Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 4:58am

Abortion and the Catholic Democrat

 

 

“In their directive, ‘Faithful Citizenship,’ our American Catholic bishops make clear that people don’t necessarily need to have their vote determined by a single religious issue. One could say, ‘I don’t like Hillary’s position on abortion but her social services policy should help reduce the number of abortions. I love her position on the environment and immigration reform and so I’ll vote for her.’”

Thomas Groome, Professor of Theology, Boston College

Thomas Groome, Professor of Theology at Boston College, a Jesuit research university, is a former priest and an advocate of jettisoning celibacy, he left the priesthood to get married, and an advocate of ordaining women as priests.  Coming from that perspective, I guess it is praiseworthy that he wrote an article in The New York Times entitled To Win Again Democrats Must Stop Being the Party of Abortion.

When I came to this country from Ireland some 45 years ago, a cousin, here 15 years before, advised me that Catholics vote Democratic. Having grown up in the Irish Republic, I was well disposed to Republican Party principles like local autonomy and limited government. Yet a commitment to social justice, so central to my faith, seemed better represented by the Democratic Party. I followed my cousin’s good counsel.

But once-solid Catholic support for Democrats has steadily eroded. This was due at least in part to the shift by many American Catholic bishops from emphasizing social issues (peace, the economy) to engaging in the culture wars (abortion, gay marriage). Along the way, many Catholics came to view the Democrats as unconditionally supporting abortion.

Last year’s election was a watershed in this evolution. Hillary Clinton lost the overall Catholic vote by seven points — after President Obama had won it in the previous two elections. She lost the white Catholic vote by 23 points. In heavily Catholic states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, she lost by a hair — the last by less than 1 percent. A handful more of Catholic votes per parish in those states would have won her the election.

Her defeat is all the more remarkable considering that Mrs. Clinton shared many Catholic social values. By contrast, Mr. Trump’s disrespect for women, his racism, sexism and xenophobia should have discouraged conscientious Catholics from voting for him. So why did they? Certainly his promises to rebuild manufacturing and his tough talk on terrorism were factors. But for many traditional Catholic voters, Mrs. Clinton’s unqualified support for abortion rights — and Mr. Trump’s opposition (and promise to nominate anti-abortion Supreme Court justices) — were tipping points.

In its directive, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops make clear that American Catholics do not need to be single-issue voters. The bishops say that while Catholics may not vote for a candidate because that candidate favors abortion, they can vote for a candidate in spite of such a stance, based on the totality of his views. Yet despite that leeway, abortion continues to trigger the deepest moral concern for many traditional Catholics, including me.

Go here to read the rest.  I don’t want to be too hard on Professor Groome.  Writing a column that is negative about abortion in The New York Times when one is a liberal takes a fair amount of courage.  The hell he will catch for doing so from friends and colleagues should not be underestimated, and I salute him for recognizing the evil of abortion.  Having said that, the column left me cold.  Abortion is legal in this country largely due to Catholics like Professor Groome who vote for the party of abortion year in and year out because they let other issues sway their vote.  Let that sink in for a moment.  About a million innocent people in this nation are done to death by abortion each year.  The Democrats make abortion the center piece of their party.  No compromise on a woman’s right to choose to slay her children is their battle cry in election after election, and Catholics, who are taught from childhood to protect innocent human life, go on blindly supporting this party.  Of course quite a few Democrats are Catholics in name only and are radical pro-aborts.  I am not speaking of them.  I am speaking about Catholics like Professor Groome who genuinely recognize the evil of abortion and yet allow other factors to sway their votes.  To them, I repeat the words of Abraham Lincoln that he spoke on March 6, 1860:

What we want, and all we want, is to have with us the men who think slavery wrong. But those who say they hate slavery, and are opposed to it, but yet act with the Democratic party — where are they? Let us apply a few tests. You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong, that you are not willing to deal with as a wrong? Why are you so careful, so tender of this one wrong and no other? You will not let us do a single thing as if it was wrong; there is no place where you will allow it to be even called wrong! We must not call it wrong in the Free States, because it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the Slave States because it is there; we must not call it wrong in politics because that is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring it into the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such unsuitable places, and there is no single place, according to you, where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong!

