The President and the Pope

What's on the agenda for the upcoming Benedict-Obama meeting.

By George Weigel | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jul 8, 2009

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  • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/23/2009 1:56:22 PM

    The Catholic church opposes birth control, at a time when there are 6.46 billion people on the planet.

  • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/08/2009 1:05:09 PM

    First Off, you can't ordain women as priests, as Jesus was not one. Lastly, you can't legalize murder as an option. In a separate analogy, if the laws states that I can legalize lynchmob justice, if the court of law fails me, than I'm free to commit murder. You can't say Fornication is wrong, so is Divorce and now Abortion is an option. They are all wrong! The Church is no hypocrite and God's values do not bow to ours. At one time liberalism said individuals rights were valuable, now they say born individuals' rights are valuable, next they will say only whole born individuals are valuable, taking out the handi-capped from their definition, when will it stop. We are not morally progressing as much as many liberals think they are; we are becoming emotionally cold to our environemnt. The option is, we need to support pregnant mothers, educate them and give them the choice to keep the life or give it to people who want it, like me. There are many people who want to have children, but cannot naturally have any. The state needs to reform adoption, making it easier to adopt without all the lawyers and bureaucracy involved. The only acceptable charge/expense are thorough background checks. We need to write to our respective State Reps. asking them to make this option easier. Just to add, making inexpensive birth control more easily accessible is just telling your child its OK to morally mess-up. Every sin/crime has a consequence regardless if forgiveness is given. Justice must be served. eventually. Pregnancy for 9 months will let unwed mothers know and rememeber what they should not have done, alot better than an abortion can. Just as if I commit a crime and go before the judge, plea guilty as a form of mercy; it doesn't mean I just escaped the fine instead of jail time plus financial legal expense. I must pay the fine regardless. Many people say Lord, have mercy, Krie Eleison; I say People, Have Mercy!

    • Posted By: whitejasminetea @ 07/08/2009 1:43:00 PM

      "Just to add, making inexpensive birth control more easily accessible is just telling your child its OK to morally mess-up."

      What does this mean? Why shouldn't birth control be inexpensive and accessible? What does it have to do with telling my child anything, least of all that "it's okay to morally mess-up"? I use birth control with my husband; we are not fornicating. I want to limit the number of children we have because I want to provide the ones we already do have the best of everything, including my time and attention - if you think that's a sin then your morality is, as I say, very strange. .

      • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/08/2009 1:53:36 PM

        If you fornicate, committing sin, at least don't get pregnant or catch VD, is more the message it sends. That's what I meant. As for birth control in your marriage, you are now artificially disallowing the possibility of New Life in your marriage; if God wants to bless you with even more children, you have taken that out of His hands. There are more natural ways to plan called by the Church, Natural Family Planning, which we advocate. I understand that is morality may sound uniquely mine to you, but it isn't. This is the Roman Church of 2,000 years speaking.

        • Posted By: whitejasminetea @ 07/08/2009 2:30:07 PM

          "the Roman Church of 2,000 years"

          The same church who gifted the world with The Inquisition and the Crusades? The same church who stood idly by, and in some instances, helped the Nazis, while millions of Jews, including little children, died in the ovens? The same church who allowed thousands of pedophiles to molest many thousands of little Catholic children?

          Only the most hide-bound would believe the Church never errs. The Church has erred before (remember Galileo Galilei?), and it is erring now.

          • Posted By: jazzmanjim @ 07/08/2009 3:53:19 PM

            The Church has erred on history for which it has appologized. It does not err on doctrine. Human life starting at the moment of conception is a matter of doctrine and cannot be changed.

            As to the rest of your post:
            - WWII. Pius XII protected many Jews. This is well documented. http://www.catholic.com/library/HOW_Pius_XII_PROTECTED_JEWS.asp
            - the inqusition: Urban Legend. http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0709tbt.asp

            Please do real research including Catholic sources. If you are a true student of history you will become Catholic.

            • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/23/2009 1:53:26 PM

              "Human life starting at the moment of conception is a matter of doctrine and cannot be changed."

              Unless it's a Jew. At least, according to the Catholics.

            • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 9:42:13 AM

              Very true, if you (no saracsm, just in case), if one is a true student of history, you will be Catholic, that's what convinced me. that just leads me to conclude that I don't have much faith, as my way of arriving there was through reason, but Kyrie Eleison for being me so foolish. Pray for me, please.

          • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 9:36:01 AM

            Pius XII saved thousands of Jews, check the archives.

        • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/23/2009 1:52:45 PM

          "If you fornicate, committing sin, at least don't get pregnant or catch VD, is more the message it sends. "

          Yeah. This is a bad thing? You want people to catch STDs?

    • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/23/2009 1:51:35 PM

      "The Church is no hypocrite and God's values do not bow to ours."

      Which is why Catholic churches are stuffed full of graven images, they call priests "father", and they endlessy repeat prayers (penance) like "the hypcrites on the streetcorner", all in direct opposition to the bible.

      Right?

    • Posted By: Skybox @ 07/09/2009 7:21:44 PM

      Righto! Jesus was no priest. Not even an ordained minister. The mysterious writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to Jesus as "a priest according to the Order of Melchizedek." But he was no priest in any formal or Levitical sense. Jesus was a Jew. An observant Jew. He never was a Christian, that was for later generations.

      The whole deal became formalized, with doctrines and order, at the Council of Nicea in 322. The Council was called and conducted by the Roman Emperor Constantine I who was only later baptized a Christian (death-bed.) The very invention of the Roman Catholic Church was ironically not administered by a "church father," but by a pagan Roman emperor whose mother (Helen) had converted to the Christian faith.

      (In fact, this very same Helen laid out the present arrangement of so-called old city of Jerusalem based on her own sketchy research. Jerusalem has been leveled by the Romans in CE 78. The Via Dolorosa, the Church of the Holy Seplucher where the tomb and Golgotha supposedly were at the time of Jesus, and most of the Christian tourist spots in Jerusalem: all minor league speculation!)

      No poor reflection on Constantine, he was a good organizer and set things up pretty well, settling a lot of petty squabbles in the process. Was he the first real pope? If Jesus was a priest, then it seems Constantine was a pope. Sure operated like one.

      Just goes to show that women have as much right to priesthood as men if you base your sexist claim on Jesus himself. Jesus best friends and closest disciples were women and without women the church would never have survived the first 100 years. In fact, without women there would be no Roman Catholic Church today.

      On point here, this history also demonstrates that Obama has every right to call the church on its own heresy given that the very origin of what is called Christianity (including "doctrine") was the most shrewd invention of a politician!

      • Posted By: Skybox @ 07/09/2009 7:48:09 PM

        Jerusalem was leveled in CE 70 not CE 78.

    • Posted By: whitejasminetea @ 07/08/2009 1:23:37 PM

      "Pregnancy for 9 months will let unwed mothers know and rememeber what they should not have done, alot better than an abortion can."

      So a baby is a punishment for sex? I thought babies were gifts from God. Guess I was wrong.

      • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/08/2009 1:32:25 PM

        No, PREGNANCIES, not babies, are punishment to those mothers who engaged in FORNICATION; in case you didn't know, that is a particular kind of sex. The Church does not frown on sex within Marriage, just the ones outside it. Ignorance is forgiveable.

        • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/08/2009 1:37:41 PM

          That is assuming pregnancy is considered punishment, because for some it is a glorious experience. Then again those individuals don't end-up looking abortion usually. To be more general, I originally called it a CONSEQUENCE. Thank You.

          • Posted By: whitejasminetea @ 07/08/2009 1:44:06 PM

            So where is the CONSEQUENCE for the man?

            • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/08/2009 2:00:38 PM

              If you think finding a loving home is easy, try speaking to some social workers, (some if not all can tell you how "easy" their job is or those who have sufferred under Florida's Dept. of Children and Families. Pretty big consequence.

              • Posted By: whitejasminetea @ 07/08/2009 2:32:48 PM

                That does not answer. There is no instant-gratification consequence of a man involved in an unwanted pregnancy. He can just walk away. The woman, not so much. Was Eve's transgression so hideous that her daughters must continue to be punished for it by bearing ALL of the consequence of sex, while her sons roam free?

                • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 9:45:05 AM

                  Hey, hey, my father abandoned us, when I was 8, so I know what you're talking about. If he does walk away, he must at financially support it. We have civil lawsuits for that, I wouldn't mind more, for the sake of justice.

        • Posted By: whitejasminetea @ 07/08/2009 1:37:46 PM

          So an unwanted pregnancy is a punishment but the baby that comes out the other end is not? That is a strange morality. And why do only the fornicating woman get the punishment? As far as I can tell an unwanted pregnancy does nothing to punish the man. What is your proposed punishment for the men?

          • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/08/2009 1:45:38 PM

            Ultimately as many have said before me, I would begin with blaming the parents, but yes, the individuals involved are also culpable. Personally, it is a hard decision. but justly He is responsible to ensure that that child receives a loving home; but then again, that is after the pregnancy. If raised in a culture of life, the guilt will remain and for some it can be the worse consequence of that sin in their life.

  • Posted By: donnatn40 @ 07/23/2009 9:56:46 AM

    I think Obamo needs to stick to being the president and stay out of other things. Doesn't he have enough on his plate already? He had something to say about the Gates issue, and now he is all up in the Catholic issue...is he even Catholic? Check out Obama's church...I dare to say they are even Christian...

