Can a Catholic be a democrat?

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Rising_Suns

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Brethren,
Please understand that I ask this honestly. I was thinking about this the other day, and I began wondering how the two can coalesce, since in order to be a Catholic in good standing, one needs to uphold some very basic Catholic principles, including;

1. Pro-Life
2. Pro Family values
3. Against Gay-Marriage
4. Against Contraception
5. Pro-tradition (since our Church was founded on tradition)
6. Against embryonic Stem-Cell/Cloning research
6. For prayer in school


Assuming that someone upholds all of the above, I was curious what belief system would outweigh the above principles in defining one as democrat rather than republican. Is it the democratic principle of greater government control (e.g., progressive tax on the rich to help the poor, universal health care, etc.)? I know there must be other things that I am forgetting at the moment.

Or, perhaps I am thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe the reason why some Catholics are democrats is because they are seeking to reform and improve the party from within?

-Davide
 

stray bullet

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The only reason I understand for being a democrat is because of:

-family history
-belonging to a union
-being a government employee
-being dependent on the government
-liberal social issues
-wealth envy

I really can't understand why anyone would ever support a democrat or their party. They are obsessed with the culture of death or getting as much money for as little as possible.
 
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fated

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Brethren,
Please understand that I ask this honestly. I was thinking about this the other day, and I began wondering how the two can coalesce, since in order to be a Catholic in good standing, one needs to uphold some very basic Catholic principles, including;

1. Pro-Life
2. Pro Family values
3. Against Gay-Marriage
4. Against Contraception
5. Pro-tradition (since our Church was founded on tradition)
6. For prayer in school


Assuming that someone upholds all of the above, I was curious what belief system would outweigh the above principles in defining one as democrat rather than republican. Is it the democratic principle of greater government control (e.g., progressive tax on the rich to help the poor, universal health care, etc.)? I know there must be other things that I am forgetting at the moment.

Or, perhaps I am thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe the reason why some Catholics are democrats is because they are seeking to reform and improve the party from within?

-Davide
In the south there are Pro-life democrats.
 
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FullyMT

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Pro-life should not just be about beginning and end-life issues, but also issues regarding how the life of even the most marginalized in the country is valued. Supposedly that is the group the democrats care for the most.
To summarize a feeling of my father (a republican), why should we help those who don't work financially? I work hard, I shouldn't have to help others.

That is not a "pro-life" mentality.
 
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français

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Although many people constantly bash Democrats, you also have to realize that we Democrats hold some things on republicans! :p

1. Immigration
2. Republicans lack of willing to have welfare to help the poor
3. Discrimination issues
4. Anti war

As for the whole abortion issue.. Yes, abortion is against the Church. And I myself do not like abortion. I personally would be pro choice if I wasn't Catholic. But, since I am Catholic, I choose to officially have no view on the issue lol.

In terms of gay rights.. I can totally understand why people do not support gay marriage. And that is fine. But it is not our place to judge, or condemn someone (Luke 6). Therefore, I will never ever hold a grudge on someone who is gay. It is none of my business what people do in their beds. That is between them and Jesus!

In terms of family values.. I am not sure, nor have I ever understood why people think Democrats are against family values. If I ever have kids, I will be very open with them. That, in my opinion, would make me a good parent, not bad. While we must never condone terrible teen behavior, we must have a level of understanding, and must take the understanding into consideration. What I mean by that, is if my kid was caught smoking.. There is no doubt that we would have a talk, and do all that. But, I know that (unfortunately) smoking is prominent among teens. And I must understand the peer pressure, and take that into consideration. Will he get off freely? Not at all. But i will not ground them for a year. If they learn their lesson, then there is no need to keep them grounded for longer.

As for Tradition.. I am a very pro tradition, pro Latin Mass Catholic. So I don't know what you mean by that. Although I do understand that some Democrats are pro progressive and all.

Stem Cell research - I personally believe that the benefits outweigh the negatives. If I can be proven wrong, then I will be happy to change my views.

As for prayer in school - If someone wants to pray, then that is perfectly fine. I do not object to that. But we must understand that not everyone is Christian. Therefore, it will be wrong for us to have public prayer. What is the difference between a group praying and one person silently praying in the first place?
 
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FullyMT

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Stem cell research is something the democrats talk about, because the vast majority of people have no clue about it nor have worked in it.

I don't see how any Christian can support the idea of the government helping the poor and needy.
Care to explain that one?
 
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stray bullet

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Care to explain that one?