When we stand before God for the particular judgment we will all have sins to answer for.  One of those sins should not be that we lived in a time when the child sacrifice known as abortion became popular and legal, and, although we recognized its evil, we supported it with our votes.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
45 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
David Spaulding
David Spaulding
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 4:53am

I take issue with the energy tone, suggesting to me that we are mistaken in our view that the Democrat Party is unconditionally pro-Choice. The good professor says:

“Along the way, many Catholics came to view the Democrats as unconditionally supporting abortion.”

Except that the Democrat Party IS unconditionally pro-Choice. That’s not a mere perception, that is the reality.

I WAS a Democrat and left specifically because I was repeatedly told that I was a traitor because I did not share every single idiotic notion that the national party pushed. It is a reality that the Republican umbrella is FAR broader than the Democrats can tolerate.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 5:24am

“But it is not necessary here to argue whether the other-worldly or the humanistic ideal is ‘higher.’ The point is that they are incompatible. One must choose between God and Man, and all ‘radicals’ and ‘progressives,’ from the mildest liberal to the most extreme anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.”

The Gospels teach that one cannot serve two masters. Orwell (above) in his essay, Reflections on Gandhi, ratifies that determination.

The phrase “catholic Democrat” is an oxymoron. The so-called cD is Democrat first, catholic last. They have chosen the party over God and the rewards of eternal life.

I will not be lectured on virtue by anybody that thinks murdering 57 million babies is a “choice.”

FYI the US Constitution does not give you a human right. God endows you with unalienable rights. Also, the courts do not have power to amend the Constitution.

Finally (Thank God!), “social justice” simply is stealing from your neighbor with the government as middleman.” It has nothing to do with charity, the Gospels, or faith. They (cD’s) use it for two main purposes: to “buy” votes/seize power and to dishonestly beat up the opposition.

ken
ken
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 6:50am

As the years have gone by I too have grown disillusioned and disappointed by the Republican party. However, in that same time I have seen the Democrat party grow even more pro-abortion making my decision easy every time I step into the voting booth.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 7:03am

This is supremely bad advice from Professor Groome, and I hope the Democrats take it.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 7:39am

This is our Civil War hot button.
No. I’m not advocating Civil unrest.
But this issue is far more oppressive than the right to own slaves..For obvious reasons.

Death in the form of a licence, and via the taxpayers money!!!

No MORE. That sentence demands all capital letters.

We, the nation, is hanging on by the absolute ends of our fingers, and we don’t have a toe hold. The next move will allow US to regain a foot hold, or it will cause US to loose the little grip we have.

April 28th and 29th…. Defund Planned Parenthood prayer rallies nation wide.

Please help US get a better grip before we slip into oblivion.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 8:20am

The sovereign personhood of the newly conceived human being institutes government from the very first moment of existence. The moral and legal innocence of the newly conceived are the standard of Justice for the state and the compelling interest of the state to guard and protect the unborn PERSON. In her own words Hillary Clinton calls the unborn person a “person”. All law and our Constitution are written for the person, born and unborn. Our Constitutional Posterity are acknowledged in our Preamble. “We, the people…” are a community of persons…sovereign persons, created equal and endowed with a right to life; the innate human right to life that becomes our civil right to life. Hillary Clinton does not circumscribe our civil rights nor circumvent our innate human rights.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 8:25am

“We, the people…” are created equal, not born equal. “The rights the state gives, the state can take away” Thomas Jefferson. God creates life and sovereign personhood, moral and legal innocence; original innocence, the image of God in man. The state gives man citizenship and a tax bill at birth. WELCOME

Bill
Bill
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 11:29am

No one should kill their child. No one should promote the killing of children.

trackback
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 12:22pm

[…] ABORTION AND THE ‘CATHOLIC’ DEMOCRAT […]

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 2:07pm

The notion that HRC ‘shares many Catholic social values’ or that DJT is addled by ‘racism, sexism, and xenophobia’ are evaluations so stereotyped and naive that I’d have to conclude Prof. Groome lives entirely within a certain sort of bourgeois subculture. What was that bloody PhD worth?