  • Posted By: betsybug @ 07/19/2009 6:56:28 PM

    It was really funny how obama became more Catholic than the Pope....wherever he visits he becomes more of whatever they are...he is such a pleas er it is so sugary it is really hard to take.

  • Posted By: Skybox @ 07/18/2009 1:56:59 AM

    Righto! Jesus was no priest. Not even an ordained minister. The mysterious writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to Jesus as "a priest according to the Order of Melchizedek." But he was no priest in any formal or Levitical sense. Jesus was a Jew. An observant Jew. He never was a Christian, that was for later generations.

    The whole deal became formalized, with doctrines and order, at the Council of Nicea in 322. The Council was called and conducted by the Roman Emperor Constantine I who was only later baptized a Christian (death-bed.) The very invention of the Roman Catholic Church was ironically not administered by a "church father," but by a pagan Roman emperor whose mother (Helen) had converted to the Christian faith.

    (In fact, this very same Helen laid out the present arrangement of so-called old city of Jerusalem based on her own sketchy research. Jerusalem has been leveled by the Romans in CE 70. The Via Dolorosa, the Church of the Holy Seplucher where the tomb and Golgotha supposedly were at the time of Jesus, and most of the Christian tourist spots in Jerusalem: all minor league speculation!)

    No poor reflection on Constantine, he was a good organizer and set things up pretty well, settling a lot of petty squabbles in the process. Was he the first real pope? If Jesus was a priest, then it seems Constantine was a pope. Sure operated like one.

    Just goes to show that women have as much right to priesthood as men if you base your sexist claim on Jesus himself. Jesus best friends and closest disciples were women and without women the church would never have survived the first 100 years. In fact, absent the millions of women in parish leadership, there would be no Roman Catholic Church today.

    That there are no women priests in the Catholic church of the 21sr century is more than an error, it is a mortal sin for which the church is paying dearly now and will continue to do so for generations to come (if indeed there are generations to come). The church does not teach karma, but it sows the seeds of its own destruction in misogyny as it stands ground on sinking medieval sand.

    On point here, this history also demonstrates that Obama has every right to call the church on its own heresy given that the very origin of what is called Christianity (including "doctrine") was the most shrewd invention of a politician!

  • Posted By: pompeiipat @ 07/10/2009 11:27:45 PM

    The majority of the country is not catholic or jewish, The majority of the world is not catholic or jewish. Where do these two groups get the nerve to try to order the president of our country to do as they say? Talk about corrupt lobbyist!

  • Posted By: ELIASID @ 07/10/2009 6:27:28 PM

    Both must learn of JESUSCHRIST whom both ignore, He said:"YOU SHALL NO SERVE TWO LORDS...", but they are the "HYBRIDS".
    that inspire to others to be the same, Obama began in a catholic school and finished in a muslim school, Ratzinger has influence of emperor Constantino I and the theologians under is protection along with astrologists, that is why there is no big diference, just because Obama was supported for the Jews community and that rise a big concern about the Israel as country and strategic zone of conflict to BOTH EMPIRES.

    What's next? maybe you will see the REAL APOCALIPTIC ARMAGEDON beginning o completed with invasion to Iran, stay tunned.

  • Posted By: Sooriamoorthy @ 07/10/2009 1:46:41 PM

    Obama is just a load of *** and the Pope is probably no better. For sure ,one might say that such assertions deserve some explanation, but I'd say that that's too evident , should be too evident for anyone who's not too dumb.

  • Posted By: wise thinker @ 07/08/2009 3:30:14 PM

    OK, let???s all acknowledge each other???s right to their own beliefs. If you don???t believe in abortion then don???t have one. Simple, isn???t it. The whole abortion debate is really about forcing people to follow some religious belief system. We look at places like Iran and Saudi Arabia and cry over the way the people are forced to follow the strict religious teachings which end up making women second class citizens. Yet, here we are debating if some religious belief should be made into law in the US. The solution is to let religious leaders preach against the ???sin??? but leave it up to individuals to make their own choices on their beliefs. If a church throws someone out over the ???sin??? then that is their right, just as it is the right of the individual to make their own choices. Jesus never forced anyone to follow him or his teachings. Jesus never punished anyone for their ???sins??? (except for the money changers (bankers) where he might have a point). He merely told people of the consequences of their decisions without taking the decisions away from them. Heck, if god didn???t want Adam and Eve to eat the apple, would never have put the tree there. Instead, he left the decision and the consequences to them. Choice is the correct answer.
    If you say life begins at conception, then the birth control pill would be illegal. The pill is the most widely used and one of the most effective contraception methods today. Take that away and the population of the world would greatly increase. The population now stands at 6.7 billion people. How many more can we fit without having to worry about drought, famine, disease, and quality of life. If you say that life starts at conception then that life will have some legal standing. This, in turn, would make it illegal for pregnant women to drink, smoke, or drink coffee. Soon, it would be illegal for all women to do those things and anything else which might affect the possible unborn. Thus making women second class citizens. Sounds a whole lot like Iran and Saudi Arabia to me???. Preach what you like but choice is the correct answer.