Christians should care for the poor, not Caesar.

The poor need far more than material things- things the government can never provide, but Christian charities can.

If you think you can help someone by giving them money or a handout, you are deluded. What people need is love and material support.
 
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français

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Stem cell research is something the democrats talk about, because the vast majority of people have no clue about it nor have worked in it.
I would disagree with that. I have seen more pro stem cell researchers who have worked in that field then anti.

I don't see how any Christian can support the idea of the government helping the poor and needy.
What??!? Why not?

If our government did not help the poor, I am sure that charities and Churches still would. However, I think it would be a lot more catastrophic if our government did not help the poor. I fail to understand why you think it is wrong.
 
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Fish and Bread

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Here is an e-mail forward I created a while back:

There is a misconception among many Roman Catholics in
the United States that the Church forbids voting for a
"pro-choice" candidate under any circumstances and
that they thus must vote Republican in any election
where the Republican is pro-life and the Democrat is
not. This is untrue.

In fact, Pope Benedict XVI, just a few years before he
became Pope, when he was a Cardinal heading the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said: "When
a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor
of abortion and/or euthanasia but votes for that
candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote
material cooperation, which can be permitted in the
presence of proportionate reasons.".

Father Thomas R. Kopfensteiner, a Fordham University
moral theologian, expounds on this point: "The defense
of life is not always the most urgent good [...] A
woman on a fixed income may choose a candidate whose
platform guarantees better medical care or
prescription drug coverage. A father whose son is at
war may support a candidate with a plan to end the
conflict. A community hard hit by job layoffs may
choose a candidate with a plan to provide more
immediate jobs to the area [...] These and other
issues may provide a serious enough or proportionate
reason to vote for one candidate over another. For a
voter to be guided only by the fundamentality of human
life risks falling into a radicalism that is foreign
to the Catholic moral tradition." (source:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0405868.htm).

Father Thomas also says, in response to those who
claim Roman Catholics should be single-issue voters,
"This naive approach to the formation of conscience
fails to consider the likely success of a candidate's
platform to limit the wrongdoing in either the near or
distant future.".

Also, let us remember that issues like people dying of curable diseases, of exposure to the elements, in war, and so forth are fundamentally life issues. Abortion is an important issue, but there are others. Most of these non-abortion life issues are addressed in a constructive, Catholic, way only or predominantly by Democrats.

Further, many of the Republican candidates running for
President in 2008 do not share the Church's view on
abortion in any event, either entirely or in part.
Rudolf Gulliani, the current front-runner, is openly
pro-choice. John McCain, though generally pro-life,
recently voted for the stem cell research that would
involve the destruction of embroyos (Even while two of
his Democratic Senate collegues voted against it
because of their pro-life stance!). Mitt Romney now
claims to be pro-life, but as recently as two years
ago claimed to be pro-choice. Fred Thompson also now claims to be pro-life, but was a very prominent advocate for the removal of the pro-life platform plank at the 1996 Republican convention. These are the four
Republican front-runners.

So, knowing that the four Republican front runners for
President in 2008 are weak on life issues, and that
*even if* the Republican Party reverses course and
does nominate a candidate who is strongly pro-life on
abortion that Roman Catholics who in good conscience
believe there are proximate causes to vote for a
candidate who is pro-choice may do so, here are some
reasons for Roman Catholics to vote Democratic in
2008.

The following are a few sample quotes from Popes,
Cardinals, and other church authorities that
fundamentally agree with the Democratic stance and
disagree with the Republican stance on some of the
major issues facing our country:


ON WAR:

"There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war
against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given
the new weapons that make possible destructions that
go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be
asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the
very existence of a 'just war'."
-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Later chosen as Pope
Benedict XVI), 2003 (Source:
http://www.cjd.org/paper/jp2war.html)

"The concept of a 'preventive war' does not appear in
the Catechism of the Catholic Church"
-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 2003 (Source:
http://www.cjd.org/paper/jp2war.html)

"[T]he war was useless, and served no purpose."
-Cardinal Renato R. Martino, on the Iraq War (Source:
http://www.americancatholic.org/News/JustWar/Iraq/)

"t no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a
fit instrument with which to repair the violation of
justice"
-Blessed Pope John XXIII (Source: "Our Sunday Vistor:
What the Church Teaches" phamplet)


ON THE DEATH PENALTY:

"A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the
dignity of human life must never be taken away, even
in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern
society has the means of protecting itself, without
definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I
renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for
a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both
cruel and unnecessary."
-Pope John Paul II, January 27, 1999, St. Louis,
Missouri (source:
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/criminal/appeal.htm)

"Respect for all human life and opposition to the
violence in our society are at the root of our
long-standing position against the death penalty. We
see the death penalty as perpetuating a cycle of
violence and promoting a sense of vengeance in our
culture. As we said in Confronting a Culture of
Violence: 'We cannot teach that killing is wrong by
killing.'

