The Culture Of Death
Saturday, July 19, 2008
In the last week, I have been debating with Mary Kochan from Catholic Exchange. In our back and forth comments, I have formed some conclusions about politics and priorities of people. If you have already figured out, I am not a theology major nor a political science major. So please excuse the verbiage since I most likely will not be using terms that may not be politically correct. I am very versed in law. Since, I was an economics major investigating some time in pre-law at one point. As mentioned before, I will place my own catholic perspective in this post. My major point in the post is as catholics we cannot stop at only abortion or just prioritize abortion first then other evils such as the death penalty later. We must be firm in our pro-life stance. All the following comments are from Mary Kochan that I will address piece by piece:
Well for one thing your feeling that they are both wrong does not constitute Catholic moral theology any more than someone’s feeling that gay marriage is ok. The fact is that in Catholic moral theology they are not the same: one is intrinsically evil; the other is not. Feel away all you like. I will be perfectly happy to seek the end of the death penalty after abortion is ended. AND Chump, the death penalty is not intrinsically evil. Sorry, but it is church teaching that the death penalty may be applied in some cases. It is not Church teaching that all applications of the death penalty in the past were grave moral wrong. The Church and the pope do not use the same moral language about the death penalty as they do for abortion. In the catechism it does state : [2267] Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor… Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.” As in law, we have to look at the historical significance of the death penalty. Before jesus’s time, criminals were given death, were a danger to society and at that time had no other means to restrain that individual. As the catechism says today that is not the case. By supporting the death penalty you may today be killing an innocent life or worse a person that may repent with enough time that may be another lost soul to fall short of the kingdom of god. We should vote for people that will not support abortion, death penalty and euthanasia. Any form of death should not be over-sighted. As Catholics, we should only vote for those who hold all of our principles, not a few. As I stated in the past the few politicians such as Ron Paul are for these principles. Mary lacks the vision of the power we as citizens have as she said: “This notion of vote for the person, not the party, simply shows a lack of understanding of the way our system works and the current status of party politics in the US. Voting for a person of any party strengthens that party regardless of that person’s own views. Pro-life Dems are completely shut out of influencing their party platform right now and have been for about 20 years. Their party is also dedicated to the judicial usurpation of power that led to Roe v. Wade and to making sure it does not get overturned.” In America we have had many parties evolve and change from the time of the founding fathers. People have to look at the problems and rise up in the voting booths. With statements like:“Pro-life Dems are completely shut out of influencing their party platform right now” people will only steer our country into a one party dictatorship. We need to have hope just as we have faith in god. We need to hope that we can change that by voting for the people not the party. It is this thought that is weakening American and strengthening one or another party. It is this idea that people cannot see eye to eye on the issues. By making statements like this is what weakens America. We cannot think of right now, but how can we change the parties and America tomorrow. Remember it is not what America can do for you, its’ what you can do for America. I hope this post will spark discussion and get better candidates for the future. I would like to see the incumbent party running against the incumbent in office. If that is what America wants by getting both sides standing up against the their own party to show real strength. In many cases may cause some to leave the party to run as an independent. The people need to learn not to vote within party lines but to vote for the individual who is the best fit for the job. Background: http://www.catholicexchange.com/2008/07/17/113173/
Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/19 at 10:13 PM |
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Category: |Catholic||Personal|
Catholic Perspective: The New Frontier
Friday, July 11, 2008
New Content! Well, not yet. I am trying to add some spice to this blog. In the next month, I plan to add some new features that many other catholic blogs do not implement today. As you have already noticed I have been podcasting; the next step would be networking through social networks. One feature that I plan to release in the next six months to a year is a bible study application through facebook and google (I don’t discriminate). It will start out simple. By simple, I mean the widget will only search through the entire New American Standard Bible. After I get that far I plan to release a means to annotate collaboratively. I hope with suggestions and a lot of hard work I can make this a reality. Another feature I was thinking was to add a pay-pal account that would be tax deductible. If you remember a couple posts ago I spoke about Carl Anderson’s book “A Civilization of Love”. I went into a little rant about charity, if I can recall. I am a person of action, but feel that I can not be the alone in this. so I figure that I can get my readers to donate. Since this is America and not some totalitarian blog I would have a vote of the top ten charities I am familiar with and give 90%-95% of that money to the charity while leaving a little for funding this blog. Finally I was thinking to have catholic professionals to post their thoughts not just my own. I would try to get a lawyer, doctor, and priest post something once a month. Like having a guest star on the blog once and a while. Now this is only the beginning of my ideas, but I would like some more suggestions.I need your suggestions to make this site go the next level. Please leave a comment of any ideas you can think about and we can take The Catholic Perspective to the new frontier.
Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/11 at 11:00 AM |
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Category: |Blogging||Catholic||News||Development|
Institutions are perfect, people are not
Friday, July 04, 2008
Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/04 at 08:21 AM |
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Category: |Blogging||Catholic|
The Catholic (Green) Perspective
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
In the book Go Green, Live Rich the author David Bach presents us with many ways to save money as well as save the environment. I like to present this book because it provides a lot of simple suggestions to live green while not breaking the bank. I will present the benefits from a practical perspective. First what we can do at work since most of our time is spent at work or driving to work. The next section I will talk about what you can do around the house to save money. Finally I will talk about the catholic perspective of being green. Work At work we can save tons of money and lower our energy. The first thing we can do is make sure your tires are completely inflated it will create less drag and increase gas efficiency. Other small hints that people should already doing is change your oil every 3-6 thousand miles, accelerate slower to get to your desired speed. Some more obvious ways of saving energy is getting a hybrid car or a gas efficient car. You can also see if your work allows you to telecommute and work from home. Thus saving hundreds of dollars in gas driving to and from work. Before you print any documents at work do you really need that hard copy or can you make due and not waste paper needlessly? One final tip I will leave you with is bring a bag lunch. It will save you from eating out and the extra waste you create because of the packaging. As well in relation to my last post about health, you can eat healthier when you go to work and try to walk a half an hour especially if you work in a office. Fine, some of these tips will not personally help your wallet, but help your company save money unless you work for yourself then it will make a difference. Home In our homes we have a lot we can do to save us all money and stop spending needless resources. The first thing you can do is plant a couple of trees around your home. It will lower your house’s temperature in the summer and keep it warm in the winter by deflecting wind. Another thing you can do around the house is make sure you do not have a water leak in your house. A small leak on average can cost your house anywhere from 10-20 dollars or more, in extra water charges. Other things you can do is buy organic and less meat. Fact is there is many ways in the house to save money while lowing the amount of resources you use. I would recommend picking up the David Bach book and any of his other books. Faith In the last post I mentioned the sin of gluttony. In this post I will mention the sin of sloth for not caring about the world we live in that god created for us to take care of it. Sloth is a state of being indifference or laziness. In our lives it is a sin of putting off what god wants from us. Being green is not only helping everyone, but following the teaching the church has for us. In our faith, we should look at taking care of the world god has given us. In general as Catholics or just citizens of the world we should take care of our planet. We should pick up after ourselves and try to recycle as much as possible. A couple a few things I learned from David Bach is: Given these last tips I will leave you with some things to think about. We should show empathy for all that we do in our lives and try to think of others instead of being apathetic to the things I mentioned. God Bless.
America is dead last when it comes to conserving resources. I am not going to make this blog like the many about be green or else. I would like to talk about the benefits for becoming green and why as a good catholic it is in our best interest aside of the financial payback it would bring to our lives.
Posted by Catholic Chump on 06/25 at 07:10 PM |
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Category: |Catholic||Book|
Welcome to the Catholic Chump
Monday, June 23, 2008
Posted by Catholic Chump on 06/23 at 11:10 PM |
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