    • Posted By: jazzmanjim @ 07/08/2009 3:39:00 PM

      If you don't believe in murder than don't it.
      If you don't believe in slavery then don't own one.

      There fixed that for you.

      • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 9:54:08 AM

        You're right and to that I say, people must change before kingdoms will. That's why we vote, eventually, if enough peopel change, than they will vote for the abolition of all murder, born and unborn. We still have plenty of room in Africa and the Amazon, how about the interior of Australia or Greenland. I personally think we just need an more even distribution of the population. I too belief in Thomas Malthus, but I also try to have Faith in God.

        • Posted By: Alli09 @ 07/09/2009 7:11:32 PM

          BugsyParis, you are obviously quite ignorant about geography, but I find it difficult to believe that you don't understand that places with "plenty of room" are usually empty for a reason. The interior of Australia is a barren, scorching hot desert. It was offered to the Jews after world war 2 as a homeland and they turned it down (understandably). There's a reason 90% of us live on the coast. That's like suggesting the forcible relocation of millions to Death Valley. How exactly are you going to force millions of people to just uproot their lives and go live in an inhospitable desert or some other country? And who is going to move? Americans? I nominate that all the religious types who keep insisting we populate the world and ban family planning, move to Antarctica. I hear there's "plenty of room" there too.

  • Posted By: Cates @ 07/09/2009 6:50:29 PM

    A better question would be ???Is the pope driving a wedge between Americans????

    Mr. Ratzinger should realize that it is un-American, if not illegal, for a church to involve itself in American politics. Religions that can???t reconcile their dogmas with American reason, rules, and values should simply be shut down.

  • Posted By: mac101 @ 07/08/2009 7:39:56 PM

    The division between the Vatican and American catholics developed long before Obama came on the scene, and abortion is not a civil rights issue, unless of course you wish to discuss the civil rights of the MOTHER, which most anti-abortion folks don't.

    Catholics have a right to decide for themselves what constitutes a catholic, but the pope has no business dictating American public policy or legislative codes.

    Bottom line: if you are catholic and don't believe in abortion - don't have one.

    • Posted By: emeryannharris @ 07/09/2009 6:12:57 PM

      You are absolutely correct. A foreign religious figure has no business telling a sovereign nation what policies should be allowed and what not. No matter who's in public office in this country, they are not answerable to Catholic, or indeed ANY religious doctrine. They are answerable to me, their constituency. The Pope may believe he has spiritual authority over Catholics, but neither he nor his agents does not have authority of any kind over a secular democratic government.

      The chasm between the insular Vatican wrapped up in the cotton wool of doctrinal thought, and the living, breathing American Catholics who have real world challenges to deal with daily, has been with us for many decades; the betrayal of American Catholics by church leaders who protected pedophiles for years and decades only added to it all.

    • Posted By: ok4u @ 07/08/2009 7:47:23 PM

      • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 9:03:11 AM

        I'll agree on the historical division. But there is no boat without the Captain. The sailors, don't run Her and the Man who built it didn't intend it that way. Now, let's discuss philosophy, Civil Rights. When does, a child become a person. Perhaps it is the difference between the Potential Human and the Kinetic One. If one is Potentially Human, are they really. They are on a course for it. So, does it potentiality really matter? Is an unborn worth more than an one born with only 3 limbs. Potentially, the unborn will have all four, but the handicapped can't grow another one. Back to the Bible, when the Blessed Virgin visited her cousin, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist kicked upon having Our Lord so close to him. If John was aborted, would he really be an aborted John the Baptist or is He just and aborted fetus or a potential human, but not John. I'm a huge Science fan and this a topic addressed in my favorite science of Physics, where philosophy has crossed into. Physics calls it potential energy, which we'll call life in this case (I'm sure we can agree that life can be classified as energy among other things) energy, nonetheless. It is so that there is a standard unit of measurement for potential energy called a joule to measure it. Do we pretend to kill certain forms of live energy and not others. If Science thinks Potential Energy is so important, why don't we? How do we judge? I was once Pro-Choice, until I had developed a relationship with that Potential Energy called a person in my wife's womb 3 years ago. She had a miscarriage, and I realized that I sufferred as if he/she were a real person. Why?, I asked myself. I guess potential really does matter. I had to redefine my definition of life to get to that conclusion. I realized I was ignoring the whole definition. This was a much bigger subject than what my puny little mind understood towards life. I was clearly wrong and understood life on a whole nother level. Through struggle, we conquer.