We oppose capital punishment not just for what it does
to those guilty of horrible crimes but for what it
does to all of us as a society. Increasing reliance on
the death penalty diminishes all of us and is a sign
of growing disrespect for human life. We cannot
overcome crime by simply executing criminals, nor can
we restore the lives of the innocent by ending the
lives of those convicted of their murders. The death
penalty offers the tragic illusion that we can defend
life by taking life."
-Administrative Board of the United States Conference
of Catholic Bishops
April 2, 1999 (Source: source:
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/criminal/appeal.htm)


ON POVERTY, UNIONS, WORKER'S RIGHTS, AND A LIVING
WAGE:

"[W]orkers' associations ought to be so constituted
and so governed as to furnish the most suitable and
most convenient means to attain the object proposed,
which consists in this, that the individual members of
the association secure, so far as is possible, an
increase in the goods of body, of soul, and of
property."
-Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum May 15, 1891 (Source:
http://salt.claretianpubs.org/cstline/rerum.html)

"Quite agreeable, of course, was this state of things
to those who thought it in their abundant riches the
result of inevitable economic laws and accordingly, as
if it were for charity to veil the violation of
justice which lawmakers not only tolerated but at
times sanctioned, wanted the whole care of supporting
the poor committed to charity alone."
-Pope Pius XI Quadragesimo Annon 1931 (Source:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/p...f_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html)

"To each, therefore, must be given his own share of
goods, and the distribution of created goods, which,
as every discerning person knows, is laboring today
under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity
between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered
propertyless,
must be effectively called back to and brought into
conformity with the norms of the common good, that is,
social justice."
-Pope Pius XI Quadragesimo Annon 1931
(Source:http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/p...f_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html)

"Both capitalism and Marxism promised to point out the path for the creation of just structures, and they declared that these, once established, would function by themselves; they declared that not only would they have no need of any prior individual morality, but that they would promote a communal morality. And this ideological promise has been proved false. The facts have clearly demonstrated it.” -Pope Benedict XVI 2007 (Source: http://ncrcafe.org/node/1101)

"The Marxist system, where it found its way into government, not only left a sad heritage of economic and ecological destruction, but also a painful destruction of the human spirit. And we can also see the same thing happening in the West, where the distance between rich and poor is growing constantly, and giving rise to a worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol and deceptive illusions of happiness." -Pope Benedict XVI 2007 (Source: http://ncrcafe.org/node/1100)

ON GLOBAL WARMING AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

The consequences of climate change are being felt not only in the environment, but in the entire socio-economic system [...] such activity has a profound relevance, not just for the environment, but in ethical, economic, social and political terms as well [...] [Global warming] will impact first and foremost the poorest and weakest who, even if they are among the least responsible for global warming, are the most vulnerable because they have limited resources or live in areas at greater risk. [...] The earth is our common heritage and we have a grave and far-reaching responsibility to ourselves and to future generations [...] The environmental consequences of our economic activity are now among the world’s highest priorities [...] It is becoming rapidly ever clearer that if these, the world’s life support systems, are spoiled or destroyed irreparably, there will be no viable economy for any of us [...] Environmental concerns have to be understood as the basis upon which all economic – and even human – activity rests.”
-Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio 2007 (Source: http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=24053&page=1)
 
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français

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The poor need far more than material things- things the government can never provide, but Christian charities can.
But we must ask ourselves.. Are there enough Christians willing to volunteer, donate, and help with these charities? I think it can be well established already that there simply is not enough.

If you think you can help someone by giving them money or a handout, you are deluded. What people need is love and material support.
Helping the poor does not always mean to give money or handouts. There are many other ways in which the government has, and does help the poor.
 
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stray bullet

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français;37428929 said:
I would disagree with that. I have seen more pro stem cell researchers who have worked in that field then anti.

I believe nyj and I are the only ones in OBOB that have worked in stem cell research and both of us are opposed to human embryonic stell cell research- which the dems support. Why? Because it's a scam and the dems will take any scam.