It’s doubtful that HRC has consequential motors at this point other than megalomania and the welfare of her camarilla (who cycle between government gigs and slots at the Clinton Foundation). You can refer to Christopher Lasch’s critiques in 1992 of her writings up to that time, especially her notorious article in Harvard Education Review. The woman was an advocate of the social work trade.

And that’s the Democratic Party: always promoting the interests of various cadres (and the business sectors which finance their campaigns – the media, casino banking, and tech).

Marietta
Marietta
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 2:51pm

“…and our Constitution are written for the person, born and unborn. ”

We should think so. I honestly believe so.

Unfortunately, the late Justice Scalia, himself a Catholic and a constitution originalist, said the Constitution guarantees personhood only on those “walking around.” That excludes the human fetus.

Perhaps the problem is the Constitution itself?

Lance
Lance
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 2:52pm

It is interesting that abortion and so called same sex marriage are part of a “culture war” but peace and the economy are simply “issues”. The language is illustrative of why Catholics tend to start off any debate on the defensive. After all discussing issues is good but going to war is bad, right?

I think a good way to bring this issue to light is to ask the pro-choice person who claims Catholics who vote first on pro-life are simply one issue voters is to ask them, “If your favored candidate came out as pro-choice for owning a slave would you still vote for that person?” The answer is always no, best follow up is, “Why not?” It gets them to understand the Church teaches all humans deserve legal protection and enlightens them that we are all, at some point, single-issue voters. It just depends on the issue.

guy mcclung
guy mcclung
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 4:36pm

from an earlier article of mine-summary: “Mortal Sin – Vote Democrat”-

https://abyssum.org/2016/02/19/look-ma-the-emperor-has-not-clothes-his-seamless-garment-is-transparent/

Guy McClung, San Antonio, Texas

Christian Teacher
Christian Teacher
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 9:22pm

These Leftists & those who lean left still cannot get over the fact that they lost the presidential election. And they seem completely incapable of understanding that Hillary list because she lost. She lost because of what a horrible president Obama was & Hillary had promised to continue his policies and strengthen them. She lost because she was a horrible candidate with all kinds of negatives. She lost because her campaign picked a losing game plan. There is nothing mystical about this.

Christian Teacher
Christian Teacher
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 9:32pm

“Perhaps the problem is the Constitution itself?”

Huh?!?

The problem most definitely is not the constitution as written. It says that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. As soon as that egg & sperm unite, a unique human being is created–everything and all that human will ever be is present. The problem is in the recognition of that created human being.

If man can be so dead/hardened spiritually that they can enslave and murder other full grown human beings and deny those humans the rights due to them through their creation, then they will certainly deny the rights of created humans in the womb.

Christian Teacher
Christian Teacher
Tuesday, March 28, AD 2017 9:40pm

“Unfortunately, the late Justice Scalia, himself a Catholic and a constitution originalist, said the Constitution guarantees personhood only on those ‘walking around.’ That excludes the human fetus.”

Somehow, I think that your interpretation of what you say Scalia said must include some misunderstanding. For instance, the ability to walk being a limitation on who has rights under our constitution, would exclude a lot more people than just unborn babies. Born babies cannot walk well until they are about 2 years old. Lots of adults can walk and must use a wheel chair or stay in bed. Disease can render us unable to walk at any time in life. A lot of us are temporarily unable to walk due to injuries at times, etc.