  • Posted By: Still Free in the USA @ 07/08/2009 10:32:13 AM

    Live partial birth abortions at next year's Notre Dame speech?

    • Posted By: fouroh @ 07/08/2009 2:22:10 PM

      This is not now, nor has it ever been, a premise for or against abortion. It is for the right of a woman to make that choice. As for the pope, I was born and raised a roman catholic and how dare he, who safeguarded, acknowledged, and permitted hundreds of pedophiles for years to ruin young lives have anything at all to say. He doesn't play the game so he doesn't get to make the rules. I, for one, am happy to say that I am for women's rights and no longer a roman catholic. The religion is filled with nothing but hypocrites and morally degenerate humans.

      • Posted By: jazzmanjim @ 07/08/2009 4:17:55 PM

        What is the right based on? Our founding documents said that we were endowed with certain rights. One of these being the right to life. Please explain hos a SCOTUS decsion can tak away rights from a certain class of people (the pre-born)?

        • Posted By: mac101 @ 07/08/2009 8:19:57 PM

          The pre-born, as you call them, are not people. Roe vs. Wade is about safeguarding the rights of mothers, who are.

          • Posted By: lawtonj @ 07/09/2009 5:37:56 PM

            If the pre-born are not people, then the women who carry them are not mothers. Right?

          • Posted By: jazzmanjim @ 07/09/2009 1:10:49 PM

            Um, by what definition?

            Questions:
            - when does human life (worthy of legal protection) start? Please be very careful with you answer as most arguments for allowing the killing of the fetus can also be used in killing the handicapped, infants, etc.
            - why are the "rights' of mothers more important than the righs of the fetus? Please remember our founding documents (based on natural law) of the "right to life..."
            - what is the meaning of the words "unalienable rights" in the DoI? What is their basis? Can they change?
            - what is the difference between negative rights (based on natural law) as postulated in the DoI and the COTUS and positive rights which are "rights" given us by government and can the be changed?

      • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/08/2009 2:28:11 PM

        I understand your frustration but he can't change the Apostles' minds. He is just preaching what has always preached, believed and practiced; He can't contradict Apostolic Tradition. The Church's position on Abortion was stated in 80 AD in the Didache (look it up), almost 50 years after Our Lord ascended. All new doctrines died with the last Apostle. He can't change it, or he would be undoing the foundation of the Church; kind of like unmaking reality.

        • Posted By: Skybox @ 07/08/2009 8:10:30 PM

          Untrue. Obviously no scholar, and apparently no friend of Vatican II. Check it out... BTW, papal infallibility was a 19th century invention and celibacy for priests was a 14th century invention. So much for early doctrine as final.

          Heresy didn't die with the Montanists either. Your take on catholic faith is dangerously inaccurate.

          • Posted By: jazzmanjim @ 07/09/2009 1:31:36 PM

            You need to do a little research. You are correct that celebiacy is the norm for the Latin rite. However, there are other rites in the Roman Catholic Church (23 of them) some of which do allow for married priests. Check out the Maronite rite as an example. These rites follow the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) and follow Church teaching on doctrine but have different diciplines.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maronite_Church

            • Posted By: Skybox @ 07/09/2009 2:32:54 PM

              I am quite aware of Old Catholics and other groups outside the "mainstream." I wasn't talking about anything other than the mainstream. To say that celibacy and papal infallibility have been later inventions merely points out that Roman Catholicism is far from a set piece that cannot be changed. No doctrines were complete until the Council of Nicea in 322 (called by an unbaptized Roman Emperor who made the final decisions, BTW).

              Also, I do not get information from Wikipedia. Neither should you. Try to stay on topic.

          • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 8:30:49 AM

          • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 8:19:08 AM

            Those who do not accept that"19th Century" invention are called Old Catholics. They are no longer with the mainstream Church. Infallibility is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If you do not follow it (as a Catholic), you are not in communion. As for you claim on inventions, I would state as before that it is a discipline defended in Scripture, especially Matt 19:12; Jer 16 1-4; 1 Cor 7:8; 1 Cor 7:32-35; 2 Tim 2:3-4; and 1 Tim 5:9-12. As a practice it was done on and off prior to the 6th Century, but made universal by Gregory VII, I believe. This invention is a displine that was universalized at that particular time.

          • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 8:02:24 AM

            Doctrines did not change in Vatican II, disciplines did. For instance, priestly celibacy which I favor, by the way, is still a discipline and can honestly change. Changing the language of the Holy Mass and having the Celibrant face the congregationis a discipline, not a doctrine. As so they could and were altered to reflect the modern time. Abortion unfortunetly, due to history and historical scripture such as the Didache cannot.

