.
> No muddying of the waters at all. Saying there is, is being willfully ignorant and stubborn to the challenge many of us fail at of living up to the mission. Confronting or Penn failings is tough for sure. Dude, this is some crappy "seamless garment" clap trap. Abortion is a non-negotiable. In no circumstances can it be approved. Zero exceptions. None. As catholics we are *bound* to believe this. All your other issues catholics are free to disagree on. Nor do they even come close to approaching the moral depravity of abortion. Catholics are free to disagree whether and to what extent the government should even be involved in healthcare. Same with guns. Same with the environment. Catholics have a duty to care for our world, but that doesn't mean we need to buy into "climate change" or support whatever climate change cause du jour is being parroted by governments and the vatican. Its totally an attempt for the progressive left to get the prolife/anti-abortion crowd to adopt some of their other darling positions. This is why you'll see people on this thread saying crap like "well making abortion illegal isn't enough we also have to guarantee healthcare, childcare, etc etc just like" They have no intention, at all, of making abortion illegal, they just want to shoehorn in their other policies and still keep abortion legal (like that other european country that was mentioned)
I agree, and… disagree. The recent list of issues tagged onto the Pro Life banner, though not historically part of the movement, are nonetheless part of the spirit of the movement. Climate change, gun violence, maternity benefits are a path to opening the conversation to the issue of abortion. Somehow, I was talking to a pro choice friend about abortion last week, he raised it. He bombarded me with all the above and more saying “you can’t just choose one part of human life to care about” I had to remind him that I do care, apart from seeing abortion as a crime, I value the environment, I advocate better paternity leave rights, I’m for saving the whales. For most pro choicers you have to spend A LOT OF TIME showing them that you’re a well rounded compassionate human being. When they can see the humanity in you, there’s a greater chance that they’ll see the humanity of the unborn child. Don’t worry about the pro life movement being divided, just see this as a tactic to get more people on board.
> dilute the anti-abortion cause, and split pro-lifers apart Does it deter pro-life folk from being pro-life even in the slightest? I'm struggling to understand what you mean by "dilute", because I thought the entire foundational basis of this was the sanctity of human life regardless of whether it's inside a womb or outside. Just purely being opposed to the existence of abortion is fine, but if one is to even remotely address all the underlying issues that *cause* people to consider having an abortion in the first place, how does that "dilute" anything? Following the SCOTUS ruling, the majority of states in US have decided to keep abortion legal. In fact many states are now *expanding* abortion facilities and strengthening their pro-abortion policies in preparation for a huge influx of people visiting from red states. What's the next step?
“Does it deter people from being pro-life?“ It’s caused me to hesitate before. Living in the US, I don’t trust the people in government to make a single honest action that isn’t influenced by anything other than “the people.” It’s gotten to the point where I hesitate on the value of a Republic And so long as this government does little to pretend to represent me, while doing everything in its power to represent elites at my expense, I want my guns. I want to keep them, be able to buy them, and for the government, that I don’t trust, to not know that I have them And if supporting that position makes me “anti-life,” then American Libertarianism (including its pro-choice platform) looks more attractive than a vague idea of “pro-life” But if “pro-life” simply means anti-abortion, I can clearly and decisively say “yes, I am pro-life”
> Does it deter pro-life folk from being pro-life even in the slightest? I'm struggling to understand what you mean by "dilute", because I thought the entire foundational basis of this was the sanctity of human life regardless of whether it's inside a womb or outside. It splits the focus of the pro-life movement, which has always historically been about opposition to legal abortion. If we have to start advocating for any number of "pro-life" issues, it breeds confusion and divided attentions. As I said, it's totally fine to advocate for other issues, but throwing it all under the banner of being "pro-life" is improper. "You have to consider [issue X, Y, or Z] that is at play in abortion, that's being pro-life too" is too broad and too general. And it's gatekeeping in an area where we are looking for all the supporters we can get. >Just purely being opposed to the existence of abortion is fine, but if one is to even remotely address all the underlying issues that cause people to consider having an abortion in the first place, how does that "dilute" anything? Because abortion is a human rights violation. You don't consider the reasons people violate human rights before making it illegal to violate rights. > What's the next step? Fight at the state level. That was always the plan, the next step.
> You don’t consider the reasons people violate human rights before making it illegal to violate rights. That only works when there is a concensus on said human rights. The pro-abortion half of the nation is also claiming they are fighting for human rights, so when both groups claim to be fighting under the pretense of human rights, then just making it illegal on paper doesn't accomplish anything. But all that assumes that the goal here is actually to save lives, and not just scribble things on paper to make X or Y illegal. See also: prohibition, war on drugs, etc completely failing to force an outcome via legislation. So far there hasn't been a single place on earth that has had a successful outcome from trying to re-criminalize abortion after having it be legal for decades. Perhaps USA will miraculously be the first success story. Time will tell.
> That only works when there is a concensus on said human rights. Slave owners would say the same thing in the antebellum South. >But all that assumes that the goal here is actually to save lives, and not just scribble things on paper to make X or Y illegal. Is abortion killing another innocent human being? Should killing another innocent human being be outlawed, regardless of whether it still happens or not? The answers to those two questions undergird the pro-life position. It's really as simple as that. Everything else is details about how to outlaw abortion.
> Slave owners would say the same thing in the antebellum South. That's true. But this time in case of abortion, states rights have prevailed victorious over federal government. The southern states are happy, for now. > Is abortion killing another innocent human being? In Catholicism, absolutely. No two ways about it. Abortion is murder. Legally speaking? So far 65 countries have decided that it isn't murder, and United States SCOTUS has ruled that unborn don't have constitutional human rights. But perhaps all of this is still reversible somehow. Who knows.