If our government did not help the poor, I am sure that charities and Churches still would. However, I think it would be a lot more catastrophic if our government did not help the poor. I fail to understand why you think it is wrong.


Our welfare state has created a culture of entitlement, where we depend on the government.

Just like the commies taught their school children. Hell, we have a government that teaches it's own populace, how dangerous and insane is that?
 
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français

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I believe nyj and I are the only ones in OBOB that have worked in stem cell research and both of us are opposed to human embryonic stell cell research- which the dems support. Why? Because it's a scam and the dems will take any scam.
My friend has worked in stem cell research and she is a strong supporter of it.

Our welfare state has created a culture of entitlement, where we depend on the government.

Just like the commies taught their school children. Hell, we have a government that teaches it's own populace, how dangerous and insane is that?
No one has ever ruled out welfare reform.
 
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français

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Here is an e-mail forward I created a while back:

There is a misconception among many Roman Catholics in
the United States that the Church forbids voting for a
"pro-choice" candidate under any circumstances and
that they thus must vote Republican in any election
where the Republican is pro-life and the Democrat is
not. This is untrue.

In fact, Pope Benedict XVI, just a few years before he
became Pope, when he was a Cardinal heading the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said: "When
a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor
of abortion and/or euthanasia but votes for that
candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote
material cooperation, which can be permitted in the
presence of proportionate reasons.".

Father Thomas R. Kopfensteiner, a Fordham University
moral theologian, expounds on this point: "The defense
of life is not always the most urgent good [...] A
woman on a fixed income may choose a candidate whose
platform guarantees better medical care or
prescription drug coverage. A father whose son is at
war may support a candidate with a plan to end the
conflict. A community hard hit by job layoffs may
choose a candidate with a plan to provide more
immediate jobs to the area [...] These and other
issues may provide a serious enough or proportionate
reason to vote for one candidate over another. For a
voter to be guided only by the fundamentality of human
life risks falling into a radicalism that is foreign
to the Catholic moral tradition." (source:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0405868.htm).

Father Thomas also says, in response to those who
claim Roman Catholics should be single-issue voters,
"This naive approach to the formation of conscience
fails to consider the likely success of a candidate's
platform to limit the wrongdoing in either the near or
distant future.".

Also, let us remember that issues like people dying of curable diseases, of exposure to the elements, in war, and so forth are fundamentally life issues. Abortion is an important issue, but there are others. Most of these non-abortion life issues are addressed in a constructive, Catholic, way only or predominantly by Democrats.

Further, many of the Republican candidates running for
President in 2008 do not share the Church's view on
abortion in any event, either entirely or in part.
Rudolf Gulliani, the current front-runner, is openly
pro-choice. John McCain, though generally pro-life,
recently voted for the stem cell research that would
involve the destruction of embroyos (Even while two of
his Democratic Senate collegues voted against it
because of their pro-life stance!). Mitt Romney now
claims to be pro-life, but as recently as two years
ago claimed to be pro-choice. Fred Thompson also now claims to be pro-life, but was a very prominent advocate for the removal of the pro-life platform plank at the 1996 Republican convention. These are the four
Republican front-runners.

So, knowing that the four Republican front runners for
President in 2008 are weak on life issues, and that
*even if* the Republican Party reverses course and
does nominate a candidate who is strongly pro-life on
abortion that Roman Catholics who in good conscience
believe there are proximate causes to vote for a
candidate who is pro-choice may do so, here are some
reasons for Roman Catholics to vote Democratic in
2008.

The following are a few sample quotes from Popes,
Cardinals, and other church authorities that
fundamentally agree with the Democratic stance and
disagree with the Republican stance on some of the
major issues facing our country:


ON WAR:

"There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war
against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given
the new weapons that make possible destructions that
go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be
asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the
very existence of a 'just war'."
-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Later chosen as Pope
Benedict XVI), 2003 (Source:
http://www.cjd.org/paper/jp2war.html)

"The concept of a 'preventive war' does not appear in
the Catechism of the Catholic Church"
-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 2003 (Source:
http://www.cjd.org/paper/jp2war.html)

"[T]he war was useless, and served no purpose."
-Cardinal Renato R. Martino, on the Iraq War (Source:
http://www.americancatholic.org/News/JustWar/Iraq/)

"t no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a
fit instrument with which to repair the violation of
justice"
-Blessed Pope John XXIII (Source: "Our Sunday Vistor:
What the Church Teaches" phamplet)


ON THE DEATH PENALTY:

"A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the
dignity of human life must never be taken away, even
in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern
society has the means of protecting itself, without
definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I
renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for
a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both
cruel and unnecessary."
-Pope John Paul II, January 27, 1999, St. Louis,
Missouri (source:
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/criminal/appeal.htm)

"Respect for all human life and opposition to the
violence in our society are at the root of our
long-standing position against the death penalty. We
see the death penalty as perpetuating a cycle of
violence and promoting a sense of vengeance in our
culture. As we said in Confronting a Culture of
Violence: 'We cannot teach that killing is wrong by
killing.'