        • Posted By: whitejasminetea @ 07/08/2009 2:34:56 PM

          Church doctrine used to be that Jews murdered Jesus so they must be punished.

          I don't believe that is so any more. Although I'm sure the six million Jews who died in the ovens, many sent there by Catholic leadership in collusion with the Nazis, have probably more than paid enough.

          • Posted By: jazzmanjim @ 07/08/2009 3:43:42 PM

            Um, that was never doctrine. It was a bad episode in history (which has been apoligized for) but was never doctrine.

            As Bugsy so apt;y stated - doctrine can not change.

            Some examples of doctrine - the real precense of Jesus in the Eucharist, the Trinity, the primacy of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope), no the artifical birth-control, etc.

            Our relationships with the Jews were wrong but never rose to the level of doctrine.

      • Posted By: bjsassy @ 07/08/2009 2:45:02 PM

        I am happy that you are no longer a Roman Catholic, as well. Christian churches, Jewish synagogues and Muslim mosques do not bar sinners from their places of worship. The repentant ones ask for forgiveness and they are forgiven. Christians are not perfect. They are human and they sometimes fail.

        • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 8:41:25 AM

          Oh, sinners can always attend, I'm there every Sunday. I just seek forgiveness before I receive a Sacrament. If the sin is grave enough, I'll seek Reconciliation. We're all welcome as long as we are humbled by our sin and God's Grace.

  • Posted By: Skybox @ 07/09/2009 5:15:50 PM

    Read Caritas in Veritate. Obama and Pope Benedict could have collaborated on the text.
    Maybe they did.

    If so, Joy to the World!

  • Posted By: concerned liberal @ 07/09/2009 4:49:22 PM

    Wow, what happens when two leaders that had their positive messages blown way out of proportion yet have throngs of people blinded by endless reteric and continual refusal to act according to their oaths of office meet face to face?

    I would guess that they act as if looking in a mirror and ask "who is the most beautiful power monger on the planet"!

  • Posted By: Skybox @ 07/08/2009 2:04:38 PM

    Real catholics are radically accepting, radically inclusive.

    In spite of the church's heresy that some "may not yet be in communion with the catholic faith," Jesus opened his table even to those who would desert him in a matter of hours, even to one who would repeatedly deny ever knowing him, and even to one who would sell him out for cold cash.

    Upon this rock, Jesus said he would build his legacy: the weak, the impious, the despised and abused, the least. Peter, the revisionists' proto-pope, was merely one of the weaker of these, neither Grand Inquisitor, nor Grand Ayatollah of the Faith. Just beloved and dearly so.

    For Jesus his table was always radically open, even to Peter... even to Judas.

    That is undiluted, unobstructed, and essential Christianity as Jesus taught in the so-called sermon on the mount. Where do we find such a merciful, saving faith today?

    • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/08/2009 2:19:29 PM

      No, I don't remember the first Christians believing that in the first 300 years of the Christian era. Hmm, when you say communion do you mean: Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.

      28 A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.

      29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognising the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.

      1 Cor 10:16. Or do you mean that we don't have to seek perfection like: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48. Oops, I think we do.

      I think Johnnine Tradition had a good idea of what happened to that person, check it, it wasn't very good.

      • Posted By: Skybox @ 07/08/2009 7:21:37 PM

        You mean "Johanine." You don't read Greek (koine or classical), obviously.
        You don't know the origin of the word "catholic."
        You have no "memory" of the first 300 years of what is now called Christianity.
        You also have no idea of the widely variant and diverse theologies and practices of the so-called "Early Church."

        "Rachamim": nice Hebrew word used often in Hebrew scriptures to describe the love of YHWH. Rachamim is most often translated "mercy." Traditionally, it means the love of the womb, mother-love as the deepest expression. It is the source word for much "Marian" theology. It is about mercy.

        As Fr. Matthew Kelty, the great priest-monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Gethsemani (and Thomas Merton's last confessor) is wont to say, "If it isn't about mercy, what is it about?"

        Read his classic, "My Song is of Mercy." You'll be a better catholic for doing so. You'll be a better human being.

        Also read the Christian testament's Letter to the Romans, chapter 11, verses 33-34, ff. (Read it in koine Greek or get someone to translate for you)

        Last: in the words of one of the greatest catholics of the 20th century, Fr. Louis (Thomas) Merton, OCSO, shortly before his tragic death in 1968, "I hope to become a better Buddhist, a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Jew... because in so doing I will become a better Christian."

        Find that kind of faith in the catechism. He did.