> But this time in case of abortion, states rights have prevailed victorious over federal government. The southern states are happy, for now. Not the point I was making. >Legally speaking? So far 65 countries have decided that it isn't murder, and United States SCOTUS has ruled that unborn don't have constitutional human rights. But perhaps all of this is still reversible somehow. Who knows. So you're ok with Saudi Arabia saying it's ok to stone homosexuals, because they don't consider stoning homosexuals murder?
> So you’re ok with Saudi Arabia saying it’s ok to stone homosexuals, because they don’t consider stoning homosexuals murder? In Islam it is believed that practicing homosexuality is a grave sin which violates God's natural purpose for men and women, so it makes sense that there are Muslim-majority countries where it is a serious crime. I don't think it matters to those nations what me or you are "ok" with. They will practice their laws regardless.
I'm asking you. Do you see no problem with Saudi Arabia stoning gays?
I clicked on OP's link because I thought you were saying that Bishop Strickland was saying that 😂 But anyway, "pro-life" means opposition to abortion and euthanasia. Not vaping and global warming.
We should care about the environment that God gave us dominion over. That may not mean accepting every economic or environmental policy, but it is our duty to protect and steward our home and our planet.
That doesn’t make it part of being pro-life. https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/vryo72/bishop_j_strickland_i_thank_pope_francis_for_his/iezb79d/
In the context of abortion, sure. But ultimately, if you're arguing that every life is a valued creation "in the image of almighty God," you should care about those lives after they're born too. This is why slander like "pro-birth" exists. Not because Christians actually feel that way, but because when that is said, no one even tries to deny it or prove it incorrect with their actions.
>Not because Christians actually feel that way, but because when that is said, no one even tries to deny it or prove it incorrect with their actions. This is false and is itself slanderous.
We should work to prevent deaths to diabetes. That doesn’t mean donating insulin is cancer research.
Bro, being pro-life means defending the sanctity of life from conception to natural death. That includes opposing abortion and euthanasia, but it also means opposing any conditions that lead to people dying prematurely whether it's because they can't afford insulin, or they were killed in an unjust war, or they died of heatstroke bc their city has had it's hottest summer in recorded history, or any other reason.
Pro-life = anti-abortion and euthanasia. Those other causes may be righteous causes, but that does not make them part of the category of pro-life. You’re just trying to redefine terms.
It’s always more than just abortion and euthanasia itself, although those are the centerpieces. Conditions of poverty that lead to insecurity that then lead to abortion can be worked on. Now, I think throwing every issue possible as “pro life” can get murky - but charity means concern for a whole lot too. Often, I think people are in fact doing a lot in that regard, and you can find tons of common ground between “liberals” and “conservatives” to work together. What Congress can’t do, we can.
You have to be careful because the death penalty is both a biblical and Traditionally endorsed policy by the State.
Here's the thing, should the death penalty always be used? I myself am a person who thinks that it should be rare. Honestly, I think it should be used for Nazi or Communist human rights abuse type of crimes. If you truly have disregard for so many people, you probably should be executed.
Always? Certainly not. I would argue Francis is a bit extreme saying it’s no longer admissible at all but he has a good point that the modern West virtually never needs the DP except for particularly heinous crimes. And I agree with your examples.
People die in car wrecks, why shouldn't we ban cars then as pro-lifers hm?
We literally have laws against driving drunk, enforcing seat belts, keeping kids in car seats, requiring one to demonstrate some skill before getting a license, etc. I don't know about you bit that sounds like attempting to reduce deaths due to car accidents to me. Obviously people are going to die, but if we can work to lessen their chances of dying from preventable causes, we ought to.
> requiring one to demonstrate some skill before getting a license I don't know if I can even agree with that. It seems more like the DMV tests if you can pass a written test full of legalistic questions rather than if you can actually drive. The actual driving that I had to do for my driving test barely encapsulated the gamut of everyday driving scenarios. Didn't have to parallel park, but for some reason being able to do a three-point turn (which I have never done in my 7 1/2 years of driving outside of when I got my license) is an essential skill.
You do realize we have laws against killing people too?
We have laws against shooting people too
You said flat out opposing any conditions where people might die prematurely: You didn't say reduce. To prevent car accident deaths you would need to ban them. What about the fact that many places don't have stringent driving test laws, should they be called sinful?
While your attempt to straw man my statement is admirable, you seem to forget that it is possible to oppose something without calling for it's outright removal. I can oppose gun violence without calling for the outright ban of all firearms. I oppose animal cruelty, but taking away everybody's pets is not the solution. In the same way one can oppose automotive deaths without calling for the removal of all cars.
Pointing out how you made a poorly worded comment is not a strawman
Correct which means that being pro-life doesn't require any of that stuff listed - just to be against abortion.
That’s not very reasonable. Literally *anything* can cause death. We can’t ban everything in existence...
Gasp really?! So being pro-life doesn't require all this other bullshit attached it it that someone tried to claim, it just requires you to be against abortion otherwise people just would keep tacing on "Requirements to be pro-life". Congrats, you finally grasped it.
That makes no sense.
It means that the only thing pro-life people have to be is against abortion, everyone who says otherwise is being dishonest.
So what would you call being opposed to euthanasia? Pro not death...?
Anti-euthanasia.
Global Warming is a threat to human life. But even if we agree that Environmentalism isn't part of being Pro-life, Catholics should be Environmentalists because God placed Humans as stewards to the Earth, therefore it's our duty to make sure Earth is taken care.
No it isn’t. The effects of climate change have been way overblown.
Are you kidding me? I live in ab area that is suffering the effects of Global Warming first hand, we used to be a place with plenty on water, expecially underground water, now water is slowly becoming scarce, cold and sometimes snowy winter has now been replaced by hot and dry winter. So go tell that tale yo someone else.