John Schuh
John Schuh
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 1:41am

The Democratic Party is no only pro-choice but opposed to Catholic sexual morality. They are also in favor of open borders, an attitude they share with many bishops. I beige to think they sympathize with the rabidly nationalistic Mexican bishop who opposes Trumps’ proposal for a wall. Given that despite the rhetoric Trump’s policy seems basically to enforce laws that Obama had chosen not to enforce. Reactionary, not radical, at least so far.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 2:52am

I believe nearly every aspect of the Democrat Party platform is evil. It is a tarted up version of atheistic Communism.

Pengiuns Fan
Pengiuns Fan
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 4:43am

More foolishness from a professor of an alleged Catholic university.. that’s all it is.
As noted earlier, I, too have become disappointed in the GOP, The Democrats are the Evil Party. Anything they do is to increase their power.

Edie Eason
Edie Eason
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 7:00am

T Shaw: BEAUTIFULLY SAID!

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 7:50am

Perhaps the problem is the Constitution itself?

The constitution does not vest Congress with general police power. A legal regime consistent with moral principles is largely the business of state legislatures exercising discretion. The Constitution does not give the courts a warrant to invalidate laws which permit abortions to be performed, and Mr. Justice Scalia recognized that. The business of putting abortion mills out of business is the responsibility of state legislators, not judges.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 7:55am

Somehow, I think that your interpretation of what you say Scalia said must include some misunderstanding.

The Constitution is a piece of political architecture which distributes functions between various and sundry institutions. That’s what it does. There’s an addendum which prohibits state action in certain realms. It’s not some summary of justice or moral teaching. The misunderstanding is incorporated in the notion that it is or should be.

CAM
CAM
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 10:35am

“child sacrifice known as abortion”. Abortion IS child sacrifice! The phrase conjures up a picture of the Aztecs’ grisly pagan religious practices. It’s a perfect phrase when writing/speaking on abortion, about pro-choice ( abortion) advocates. The Democrats love to talk about programs for children from one side of their mouths while touting reproductive rights (code word abortion) and its funding out of the other side.

TomD
TomD
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 11:09am

“The problem most definitely is not the constitution as written.”
Christian Teacher, I would not be so sure. As Mary De Voe points out, the Declaration of Independence says we are created, not born. The largest problem we have in our constitutional law is that there is no requirement that the philosophy of the Declaration should carry any weight with any court. Reaching back for constitutional guidance stops at the Constitution. It didn’t when we refused to dispose of slavery, and it didn’t when we decided to dispose of our children. At this late date such references will not happen unless the Constitution is so amended or our judges revolt against their training and precedent and work to add such references.

TomD
TomD
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 11:17am

“Abortion IS child sacrifice!”
Yes it is, CAM, and at least one abortion proponent has said so:

“The November 1992 issue of Harper’s contained a sort of symposium on the issue of abortion. Most of the contributors were predictably pleased with it, though the editors were fair enough to include the wisdom of Juli Loesch Wiley and Wendell Berry. The last of the dozen or so short pieces was one of the few things I have ever read which literally frightened me. The writer is Frederick Turner, Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas:

‘It might help if you think of abortion as a sacrifice—the later the abortion, the heavier and graver the reason had better be, and the more sacred the whole thing is. … But the way I look at it, a sacrifice demands respect. It had better be done in a good cause, or it will come back to haunt us. That’s why we often make a beautiful communal ritual out of sacrifice, even if it’s a highly symbolic one…. What traditional religious ritual tells us is that sacrifice can be enriching, creative, evoking powers and values that can contribute great gifts to human existence. Isn’t it possible that abortion, in the right circumstances, for the right reasons and intentions, could be like that?’
“There you have it. An intellectual, a sensitive man, an educated and thoughtful man, has suggested that human sacrifice may be, after all, a meaningful—moreover, an effective—part of life. Moloch is stirring in the Department of Humanities.