        • Posted By: BugsyParis @ 07/09/2009 9:31:11 AM

          Actually, I do, I did study Patristics and Early Church History. There much heresy at the time, but orthodox Chrsitianity (witha small O) cam ethrough. Everyone know catholic means universal. I don't have a memory for it other tha what I have leraned and has been taught to me. Theyy of course reached thier conclusions through archeology and anthropology. The Church Fathers, some of which were heresiologists were very detailed about the early Church. I'recommend you read the Faith of the Early Fathers Vols. 1-3, compiled by William A. Jurgens. I will read your book as well, in the hope, I will becoome a better human being, thank you. Hope I've been helpful. Remember, you can love as a Chrsiatian always, but don't step out of bounds of Apostolic Tradition. Don't just read John's Gospel about Love, you must read Matthew's Gospel with it, about the demands required a Christian. They are both Christian, one needs the other. While Paul did write that passage, so did the Gospel trust his Apostles especially One Shepher for One Fold. God is quite unknowable, but He trusted peoople to lead His flock after Him, John 10:6; Mt 28:18-20 and I can go on and on, but that would not interest certain individuals on this site. I also do agree with Fr. Merton, my study of Conseravtive Judaism for 3 years for example, did make me a better Chrisiian, and I will also say that most Jews are better Christians than Christians. You might be able to find, I'm guessing on assumption, that faith in the Catechism all of Part 3 titled Life in Christ. Read the encyclicals addressed to Catholic Social Teaching such as Rerum Novorum and its successors as well as Dominus Iesus. I like those. Those encyclicals are obviously not in the CCC,, but their message is.

          • Posted By: Skybox @ 07/09/2009 3:01:57 PM

            Thank you for your extended reply. I am truly sorry that your catholicism is so narrow as to exclude most of the world. Do not be surprised if this message of judgment and exclusion is seldom met with an open and hungry heart.

            Again, check out the letter and spirit of Pope John's various pronouncements (including the sacred homilies) up to and including the great catholic manifesto for our time known in the "vernacular" as Vatican II.

            Finally, studying patristrics in of itself does not make one a catholic or a scholar. Often, quite the contrary is accomplished, as apparently in your case.

            I studied auto mechanics once, but oh how the mechanics of automobiles have changed since those books on mid-20th century Nash Ramblers have become yellow and dated beyond repair.

            Finally, in humility and without elaboration, my own studies (formal academic work: 10years of graduate study, masters, doctorate) have allowed me to sit at the feet of the masters of many faiths, to spend many months, collectively, in catholic monasteries, living and worshiping among them, welcome at Christ's table at all times, and thus coming to a vivid appreciation of the original purity of the catholic faith.

            If you must obscure that great faith in judgmental rigidity, please keep it to yourself. There are those who are dying to hear the truth.

  • Posted By: Still Free in the USA @ 07/09/2009 1:20:10 PM

    New question: with the proposed Universal Health care; at what age will I be denied certain "too expensive" procedures because "Ive lived life, am not very productive, a burden on the health care system and too expensive to maintain" Right now that defines Pelosi; does she bill her Botox to the gov or just deduct it as an expense for being in the private arena. Dam was I shocked she voted down the Michael Jackson resolution; she must be smoking crack again

  • Posted By: mcleodmn @ 07/08/2009 3:56:07 PM

    It can be argued that abortion saves lives.

    • Posted By: jazzmanjim @ 07/08/2009 4:06:40 PM

      How?

      At least 50% of the people involved in an abortion will die (the child).

      If more than 50% of women died during childbirth then you might have a point. Else, you idea stinks.





      • Posted By: mcleodmn @ 07/08/2009 4:53:15 PM

        Well, most abortions are done before the 22nd week. Before week 22, the fetus is not viable outside of the womb and more closely resembles the definition of a parasite. The termination of these unwanted pregnancies are preventing the systematic destruction of dreams and aspirations of the two people involved in it's unintended conception. By that same token, we can call the late term abortions a wash.

        Abortion is also linked to lower crime rates, but thats another discussion.

        • Posted By: jazzmanjim @ 07/09/2009 1:16:37 PM

          So the dreams & aspirations of the "parents" are more importand the the unalienable (which means can not be taked away) right to life in our founding documents?

          What about adoption (I am an adoptive parent(? This is a win-win solution that keeps the dreams & aspirations of the birth-parents and allows te child life.

          If your dreams and aspirations are not to get pregnant then think about this before choosing to have sexual relations.

        • Posted By: jazzmanjim @ 07/09/2009 1:12:27 PM

          How is it a parasite? Please post any reference from a biology textbook that talks about a fetus of a species as being a parasite to other members of it's species.

