Priest Against Freedom Of Choice

[Crazycatlady]

Last weekend, I went up to my parents' house and, naturally, was subjected to attend mass with them. At the end of mass the priest told us all to write to our senators asking them to defeat the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). He told us that it was our "Catholic Duty." Ummm, I don't think so! Thanks to his reminder, I wrote to my senators urging them to support FOCA. It pisses me off to no end that a priest can just order his congregation to engage in a political action while outright lying about what said political action would do. According to him, FOCA's purpose is to require catholic hospitals to perform abortions.

 

On the plus side, I know my parents didn't write to our senators...

[Neon Genesis]

Is that what the Catholics are protesting about now? Yesterday when we were driving by a Catholic church down the street from us, they had this huge sign out front that said "Choose Life." The last time they had this sign up was when our town was thinking of building an abortion clinic, so I was wondering what it was they were protesting this time.

[Trike]

It boggles my mind that a Priest or pastor cannot endorse a candidate for office from the pulpit but that he can tell his sheeple that "it is their duty to"/"You aren't a good Christian if you don't" support measure x and work to pass it. Apparently it's legal, as the mess with Proposition 8 in California demonstrated. I somewhat understand the subtleties there but what's the difference between supporting a candidate who promises to do x, y and z and supporting legislation that will do x, y and z?

[Crazycatlady]

I think "support legislation that will do x,y, and z" is less overt so they can get away with it without jeopardizing their tax exempt status.

 

(wow, that was rather cynical, wasn't it?)

[Guest QuidEstCaritas?]

It would be nice if politics were kept out of church, as they are in Europe.

 

If you goto a Catholic Church with a conservative priest you will hear calls to vote a certain way for a "pro-life" cause and yada yada yada.

 

If you goto a UU church you will hear from a liberal minister and you will hear calls to vote a certain way for a "green" cause or a "peace" cause and yada yada yada.

 

Both settings make use of guided visualization techniques, although the liberal setting is more overt in the usage of them. With guided visualization you can get a crowd of people to gradually believe virtually anything, and people who practice priestcraft have known this in some sense long before Erickson was ever around.

 

It's basically people being encouraged to wage political warfare in a "religious" setting. I think the major reason it is so hard for me to respect anyone in my country (America) that practices religion is because, basically, if you take the politics out of the pulpit THERE IS NO SPIRITUALITY left.

 

I mean what about positive things that religion teaches that have no political context? Like helping your neighbor when he/she is down. Like being moderate in your indulgence of things. Like being loyal to your family when they are deserving of it. Like ways to thought stop so that one can focus in a situation where one's life is in danger (that's basically what prayer does in really dangerous situations). Why don't you ever hear such techniques encouraged? Because the idiots in the pulpit are too busy blathering about their political crusade of one stripe or another.

 

It's retarded, and I would love it if we neutered our politics in our temples/churches/places of worship as a country. I would much rather a place where people of every religion got together and discussed political matters in a forum where mutual respect for each others religion was mandatory (like the freemasons). That would be much better for our country (IMHO anyway).