We oppose capital punishment not just for what it does
to those guilty of horrible crimes but for what it
does to all of us as a society. Increasing reliance on
the death penalty diminishes all of us and is a sign
of growing disrespect for human life. We cannot
overcome crime by simply executing criminals, nor can
we restore the lives of the innocent by ending the
lives of those convicted of their murders. The death
penalty offers the tragic illusion that we can defend
life by taking life."
-Administrative Board of the United States Conference
of Catholic Bishops
April 2, 1999 (Source: source:
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/criminal/appeal.htm)


ON POVERTY, UNIONS, WORKER'S RIGHTS, AND A LIVING
WAGE:

"[W]orkers' associations ought to be so constituted
and so governed as to furnish the most suitable and
most convenient means to attain the object proposed,
which consists in this, that the individual members of
the association secure, so far as is possible, an
increase in the goods of body, of soul, and of
property."
-Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum May 15, 1891 (Source:
http://salt.claretianpubs.org/cstline/rerum.html)

"Quite agreeable, of course, was this state of things
to those who thought it in their abundant riches the
result of inevitable economic laws and accordingly, as
if it were for charity to veil the violation of
justice which lawmakers not only tolerated but at
times sanctioned, wanted the whole care of supporting
the poor committed to charity alone."
-Pope Pius XI Quadragesimo Annon 1931 (Source:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/p...f_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html)

"To each, therefore, must be given his own share of
goods, and the distribution of created goods, which,
as every discerning person knows, is laboring today
under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity
between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered
propertyless,
must be effectively called back to and brought into
conformity with the norms of the common good, that is,
social justice."
-Pope Pius XI Quadragesimo Annon 1931
(Source:http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/p...f_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html)

"Both capitalism and Marxism promised to point out the path for the creation of just structures, and they declared that these, once established, would function by themselves; they declared that not only would they have no need of any prior individual morality, but that they would promote a communal morality. And this ideological promise has been proved false. The facts have clearly demonstrated it.” -Pope Benedict XVI 2007 (Source: http://ncrcafe.org/node/1101)

"The Marxist system, where it found its way into government, not only left a sad heritage of economic and ecological destruction, but also a painful destruction of the human spirit. And we can also see the same thing happening in the West, where the distance between rich and poor is growing constantly, and giving rise to a worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol and deceptive illusions of happiness." -Pope Benedict XVI 2007 (Source: http://ncrcafe.org/node/1100)

ON GLOBAL WARMING AND THE ENVIRONMENT:

The consequences of climate change are being felt not only in the environment, but in the entire socio-economic system [...] such activity has a profound relevance, not just for the environment, but in ethical, economic, social and political terms as well [...] [Global warming] will impact first and foremost the poorest and weakest who, even if they are among the least responsible for global warming, are the most vulnerable because they have limited resources or live in areas at greater risk. [...] The earth is our common heritage and we have a grave and far-reaching responsibility to ourselves and to future generations [...] The environmental consequences of our economic activity are now among the world’s highest priorities [...] It is becoming rapidly ever clearer that if these, the world’s life support systems, are spoiled or destroyed irreparably, there will be no viable economy for any of us [...] Environmental concerns have to be understood as the basis upon which all economic – and even human – activity rests.”
-Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio 2007 (Source: http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=24053&page=1)

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
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stray bullet

God Made Me A Skeptic
Nov 16, 2002
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français;37428976 said:
But we must ask ourselves.. Are there enough Christians willing to volunteer, donate, and help with these charities? I think it can be well established already that there simply is not enough.


Helping the poor does not always mean to give money or handouts. There are many other ways in which the government has, and does help the poor.

Really, the government loves the poor?

I didn't see dead bodies in the streets in the 1950s, before the welfare state, dying of hunger and such. In fact, I see more dead from our government intervention.
 
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