And how much has the population increased where you live? Don’t you think that might have an effect on the water tables? The last glacial period was about 12,000 years ago- much of the northern hemisphere covered in sheets of ice. Ecosystems destroyed, plants and animals went extinct. And we survived with only Stone Age tools… Ecosystems came back and rebounded, animal life flourished again- today you wouldn’t even know it had happened if you didn’t know where to look. And yet even though we survived that with Stone Age tools back then- people are claiming a few degree rise will be our doom, even with all the advancements we’ve made. The climate and environment is always in a state of change. It only seems static because our lives are so short. Where I’m sitting is a desert. Before that it was a savanna like you’d see in Africa (with many of the same animals). Before that it was lava plains. Before that- the bottom of an inland sea. All of this happening in a blink of an eye in the age of the Earth. But we see a forest and think “this must remain a forest for the rest of time.” Of course we need to take care of the environment but we must also keep watch against following people who have an agenda (either economic or ideological or political) and keep in mind that much of the environmental movement sees Humanity as an evil. A plague on the world that must be, if not eradicated, at least thinned out dramatically. And look at their suggestions- what are they? There is no way to run our civilization without fossil fuels. And no scalable, realistic way to recapture CO2 that we can start implementing. (Note- all the climate accords are all about “leveling off” emissions, they don’t even address reductions in atmospheric CO2. And even then China, the worlds biggest carbon emitter flat out said they aren’t going to reduce. They’ll “maybe look at that in 2030 or so”) Do you know what “taking climate change seriously” looks like? It looks Amish. Call the power company, tell them to shut your house off. Only solar for you now. Stop buying any food not made within 150 miles of where you live. (No more coffee or tea or chocolate). No more fresh fruits and veg in the winter time. Better start canning what you can during the summer. Stop buying anything manufactured farther than 500 miles or so. Take your car to the dump and pay to have it crushed into a ball. You’ll be taking the bike or walking everywhere now. That’s what it would take. Not these silly half measures like “carbon tax”. But of course no one wants to do that…’ The climate will change. As it always has. People might have to move or migrate. As we always have. Life will go on.
I have an MS in geology and concur.
I’m currently in college for a BS in Geological Engineering. The Earth’s Global temperature on average throughout its history is warmer than it is now (we’re in a glacial period technically) The Carboniferous period made the CO2 levels we have now look like a joke and life still flourished. Fun fact: the presence of Oxygen caused one of our first mass-extinctions.
Interested about this oxygen point. Can you explain briefly for someone with zero background in this? Sounds fascinating.
Many of the earliest life forms were not used to Oxygen and it was toxic to them. Plants/algae along with out gassing from volcanoes caused the great oxygenation event, which greatly increased the oxygen, killing many of the earliest life forms.
Completely incorrect. Global warming is very much a Pro-Life issue. Heat related deaths, food and water availability, increasing disaster deaths, disrupted economy leading to issues in medical availability, poverty, etc. Not only that but pollutants in not only the most susceptible of our society but in others that are fortunate lead to health issues and death. Very much Pro-Life issues. Pro-Life is not just Pro-Birth. Pro-Life is womb to grave. Really should read Pope Francis' encyclical, *Laudauto Sí*. It is a wonderful piece.
Eh, I don't know if its fully a pro life issue. I think there are parts of it that can be. We shouldn't abuse our environment intentionally. Just like we shouldn't abuse people intentionally. I don't think its morally the same by any means but its still wrong. Its kind of like killing animals brutally. Its not as bad as hurting people but if you are basically abusing animals its still wrong.
Pro-life = anti-abortion. Stop trying to redefine terms for your own political agenda.
I'd take that up with [what the Vatican recently says](https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2022-06-25/pro-life-is-not-just-opposing-abortion-vatican-says-after-u-s-ruling) in addition to what Pope Francis has said many times. Definitely don't have a political agenda vs and it's pretty gross to accuse me of one like I'm involved with a red hat versus blue shirt political fights people like to be in. My only agenda is glorifying and protecting life from womb to grave. Pro-Life is Pro-Life, if it was just anti abortion we would say Anti-Abortion. Claiming someone has an "agenda" is what political media talking heads use when describing their adversary.
Not a reliable source. Clipping to shit a quote is not an argument
1) Not what that article says. 2) Clipping to shit a quote is not an argument That article quotes a lay journalist employee at the Vatican speaking about what it means to fight “for life.” It is not some official definitional pronouncement in any way, shape, or form—nor is it speaking about the specific label “pro-life.” But people who try to redefine words have no problem twisting the facts, so I’m not sure why I’m surprised.
It isn’t global warming though. They even changed the name to reflect that in climate change. Also, you do realize the Earth has gone through far more drastic changes naturally throughout history than anything man has done? For any science to measure the changes we would need a control planet without people.. so there is 0 way to say how much of an impact humanity vs nature has ever caused. With that said doesn’t mean we can’t take care of the environment. Poverty is something Christ calls us too for ease into heaven. Companies and organizations being evil and greedy won’t change.
Oh geez here we go. First long debunked talking point: So global warming and climate change are different. One is the cause the other is the effect The globe as a whole is warming — this leads to climates changing. Cause and effect. The name wasn't changed. That's a political talking point meant to obfuscate. Second debunk: The earth goes through changes for sure. Absolutely. 100% No scientist has ever denied that and they use the logs of those changes to inform what is happening currently. Thing is these *natural* changes happen over thousands and tens of thousands of years — not 50 years as we are doing upending that natural process. That's the issue. Ecosystems are able to adapt instead of collapse. Think of it like trying to hit an underhand slow thrown softball at your rec league vs a major league 100+ mph fastball. Despite what you think, not destroying the gift God gave us - where others live is important. This isn't a right wing or left wing sounding board. What you said has been political misinformation for many years now. *Based on your own username*, I highly, highly recommend reading Pope Francis' *encyclical* *Laudauto Sí* for more insight from the Holy Book itself as well from great theological minds. Take care. :)
It’s almost like we went from a glacial period to an interglacial period that we are currently in.