see http://www.lightondarkwater.com/nothing-at-the-center.html

TomD
TomD
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 11:34am

Actually, the essay by Maclin Horton titled Nothing at the Center that is quoted in my last post above, is a very good read. It is tightly argued with only one error: it notes at the beginning that the Constitution began as ‘a piece of political architecture which distributes functions between various and sundry institutions’, as Art Deco put it, but then became the arbitrator of morality once the underlying Christian cultural consensus “cracked”, then at the end the writer assumes that the recovery of limited government is impossible. He seems to assume that we will never again be a virtuous people.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 12:07pm

Roe v. Wade is a preemptive war against human beings. Roe never bore the burden of proof that the unborn was not a person, a ward of the court, a member of the human species and a person of our constitutional “Posterity” to whom all “Blessings of Liberty” must be afforded because of all innate, unalienable human rights that become our civil rights through the state.
The UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES is ratified by each and every state, as is THE CONSTITUTION FOR THE UNITED STATES ratified by every state. These are our FOUNDING PRINCIPLES. Any change, in these our FOUNDING PRINCIPLES must be ratified by three fourths of Congress, the voice of the will of the people. Neither, the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution is written to repudiate or to abrogate any one of these principles. They are the whole truth needed in a court of law, as each one gives evidence and testimony to all.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created (not born) equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” The Declaration of Independence.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The Ninth Amendment of our Constitution.
Abortion is predicated on the erroneous assumption that the newly conceived, morally and legally innocent human being, the standard of Justice, endowed with free will, intellect and sovereign personhood is not a person, a human being composed of body and rational soul. And further, that the unborn cannot will to survive, nor will to be. Having been invited by the marital act, the unborn creates a mother of a woman and a father of a man and institutes the state by his very existence.
Our Constitutional “Posterity”, all future generations are taxpayers. “We, the people” are being supplanted by invaders, some of whom are inimical to our Founding Principles.
Politicians who have not read or grasped our Founding Principles need to be “”drained from the swamp.”

DisturbedMary
DisturbedMary
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 12:07pm

Democrats are not only pro-abortion, they are anti-God, anti-America, anti-Christian, anti-family, pro-perversion and anti-Constitution to name a few. They are the party of Satan.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 12:22pm

With the dawn of the secular state, that is, atheistic communism (nothing less), all Christians are disenfranchised. Christians must battle to exercise Christian virtues. Christians must battle to retain any semblance of civil rights. “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” have been disenfranchised as well. God, the Son of Man and the Holy Spirit, common sense for the common good have been disenfranchised and evicted from the public square, the public domain and the public Welfare, all purposes of The Preamble, the institution of the state… America.

CAM
CAM
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 12:36pm

Professor Turner, the answer is NO. it could never be like that.
What a stretch…”a beautiful communal ritual out of sacrifice” “traditional religious ritual”…. allusions to the Crucifixion and Resurrection and to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with the Eucharist in the same paragraph with the word abortion. Professor Turner must have even impressed himself with his rationalizing verbiage. Sad thing is there are those so committed to the Cause that they will believe his drivel. He’s a dangerous man.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 2:01pm

The largest problem we have in our constitutional law is that there is no requirement that the philosophy of the Declaration should carry any weight with any court.

No, that’s not a problem at all, much less the largest one. We certainly do not need judges making decisions on the basis of half-baked ‘philosophy’. The most salient problem in constitutional law is that it no longer exists. It’s just a set of intellectual games for a collection of haut bourgeois cadres to impose social policy in defiance of the judgments of elected officials.

There’s a distinction between a problem in public policy and a problem in constitutional law. Constitutional law concerns the architecture of public institutions, not the substance of public policy.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 6:05pm

There’s a good book with an apt title that refutes this kind of seamless garment sophistry. Besides, like the man said, “Social Justice isn’t what you think it is.”

TomD
TomD
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 7:54pm

Art Deco wrote “There’s a distinction between a problem in public policy and a problem in constitutional law. Constitutional law concerns the architecture of public institutions, not the substance of public policy.”

