Religion and Politics

I thought about putting this in the Glenn Beck thread, but I then thought that this has a far deeper message than simply bashing an asshat.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-james-martin-sj/glenn-beck-to-catholics-l_b_490669.html?ref=nf

This guy says what I've been trying to say for years when it comes to people who are serious about their religion and serious Republicans. I don't see this as an endorsement of the democrats by the way, as I don't necessarily believe that their policies have attacked the social ills that we should all be ashamed of.

Instead, as a Christian and/or a Catholic this puts the focus on policy in a way that is NOT the current focus of the church. One time before, I posted info from a pamphlet that I picked up in the lobby of my parish. It was a Catholic voter's guide. Now, I'm thinking that is a dangerous road to go down in the first place with the favored tax status of the church, but let's leave that aside.

The pamphlet has five non-negotiable issues that should direct Catholics on how they should vote: 1) Abortion! Suprise!; 2) Euthanasia; 3) embyonic stem cell research; 4) Human cloning; and 5) Homosexual marriage.

The last one does make me chuckle given the number of gay priests, but I'll resist the temptation at this point.

What's missing from the non-negotiable voting list? Perhaps ANYTHING that Jesus actually talked about while on earth? It makes me want to vomit to see MY church "instruct" voters in this manner.

Now you have Glenn ********ing Beck instructing people to leave their churches if the term "social justice" appears on any web site or literature.

Really? Again, I've got two kids in Catholic education (formerly "Sunday School"). I'd say 80% of the education is related to social justice. THAT is the message I would prefer they teach to adults as well as children.

In the article, this Jesuit priest makes a great point about the concept of social justice in the church connecting with politics:

Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus mentions our responsibility to care for the poor, to work on their behalf, to stand with them. In fact, when asked how his followers would be judged he doesn't say that it will be based on where you worship, or how you pray, or how often you go to church, or even what political party you believe in. He says something quite different: It depends on how you treat the poor.

In the Gospel of Matthew (25) he tells his surprised disciples, that when you are meeting the poor, you are meeting him. They protest. "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

But our responsibility to care for "the least of these" does not end with simple charity. Giving someone a handout is an important part of the Christian message. But so is advocating for them. It is not enough simply to help the poor, one must address the structures that keep them that way. Standing up for the rights of the poor is not being a Nazi, it's being Christian.

Charity is a great thing. Politically, the right will often focus on this. They will compare amounts given as tax deductible donations by candidates and trumpet the fact that a wealthy McCain gave more than Obama to 501(c)(3) eligible charities. That's great and I don't want to criticize charity. But on the right, that IS the answer. Private individuals giving their own money. That is not enough. Do we not have an obligation to work for change in the very structures that have kids born into poverty with little hope of getting out?

And then, here is one of the great lines of all time on this topic:

And Communist, as Mr. Beck suggests? It's hard not to think of the retort of the great apostle of social justice, Dom Helder Camara, archbishop of Recife, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

Hot damn. I am at once inspired and pissed off when I see someone capture the essence of what I try to say in paragraphs by using 26 words.

One final quote from the article:

But ignoring the poor, and ignoring what keeps them poor, is, quite simply, unchristian. For the poor are the church in many ways. When St. Lawrence, in the fourth century, was ordered by the prefect of Rome to turn over the wealth of the church, he presented to him the poor.

Glenn Beck's desire to detach social justice from the Gospel is a move to detach care for the poor from the Gospel. But a church without the poor, and a church without a desire for a just social world for all, is not the church.

At least not the church of Jesus Christ. Who was, by the way, poor.

As we all get ready to head to the polls this November, I simply ask people on both sides to cast an extremely critical eye on the rhetoric and the bile that is spewed by candidates. If you are Christian or Catholic, take a minute to look at the candidates and ask what they do to advance the core principles of your faith. Not the five non-negotiable items from the hate pamphlet my church passes out. I'm talking the core things taught by the guy you are supposed to be following (hint, that guy is not named "Glenn.")

To me, this whole episode of Beck asking you to leave the Catholic church is another example of how the right will get people to vote against their own interests in support of a few who frankly don't need your support.

 

Something tells me Ms. O'Donnell would be strained beyond her capacity to take part in the discussion I am looking for here.



Coons said private and parochial schools are free to teach creationism but that "religious doctrine doesn't belong in our public schools."

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked him.

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"

Her comments, in a debate aired on radio station WDEL, generated a buzz in the audience.

That is absolutely shocking.

 

That dope smoking, hippy, communist Pope Benedict XVI addresses this issue here:

Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society[4]. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it. To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity. To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or “city”. The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them. Every Christian is called to practise this charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the pólis. This is the institutional path — we might also call it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly, outside the institutional mediation of the pólis. When animated by charity, commitment to the common good has greater worth than a merely secular and political stand would have. Like all commitment to justice, it has a place within the testimony of divine charity that paves the way for eternity through temporal action. Man's earthly activity, when inspired and sustained by charity, contributes to the building of the universal city of God, which is the goal of the history of the human family. In an increasingly globalized society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family, that is to say, the community of peoples and nations[5], in such a way as to shape the earthly city in unity and peace, rendering it to some degree an anticipation and a prefiguration of the undivided city of God.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

 

22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Sweeeeeeeeeeet!!!!

Topper was in the Bible!

 

I had high hopes for a decent discussion on this. Oh well. I guess I should have just put it in the Glenn Beck thread and be done with it.