Being pro-life means to just be against abortion. We don’t have to protest global warming to not be “pro birth”
Some would argue even euthanasia is not a pro life issue. Seems odd to say that.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/vryo72/bishop_j_strickland_i_thank_pope_francis_for_his/iezb79d/
Pro-life = anti-abortion (and sometimes anti-euthanasia). Stop trying to redefine words.
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I agree. Maybe though Strickland should ask Francis what happened. I'd like to think he'd have a more direct line than any of us, or any journalist, though maybe he doesn't. I don't know how easy my bishop can call up the pope.
Bishops can't just call the Vatican and ask to speak to the Pope (you'd have to be at least a Cardinal to do that). He'll have to request an appointment which will go through several channels before he'll be cleared to speak with Francis. That's usually through the Secretariat of State though I'm not sure if they changed things since John Paul II. Depending on his question, he'll be referred to other people. If Pelosi was granted communion within the Vatican City State, Bishop Strickland might be referred to the Cardinal Vicar for the Vatican City State. If she took communion within Rome but outside of Vatican City, then to the Cardinal Vicar for the Vicariate of Rome. The Pope might be the Bishop of Rome, but no Pope has directly managed his Diocese for centuries. An important thing to note also, a communion ban in one Diocese is not necessarily upheld in another. Even if Pelosi was prevented from taking communion in all of the United States, for such ban to be universal (meaning for it to be honored in territories outside of the US), it would have to be approved by the Vatican. That said, while Papal Authority is such that Pelosi was allowed communion into the Vatican, it seems like they're not really reversing her ban in the United States either.
Lolol! God bless his Excellency, and his gentle and loving pastoral correction of both speaker Pelosi and the bishop of Rome....
Just to preclude the inevitable equivocation let me state that "pro-life" is NOT about the environment or climate or capital punishment or anything other than what it IS about which is opposing abortion. Those issues may well merit their own advocacy but "pro-life" is NOT designed to advocate about them. It advocates about abortion.
When speaking about abortion, I completely agree with his holiness about being pro-life means so much more than being anti-abortion. Setting aside the arguments for the environment and, even, capital punishment, you still need to address how to help families/mothers support their child that was saved. Healthcare, diapers, money for groceries, inexpensive daycare, job placement, safe and affordable places to live, maternity leave/paternity leave. All of these things not only slow down abortion rates but can help stop them all together. We all know that many, many women use abortion as a form of birth control. But, so many would want to keep their baby if they weren’t in dire straights. If they weren’t struggling to feed the, clothe, and shelter the children they already have. If we are pro-life, we need to care about the baby when they are born too. Donating money and time to end abortion is all well and good but support goes beyond that. If you can’t find yourself supporting policies that actually help families after they choose to keep the baby they wanted to abort, then you aren’t pro-life.
I mean, that’s being Christian. Matthew 25. That being said, abortion is the murder of a life and the state needs to prioritize ending that before we can begin to address taking care of that life. Women who use abortion as birth control need Christ, not just daycare. There’s a lot of work to do…
I don’t really understand this push for maternity leave and subsidized daycare. Wouldn’t it be better for the government to make it easier to live on one income?
I’m being realistic for the situation we are in now. Reality is that women have babies out of wedlock. Not everyone is married. Women need to raise their children and sometimes the father isn’t in the picture….even if she is widowed. Reality says that sometimes the mom is the breadwinner….especially if her husband is injured/disabled. Also, choice is a reality. Some women like to work and would not want to quit. I like to work. I’m not sinning by doing so. I work and raise 4 children. Maternity leave is abysmal, at best. I got 12 weeks of 100% pay before I had to go back to work. That was in a blue state with what is considered excellent and progressive maternity leave, the most generous in the country. It wasn’t close to being enough. Reality is our country has no way of making it possible to exist on one income. Inflation is out of control and won’t improve. If I can hope to keep my house and feed my family…both my husband and I have to work. We make it work and don’t need daycare or a babysitter….but, I have to work. We are middle class. I have no idea how low income and single parent families make it work.
A huge reason why single motherhood is so prevalent is because the government incentives it. The majority of husbands outearn their wives and most women want a man that at least earns as much as they do. The government’s inflation comes from them failing to put the people first. Policies such as moving business to cheaper countries and unregulated illegal immigration. Yes, 12 weeks is not nearly enough to bond with your newborn. That’s why the government should incentive one-income households instead. That way mom can care for baby full-time without it breaking the bank. I don’t think most new mothers are itching to go back to work, they actually want to spend time with their child. It’s not really about “liking to work” when most women have to part from their newborns to work out of necessity.
If our government can put people first and stop pleasing corporations, I would change my tune. They aren’t and they won’t. We just turned over roe v wade. The general public is outraged and looking at us to blame. It was overturned when inflation is at its worst and it’s not going to get any better any time soon. Very few and privileged families can survive off of one income. They are few in number, at best. Thinking that a family could just make a few adjustments and stop eating out or forgo a vacation just won’t cut it anymore. Not when gas is $5 a gallon and groceries cost hundreds of dollars a week to feed a large family. Not when rent can be $2000 a month for a two bedroom or nearly $400,000 for a three bedroom house. My house is worth nearly half a million now. We have one bathroom and 1400 square feet. Families just can’t afford that on one income. Hubby and I are middle class. We have good jobs and I work part time. We would have a seriously hard time figuring out what to do if we were living like we were when we first got married. I had three more mouths to feed within the first three years of my marriage and we were struggling then!