What does that even mean? Would a judicial review of the conviction of a journalist under the Sedition Act of 1798 be constitutional law, or not? Any half-baked philosophy could argue that an individual’s First Amendment rights exist for public policy reasons, or for public institutions (is the “Press” an institution? is it public?). Is it even possible to answer those questions without a philosophy? It seems you are in a position when you are using a philosophical statement about law to eliminate the need for philosophical statements about law.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, March 29, AD 2017 9:26pm

What god is mortal? The god of relativism is mortal. The god of relativism dies every time the moral value changes and imposes a finite truth.
Human sacrifice was abolished by God on Mount Moriah when Isaac became the first human sacrifice to be physically prevented and outlawed by God. The Chosen People carry the Law of the Triune God from Father Abraham to Moses to the promised Son of Man.
The Democratic Party named for people, murder as many individual persons as they can and make U. S. citizen pay taxes to enable their treachery against the people. The Democratic Party rejects God, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, The Unanimous Declaration of Independence. The U. S. Constitution, Scientific DNA, ultrasound images of human development and Dr. Seuss, who said that “A person is a person, no matter how small.”
The Democratic Party rejects that the immortal human soul made in the image of God with free will and unalienable human rights infused at fertilization of the human egg by the human sperm forms the human body to become whoever the human soul is…formed by “their Creator”. The name given us by the Democratic Party is “NAUGHTS”, non-human beings, subhuman taxpayers. If “We, the people” are “NAUGHTS”, then who in heaven’s name are Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party, but non-members of “We, the people…”. The Democratic Party has disenfranchised its members from our Citizenship in the United States of America.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, March 30, AD 2017 12:41am

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The Ninth Amendment of our Constitution.
“We, the people” have the right to acknowledge our Creator in the public square.
“We, the people” have the right to wisdom, grace, virtue and righteousness.
“We, the people” have the right to determine our legacy of righteousness to our Constitutional Posterity, all future generations.
“We, the people” have the right to maintain the truth of man having an immortal, rational soul, thereby rejecting the redefinition of the human being as having no transcendent life in our Creator, nor unalienable human rights endowed.
“We, the people” have the right to reject the atheistic notion of man’s pursuit of Happiness ending in death.

“We, the people” have the right to celebrate the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”
“We, the people” have the right to define marriage according to the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” and to reject the redefinition of addiction to sodomy as a civil right.
“We, the people” have the right to judge principles and tolerate persons.
“We, the people” have the right to distinguish between free will choices to pursue transgendering, free will choices to gender identity, free will choices to abortion, free will choices to addiction to sodomy; pornography and between those particular human characteristics that are innate, as color of skin, gender and sexual orientation.
“We, the people” have the right to refuse the individual citizen’s free will choices against the human being as civil rights.
“We, the people” have the right to FREEDOM.

TomD
TomD
Thursday, March 30, AD 2017 6:45am

Thank you Don. So I take it that you would agree that constitutional law is not merely about the arrangement of public institutions.

I agree 99% with what you wrote. That nagging 1% is due to my feeling that, having taken the wrong fork in the road, it is too late to back up. We are stuck with philosophical interpretations of the Constitution. Originalism and textualism are simply attempts to develop philosophies that are less damaging and less subject to abuse (and their existence shows that judicial philosophies are inescapable). I am aware that the idea I floated about the Declaration of Independence is more dicey than those two and would be harder to consistently implement, but it would have its virtues. Chief among those virtues would be that it would be hard to substantially oppose such a philosophy without opposing the very foundation of the country – the Constitution, after all, founded only our government.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, March 30, AD 2017 9:43am

“We, the people” have the right to our Founding Principles, to the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, that all men are endowed with Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and to the reliance on the support of divine Providence.
“We, the people” have the right to be self-determined, to think, to say and to do what the sovereign person believes to be in his best interest to attain his eternal glory.

“We, the people have the right to our Constitutional “Posterity”. It is important to remember that “We, the people” institute government and that the Supreme Court is part of that government. That when the Constitution says that all states must regard the Court’s decisions as binding upon them, it goes without saying that the Court’s decisions must exclude no one and all men are to be represented by that Court’s decision. The Courts decisions must be based on the TRUTH and for all men, before all states must acquiesce. Those Court decision that exclude the Person of God are not based in the Truth.