        • Posted By: ok4u @ 07/08/2009 7:42:38 PM

  • Posted By: Still Free in the USA @ 07/09/2009 12:46:42 PM

    The peculiarly venomous hatred of Palin is driven by women of the left and their whipped consorts. All that needs to happen is for a feminist to overhear two Nation readers saying, "I hate to admit it, but Palin is kind of hot" and ...

    WHAT??????????? YOU CALL THAT HOT? I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW WE'VE GOT A MEGA-SUPER HOTTIE IN DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. AND NEED I REMIND YOU AGAIN OF THE RAW SEX APPEAL OF RACHEL MADDOW?

    Democrats are a party of women, and nothing drives them off their gourds like a beautiful Christian conservative. (How much money has that other beautiful born-again, Carrie Prejean, been forced to spend on lawyers to respond to liberal hysteria?)

    So the motives are clear, but the money is not. Who is paying the rent for the losers filing all these frivolous complaints against Palin?

    At least when Richard Mellon Scaife was funding investigations of Bill Clinton, we knew who Scaife was, he was an American citizen, and his money was accessible to U.S. tax authorities and not stashed in offshore accounts like a certain Hungarian Nazi-collaborator I can name.

    How about some modern-day Scaife investigate the investigators?

  • Posted By: Still Free in the USA @ 07/09/2009 12:46:29 PM

    Reporters had already written their stories on Palin's press conference -- "rambling!" "incoherent!" -- before she even stepped to the podium.

    Whatever you think of Palin, her argument for resigning was the opposite of "rambling" and "incoherent."

    Palin's basketball analogy couldn't have been clearer, even to prissy liberal pundits who get uncomfortable when the subject turns to sports: She decided to destroy the other team's game plan, which has been to obsessively focus on her, by resigning.

    This is particularly apt here -- she's passing the ball to a fantastic right-wing lieutenant governor, who shares her principles but doesn't set off the left's neuroses.

    This is better for him, better for the state, better for the conservative program and better for Palin personally, whose family is sick of all the crap. Now she can make a lot of money and promote conservatism on a national stage.

    It certainly won't be held against Palin by people who don't already loathe her. (On the other hand, her approval ratings among people who think she's worse than Hitler are down to 48 percent.)

    With the left frenetically filing ethics complaint after ethics complaint against Palin, costing her state millions of dollars and her personally half a million dollars, citizens of Alaska must be asking, "Can we please have our state back?"

    But to read the news reports -- which actually were rambling and incoherent -- you would think Palin was speaking in tongues.

    The truth is liberals are furious they won't have Sarah Palin to kick around anymore -- at least not with Palin's hands tied behind her back by her public office.

    Something tells me Keith Olbermann isn't going to be pulling any big numbers this summer attacking Eric Cantor and Michele Bachmann. I don't anticipate any sudden outbreaks of "Mitch McConnell Derangement Syndrome."

    Soon we'll only hear about Keith when his creepy e-mails using his mother's death to hit on chicks start making the rounds again. (Tip to Keith: When a girl refuses to give you her phone number, her assistant's phone number or her personal e-mail address, and only gives you her assistant's e-mail address, you're not halfway in the sack.)

    Bonus: If Olbermann gets canceled as a result of Palin's resignation, that will put her in a really good position for 2012.

    But instead of being honest and saying, "Oh well, it was a good ride while it lasted," liberal chatterers indignantly demand: "Is this not the greatest betrayal a public servant ever committed against the people?"

    On one hand, liberals are enraged at the heinousness of Mark Sanford -- whom they didn't vote for -- for not resigning and, on the other, they're enraged at Palin -- whom they also didn't vote for -- for resigning.

  • Posted By: Still Free in the USA @ 07/09/2009 12:46:03 PM

    Sarah Palin has deeply disappointed her enemies. People who hate her guts feel she's really let them down by resigning.

    She's like the ex-girlfriend they're SO over, never want to see again, have already forgotten about -- really, it's O-ver -- but they just can't stop talking about her.

    Liberal: Ha, ha ... Sarah who? She's over, she's toast, a future Trivial Pursuit answer, nothing more.

    Normal person: Whatever. How about the North Korean missiles?

    Liberal: Can you believe she just resigned the governorship like that? What a quitter!

    Normal person: Speaking of quitting, how's work?

    Liberal: Did you hear she might get a TV show? There's no way Sarah Palin's getting a TV show! No way! I can't believe stupid Sarah Palin could get her own stupid TV show now. Well, I'm sure not gonna watch it -- that's for sure!

    Normal person: Have you seen all the Michael Jackson coverage on TV?

    Liberal: How does she think she can run for president in 2012 if she can't finish her term as governor of a Podunk state? She's finished.

    Normal person: OK, then! You won't have to vote for her.

    Liberal: I was never going to vote for her! But now I'm not going to vote for her twice. And I will never watch her TV show. I am so over her.

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