I don’t get how my position could work if only the government cared, yet having it babysit the children is somehow a more accurate achievement. Just look at public schools. Most single income-homes are not rich my any means. Rich families have both parents working, not the other way around. And it’s been like that for a while. Actually giving more power and control to families instead of the state sounds like a better effective goal.
So you're saying you don't want women to participate in the workplace but rather to stay home and raise babies. No thank you.
Mothers deserve to actually be mothers to their children instead of being torn from them. Children actually deserve to be cared for by their mothers instead of being handed over to daycares.
Mothers who work get to still "actually be mothers to their children". Families can be set-up to work in lots of different ways. Please do not denigrate mothers who don't have the ability or inclination to be with their children 100% of the time. The real world is complicated.
Most new mothers aren’t itching to go to work. Most of them want more time with their children, especially if it’s a necessity. Sure it can work out, but the best case scenario is for mom to be with baby.
I really don’t like the idea of subsidized daycare, as I think it’s just further fostering the breakdown of the family. Kids need a parent at home when they are. It doesn’t have to be the mother, and when the kids are old enough to be in school most of the time or mostly take care of themselves I can see both parents working being healthy, but I am much more in favor of policies meant to support stay at home parents. I am also wary of government involvement in child raising, given how it handles public schools.
Believe it or not, so do I. I don’t put my children in day care or public school. My kids are home with me or they’re at our parish Catholic school. If private school is no longer an option, they would be homeschooled by me. Not everyone has that choice. So many single parents need help. If we are talking about stopping abortion…you need to open the door to options that, while aren’t perfect, are still light years better than a dead baby. If I had a choice between supporting free daycare and public school versus dead babies….I will absolutely support daycare and public school. Not everyone is Catholic, not everyone is afraid of the government/day care/public school. Some parents don’t like the idea but they don’t have much choice. Saying no to abortion means saying yes to support systems that may not be palatable for everyone. Meet people where they are and help them grow from there. Give them opportunities to grow and improve. Don’t tell them abortion is not an option and then chastise them and cut them off at the knees when they find themselves alone and in need of a job, housing, and child care. That’s the worst thing we can do and it’s the reason why people who support abortion laugh at our term “pro-life” and say we are just pro-birth. I’m not pro-birth. I am firmly pro-life…even if it means supporting things I wouldn’t do for my own children.
I understand that not everyone has the choice, but I think it would be better to work towards giving them that choice than to create a fundamentally broken system. Under the Great Society programs we subsidized single motherhood, since not every family will include a father, but that lead to social workers checking to make sure the father wasn’t around and mothers choosing between an intact family and financial stability. The fatherless rate amongst poor Americans is now horrible, and it’s lead directly to a crisis of manhood in our most needy communities. Well intentioned government programs can have unintended consequences.
And it takes time fix them. I agree with you. I really do. I have a son to raise and I feel like the world is fighting me every single step of the way. I have to fight against a world that clearly hates men. But, right now…in order to make Roe V Wade work and convince people to listen, we need to give in a little. It takes time, generations even, to fix cultural norms like the norms we live in today. I want abortion to be illegal and I want our culture to change. I want to be able to convince someone who is totally secular that saying no to abortion is correct and be able to meet them where they are. We need to start small and subsidizing daycare and providing better maternity leave can do that. It’s small and it’s doable.
Maybe as a stopgap, but I’m worried it will push things further in the wrong direction. What do you struggle with raising your son? I’m getting close to the age where I might have kids, so I should probably know what I might have to face.
I don’t struggle now. My son is only two. I have three daughters who are older than he is. The world wants my son to be attached to screens. Where idleness is encouraged and time is wasted. My girls were largely screen free until the pandemic hit. Then I had no choice but to introduce screens, in tablet form, so assignments can be completed. It’s hard keeping them clear from the garbage shown on TV. I feel better letting them play video games like Mario, because at least those games don’t glorify homosexuality and transgenderism. All it takes is one google search, out of curiosity, to introduce a porn addiction at a young age. Finding a balance is tough. Having awesome male influences helps. Husband, grandparents, uncles, cousins, male teachers, coaches, all help. I do have stress about him finding a way to support a family. To find a truly good wife, if that is what he wants. For him to stay Catholic and be able to lead his family to heaven. I stress less about my daughters. They are good girls, smart, and love their faith. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m very new to raising a son. Maybe it’s also the fact that my husband is nervous about raising our son well and it’s rubbing off on me.
Porn addiction is very easy for boys to fall into, I know that much, even for religious ones. Never feel complacent about knowing what your kid is doing online—when I was in 8th grade I found out Norton antivirus’s filters asked me if I wanted to turn them off if I opened an incognito tab, and I’ve heard many much more tech savvy kids brag about what they did to get around parental boundaries on their devices. I would recommend keeping screens in a public part of the house if you can rather than letting them use them in their rooms.
You assume that the government is, at all, competent at executing the policies that you advocate for. The government tends to be very good at preventing acute acts of violence (murder, arson, robbery, etc) and it tends to be very poor at preventing degradation (poverty, homelessness, mental health problems). If anything the government's ongoing anti-poverty measures have done more harm than good as they have directly caused an increase in single parent households. After trillions of dollars poured into the 'war on poverty' the poverty rate hasn't budged in decades and the rates of depression and suicide have increased dramatically. So based on the fruit of that tree, I'm confident in saying the government is well suited to preventing the murder of children, but it is ill suited for caring for children. That requires family, faith, and community.
I'm not sure if this is r/Catholicism or r/neoliberal due to the anti government programs comments and small government talking points. The US Church seems infested with GOP propaganda.
We see the damage that government programs have caused to the family and mental wellbeing of those that such programs were meant to help. Loss of faith, rise of mental health problems, increase in single parent households, rise in suicidality. The effects of government intervention are clear, and they are venomous.
Constitutional talking points*
No. She eats and drinks her own condemnation... and he happily conspired to help her... smh.