Donald Link
Thursday, March 30, AD 2017 11:23am

The traditional Democratic party died with the passing of Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Scoop Jackson. If the former members, like myself, find that no party represents them properly, then registering as an independent is the honorable thing to do. This is not Europe where slavish obedience to party leaders is mandatory. If enough traditional voters did this, and closed their pocketbooks, it might get some attention. The last election certainly proved that even if the satraps of the left refuse to acknowledge it.

Christian Teacher
Christian Teacher
Friday, March 31, AD 2017 10:30pm

“The Constitution is a piece of political architecture which distributes functions between various and sundry institutions. That’s what it does. There’s an addendum which prohibits state action in certain realms. It’s not some summary of justice or moral teaching. The misunderstanding is incorporated in the notion that it is or should be.”

Bovine feces! There is no amoral law. Just the fact that the constitution limits the federal governments power is a moral decision based on the idea that we are created by God with inalienable rights. Otherwise there is no reason to limit a national government’s power.

Christian Teacher
Christian Teacher
Friday, March 31, AD 2017 10:38pm

“Christian Teacher, I would not be so sure. As Mary De Voe points out, the Declaration of Independence says we are created, not born. The largest problem we have in our constitutional law is that there is no requirement that the philosophy of the Declaration should carry any weight with any court. Reaching back for constitutional guidance stops at the Constitution. It didn’t when we refused to dispose of slavery, and it didn’t when we decided to dispose of our children. At this late date such references will not happen unless the Constitution is so amended or our judges revolt against their training and precedent and work to add such references.”

I’m sure. The problem is the judges on the bench who are forcing their will upon the American populace at large regardless of what the constitution says. Not the constitution, itself.

Christine Y
Christine Y
Saturday, April 1, AD 2017 12:49pm

You failed to point out that one of the “NON-NEGOTIABLES” of the Bishops’ directive is support for abortion. A Catholic in good conscience cannot vote for a candidate who is pro-abortion.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, April 1, AD 2017 4:49pm

Bovine feces! There is no amoral law. Just the fact that the constitution limits the federal governments power is a moral decision based on the idea that we are created by God with inalienable rights. Otherwise there is no reason to limit a national government’s power.

You can argue that constitutional provisions are derivative of a certain moral understanding or conception of justice. That does not mean that the provisions themselves summarize a comprehensive set of understandings of justice or morals. Nor does in mean that the provisions in question have an exclusive one-to-one relationship with a given conception of justice or moral understanding.

Otherwise there is no reason to limit a national government’s power.

I suspect there are people who might take exception to that.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, April 1, AD 2017 5:01pm

The traditional Democratic party died with the passing of Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Scoop Jackson.

The PM of Britain was asked in 1961 about the new administration in Washington. His reply: “rather like the Borgia brothers have taken over a respectable north Italian town”.

By and large, the willingness of national Democrats to critique the abortion license dissipated about 25 years ago. As late as 1988, John LaFalce was able to assemble 60 members of the Congressional Democratic caucus in favor of a statement on the subject. Jerry Brown in 1992 was the last Democratic presidential candidate of consequence who was willing to say the legal regime was not legitimate and Jimmy Carter in 1976 was the last to suggest doing anything about it. The last Democratic appointee to the Supreme Court to dissent from the fiction that this mess was constitutionally required was sworn in in 1962. Someone identified Adlai Stevenson was the first in a long line of Democratic presidential aspirants who tended to be critics rather than celebrants of American culture. If you bracket out the buffoons and the snake-oil salesmen, the disposition to sit in judgment of previous generations is pretty much bog standard at that level of Democratic politics, and has been for some time. Perhaps Wesley Clark was an exception, or Bob Kerrey.

Discover more from The American Catholic

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Scroll to Top