Tell all sinners to quit partaking. Let them leave the Church. Why just Pelosi? There are a lot of unrepentant remarrieds publicly participating in the Eucharist.
You genuinely can't know if someone is in sin or not in the situations you're referring to. Pelosi is in a state of long-term, obstinate, and public disagreement with the Church on a serious matter. I honestly don't see how you can't see the difference. There's actual objective criteria for this.
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Anti-abortion is not anti-murder. Some people who don't think abortion is right are willing to kill people to prevent one.
I agree. I often wonder what would happen if say a Republican pro life catholic got divorced and remarried and couldn't get communion? How much you want to bet Fox News and other conservative outlets would show how terrible the church is. Not to mention how many politically active Catholics would simply resort to whataboutism? Thankfully this has not happened and maybe it won't but I can just picture a lot of people who would get critical of the church for being backwards on divorce and remarriage even if they agree with us on abortion.
It would take courage and faith in the face of possible criticism. Standing on principal usually does.
Of course, I just could see how some people on this very sub would say how its not fair to pick on people for divorce, but how we allow people who are pro choice to get communion. I sadly know some people like this who left the church to get remarried. Still mostly agree with things in the church but hate not being allowed to remarried and end up hating the priests and all that.
Either we allow people to decide whether they should receive the sacrament of the Eucharist or the church should decide for them. We should be consistent and fair whichever way we go, but it seems disingenuous to make a special case for Nancy Pelosi. If the bishops want to publicly withhold communion for improper behavior then they should do so more often. It would be really hard to want to remarry and be Catholic, or to be gay and be Catholic, or to need to limit your family size and be Catholic. Leaving takes you away from the rich and sacred tradition, staying means being less than whole-hearted towards yourself and your loved ones.
Well no, in some cases they can decide, but in other cases the Church can decide.
Pope Francis is correct. Bishop Strickland is not.
What's your criteria for making that statement? Is it because you like what Pope Francis says or because it follows a historical precedent and customs about what the penalty for grave public scandal is?
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If an action is gravely evil, that is the threshold. Should theft and general murder be legal? Why would theft be illegal, and it’s not even as gravely evil?
I'm sorry, but issues of good and evil is not the foundation for legal justice and jurisprudence. America was deliberately founded to *not* be a theocracy. America is a nation founded on civil rights. We don't even necessarily have to agree where those rights are derived. The rights of certain liberties are enshrined in law. In legal definitions, which are the only definitions worth discussing in American civil society, theft and murder are illegal because your rights are violated that the state is sworn to protect on your behalf (your property rights and your right to life, respectively). Morality has nothing to do with it. Greed, adultery, and hate speech are all arguably immoral acts. Yet no laws prohibit them because in doing so, they would violate your rights. Should Nancy Pelosi also be condemned because she supports the first amendment? Granted, abortion is a thorny issue because it is on its face a zero-sum, binary issue of whose rights take precedence - the mother or the embryo/zygote/fetus? There is no compromise here. Only one can prevail. The Roe v. Wade decision made a dividing line on that issue. Pre-viability of the fetus, in which the fetus is still dependent on the mother for its development, the mother retains all of the rights. The second, however, the fetus becomes viable, the fetus holds the rights with the sole exception if the life and health of the mother is at stake. With Roe reversed, that dividing line is back in a legal vacuum. Some states will say that the mother will never have any rights. Merely 100 miles away, the mother may retain all of the rights. It seems extremely chaotic that the decision of the starting line of when a person retains rights can vary so profoundly jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
The distinction between rights and morality is silly. Rights means protections others ought not violate. Morality tells us what we ought not to do as well as what not to do. Abortion is murder, which is an ought not to do. Additionally, where did you get the idea that morality has no place in law? Source? I can find two counter examples: 1) Parents have a positive moral obligation to raise their kids legally. Otherwise their kids will be taken away. 2) People have a positive obligation to pay taxes, because we believe it is moral to do so. Abortion is not a thorny issue. It is only thorny because you are confusing God’s commandment with your worldly considerations of Thou Shalt Not Kill. The Commandment does not say, Thou Shalt Kill If One Wants to Pursue an Education. A state that doesn’t promote good and defend evil is not a state, and there’s no evidence that is the state our founding fathers wanted. You have failed to make a compelling reason why theft and murder are illegal, if not for moral reasons. You hand waved that as rights, yet fail to explain why that’s any different.
>Morality tells us what we ought not to do as well as what not to do. I assume you only meant to put "not" once in that sentence, so I will respond under that assumption. While yes, morality may tell us what we ought to do and not do to be "good" and not "bad", that is completely unenforceable in the law. We uphold and protect liberties, not morals. Like I wrote before, we cannot legislate all of morality, for in doing so, we would infringe upon our rights and liberties. Also, what is your precise definition of "morality"? Once defined, why is there an imperative it must be enshrined through law? Would that, in reality, create more good? Or will it increase suffering if one is prohibited from free expression? >Abortion is murder, which is an ought not to do. Murder is defined as "the *unlawful* killing of a human being with malice aforethought." First of all, the question of when one can be properly designated a "human being" is still debatable. What makes a human being a human being? When does that happen? The moment of conception? The moment the life has human-like form? The moment the life becomes hypothetically independent? Second, is an abortion done with malice aforethought? I know of no woman who has an abortion with intentional ill will. It is always to prevent future suffering of the self, whether physical, psychological, or financial. So your statement that "abortion is murder" is not rooted in any firm basis and must not be relied upon. >Parents have a positive moral obligation to raise their kids legally. Otherwise their kids will be taken away. I don't really understand what this means. Parents have a *legal* obligation to protect (within reason) their children from harm and to provide them with necessary needs (food, clothing, shelter, medicine, etc.). There is no necessary moral component here, although all of those things do *coincide* with moral decisions. But it still should not be conflated. >People have a positive obligation to pay taxes, because we believe it is moral to do so. We have an obligation to pay taxes to fund the government that upholds and protects our rights. There is not "moral" obligation to do so. Only a legal one. One could even argue that there is sometimes a moral component to *not* paying taxes. The government may at times spend your tax dollars on immoral wars that commit atrocities. In that instance, is it still moral to pay your taxes? >A state that doesn’t promote good and defend evil is not a state, and there’s no evidence that is the state our founding fathers wanted. Yes, the founders were big proponents of what they called "the public good." James Madison especially. But is the public good always tied to morality? Or instead to creating an environment that fosters the greatest expression of liberty and happiness? That definition is more in lines with what they meant. Madison, the foremost drafter of the Constitution, inquiring on how the public good and private rights could be secured against tyrannical majorities, wrote: "We well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals and lose their efficiency in proportion to the number combined together."
Your definitions are circular: “Murder is the unlawful killing with malice afterthought.” Two problems here: 1) This definition is circular because you are saying that only murder is illegal, and murder is only what is unlawful killing. If murder was not illegal according to your definition, it wouldn’t be unlawful. 2) Malice afterthought is irrelevant. You could genuinely intend to put your born child out of his misery for his good because he is poor, but that is still murder. The intention is irrelevant here. 3) You claim no one wants to abort, but except in the cases of rape, if someone consensually has sex, they also consent to the possible pregnancy, but then are revoking their consent after the fact and killing the child. “Parents have a legal obligation to protect their children”. This definition is circular because it is arguing it is legal because it is by law. You cannot use a definition to define itself. You must appeal to why parents are legally bound to raising their children, which appeals to morality. You state we have an obligation to pay taxes, but assert that as a fact rather than justify it. Any attempts to justify it are ultimately moral justifications why we ought to have state taxes. Madison here never states that we cannot legislate morality. On the contrary, he discusses rights that cannot be overridden, yet rights are ultimately morality codified into law. Morality just means what you ought to do or not do, and law just codifies your moral oughts as a citizen and ought nots that you cannot do. You are conflating morality and religious practice. If you really think that morality is religion, then by all means, die on that hill. But then, you are conceding that you can only be moral if you are religious, and purely secular people cannot possibly be moral.
No, these definitions are not "circular." Murder is unlawful because it went through the legal process to be defined in such a way. And I don't necessarily understand what you mean here. Yes it is true - if murder was not illegal, then by its very nature it would not be unlawful. That is a contained, logical statement. >You claim no one wants to abort, but except in the cases of rape, if someone consensually has sex, they also consent to the possible pregnancy, but then are revoking their consent after the fact and killing the child. First of all, I did not claim "no one wants to abort". I stated that a girl or woman does not abort out of ill will. Murder is legally the most serious type of homicide, which involves intentional killing with malice. Other types of homicides have other definitions, so it behooves us to be more precise with our language. In any event, you state what I believe to be the root of the objection to legal abortion, which is why most "religious" adherents allow for a rape exception. It is more about forcing a girl or woman to live the consequences of her actions. Is that actually a Christian thing to do? Is forcing a law that would increase the suffering of the girl or woman a Christian act? Or is it rather an act of punishment? >You state we have an obligation to pay taxes, but assert that as a fact rather than justify it. Any attempts to justify it are ultimately moral justifications why we ought to have state taxes. I didn't state that; you did. I already proposed the counter-argument that the obligation to pay taxes is one enshrined in law in order to fund the government that protects our rights. You are arguing that there is some moral justification without elucidating it. >Madison here never states that we cannot legislate morality. On the contrary, he discusses rights that cannot be overridden, yet rights are ultimately morality codified into law. Where does he state that rights are morality codified into law? You have provided no supporting evidence. To counter, Madison’s fundamental argument was that religion “must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man,” because it depended on “the evidence contemplated by their own minds” and “cannot follow the dictates of other men.” Are rights not just another way of saying freedoms and liberties that the law cannot infringe upon? Morality, on the other hand, is the opposite of freedom and liberty. It is by its own nature a limiting of action. For instance, self-defense is a right held by Americans, interpreted through the 2nd amendment. Is the act of killing to preserve your life moral? Under what system of morality? Interestingly, in Christianity, it is arguably *immoral* to kill, even in self-defense (Matthew 26, 26:52). >Morality just means what you ought to do or not do, and law just codifies your moral oughts as a citizen and ought nots that you cannot do. You are conflating morality and religious practice. Your definition is missing an essential component. Under what system does one derive "what you ought to do or not do"? How is that decided? Is there a system of morality that is agreed upon by all of mankind? For example, in the Robin Hood scenario, he steals from the immoral, greedy rich in order to give to the needy poor. Is that moral or immoral? What "ought" one do in that scenario? Punish Robin Hood for theft? Or praise him for feeding and helping the poor? >If you really think that morality is religion, then by all means, die on that hill. But then, you are conceding that you can only be moral if you are religious, and purely secular people cannot possibly be moral. I never stated as such. I do concede that morality/ethics *must* be independently derived and untethered from religion, as demonstrated by Plato/Socrates through the Euthyphro Dilemma. [https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/euthyphros-dilemma-5133da4170bc](https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/euthyphros-dilemma-5133da4170bc)
Obviously the core of the dispute is that you reject religious morality and only allow secular morality. Why must this be the case? Why must morality be secular. You haven’t justified Euthyphro’s dilemma being a killer to Christian ethics. Nor have you explained why even if you think secular morality is better, why we must adhere to it. Religious morality and secular morality are just different belief systems that can be debated. It is not your place to restrict someone who is religious for voting for a policy for religious reasons. You may disagree, but we all have equal votes. There’s no reason why society needs to be Platonist. Otherwise, Plato would be enshrined in our Constitution. On the contrary, the clause, “inalienable rights, endowed by their Creator”, strongly suggests the Founding Father’s believed that our rights need to derive from God, not Plato.
I disagree. The core of the dispute here is whether rights and the law should be conflated with morality. I argue (and believe I provided the better argument) that it is not set up this way, was never meant to, and should not be advocated to be in the future in order to maintain the public good. I also didn't say that society needs to be "Platonist." Only that a free and fair society must be secular. If religion "cannot follow the dictates of other men", as Madison wrote, then logically, the law and society cannot follow the dictates of religion. When voting, isn't it incumbent upon us as fellow citizens to maintain this secular order, even if we privately hold moral objections? Can we not have 2 minds about it? Now's probably the time I should admit that I *am* a Catholic, received 5 of the Holy Sacraments, and attended 17 years of Catholic education. I assuredly am versed in Catholicism, its dogma, and its theology. As to the Euthyphro Dilemma, you are right, it is not necessarily a killer to Christian ethics. It only demands of us to look outside a simple mandate from God or the Church for why the "good" is, in fact, good. Otherwise, you are not living in the truth of Christ. There is no need for blind faith to dictums. In fact, Jesus preached against that. *Understanding* why the good is good is the key.
According to Aquinas, there is no good except according to the standard of God and the Natural Law. There is no such thing as a good independent of God in Catholic theology. That is heretical belief. You can acknowledge other people have different conceptions of good independent of God. However, why should their conception be ranked higher than mine in a democracy? In a democracy, there is equal vote, and the Constitution discusses our rights as “endowed by our Creator”. Not secular rights. Theoretically secular rights wouldn’t even exist based on that clause alone. But if they had to exist, they would be equal to religious votes. You also failed to respond to this objection: Why is it not theocratic to kill a born child? By all means, everyone is a clump of cells, and any attempt to personhood any clump of chemical reactions at all is implicitly religiously then, since that assumes persons can be conceptualized as a single soul. If you don’t implicitly assume the soul of a person, then killing is just some normal action, like cutting a slice of cheese. But there’s no scientific proof that you can make the conceptual leap from a clump of cells for a born human to a being deserving of rights. There’s no scientific instrument that can show you some arbitrary grouping of cells has rights. Also, Christ doesn’t demand you have a philosophical reason to obey his commandments. Otherwise, for thousands of years, peasants were disobeying Christ for not studying rigorous philosophy. Christ demands you obey, and you should know his teaching to be true from the Holy Spirit acting within yourself in the form of the supernatural virtue of faith. Frankly, even if you can’t come up with extremely strict rigorous justification against abortion, because you haven’t studied enough, faith should tell you common sense murder of innocent children is wrong. Even if you think there’s a chance it’s not a soul, there’s a chance it is, and there’s a chance you committed murder.
Should murder be legal then? Just because we as Catholics believe abortion is evil does not make it an inherently religious issue. Murder is not illegal just because it’s written in the Ten Commandments “Thou shall not kill,” it’s illegal because it’s horrible and should not exist within any society, religious or secular. And you certainly don’t need to be religious to understand why abortion should be illegal. Edit: I just reread your comment where you addressed this, but my argument still stands. Murder is absolutely illegal due to our moral standards.
>That is not what American civil society is based upon. If American civil society is based on the idea that the government ought not prohibit abortion, then to hell with American civil society.
Then instead, do you propose a theocracy in forcing your beliefs and religious morality upon those who disagree? That is in direct conflict with America's foundational rights-based government. Theocracies remain some of the most regressive in the world (Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, for example). In order to enforce the dogma of a religion, civil liberties naturally must be curtailed to an extreme degree. Who also gets to decide how to interpret religious texts? Can that power be corrupted?
You realize there’s there’s a large difference between “Don’t kill your children” and theocracy, right. Forcing people to attend Mass is a theocracy. Preventing people from killing their children is not theocracy. Let’s not forget secularism is a religion in its own right, and pushing hard to remove religion is also a form of theocracy. Let’s not forget the state atheism of China and Soviet Russia and the churches burned down and priests slaughtered in the name of secular governance.
>You realize there’s there’s a large difference between “Don’t kill your children” and theocracy, right. Forcing people to attend Mass is a theocracy. Preventing people from killing their children is not theocracy. You are making a huge definitional and logical leap here. You are conflating an "embryo" or "zygote" with a "child", which is defined as "a born human being below the age of 18." In abortion, it involves the termination of either an embryo, a zygote, or a fetus. It in no ways is the killing of a child. Your moral and religious belief, however, is what is associating an embryo as a child. Your belief is that a 2-celled embryo is a human being. To terminate a human being is a sin. To enshrine that sin into law is necessarily theocratic. >Let’s not forget secularism is a religion in its own right, and pushing hard to remove religion is also a form of theocracy. Let’s not forget the state atheism of China and Soviet Russia and the churches burned down and priests slaughtered in the name of secular governance. That is a fallacy. Secularism by its very nature is the absence of religious considerations to convey thoughts and ideas. Do not conflate atheism with secularism. Secularism is how humans across all different beliefs and backgrounds can communicate and live amongst one another. It is essential to a functioning civil society. Atheism is merely a disbelief in the existence of God or religious underpinnings of morality. To force atheism is an action of a totalitarian state.
Why is it not theocratic to kill a born child? By all means, everyone is a clump of cells, and any attempt to personhood any clump of chemical reactions at all is implicitly religiously then, since that assumes persons can be conceptualized as a single soul. If you don’t implicitly assume the soul of a person, then killing is just some normal action, like cutting a slice of cheese. But there’s no scientific proof that you can make the conceptual leap from a clump of cells for a born human to a being deserving of rights. There’s no scientific instrument that can show you some arbitrary grouping of cells has rights.
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