For starters, Catholicism doesn’t neatly fit into any box or political party, anymore than Jesus would if he were forced to join a 2012 political party. That said, being that the Catholic Faith is the keeper (in fullness), of the immutable teachings of Jesus Christ, any serious Catholic need only look at the issues/party platforms at hand, and apply them accordingly to the party that either holds most of them or, if in both cases, when or if intrinsic evils are part of their platforms, vote with the side upholding the “lesser of the intrinsic evils.”
A true Catholic is always, “Catholic First.”
So, let’s consider the issues at hand, starting with Catholic communitarian social teachings. In a perfect world, where we all loved and served God, the “one size fits all” could actually work. “Let’s just throw it all into one pot and use as needed, according to our needs.” Outside of Catholic monastic monasteries (where that is the case), any bets how long that would last in America? One need look no further than a busy afternoon at a Costco when the free food samples are flowing. Rest assured, despite those who line up and wait their turn for a small sample, among them will always be the ones who barge in and grab as much as two hands can hold.
What does work, and in accordance with Catholic Social Teaching, is subsidiarity and solidarity, together, both the hallmark of Paul Ryan’s plan, which by the way, is also approved by his Bishop. Farther Barron of Word of Fire has also weighed in, with a short and excellent video explaining not only the “First Things vs Commonweal debate”, but even more so, the correct teaching of the Catholic Church.
http://www.wordonfire.org/WOF-TV/Commentaries-New/Paul-Ryan-and-Catholic-Social-Teaching.aspx
It also needs to be pointed out that Ryan is not and never was an Objectivist. One can easily agree with Ayn Rand’s philosophy on free markets or Austrian Economics while totally disagreeing with a selfish Godless personal philosophy. In addition, who teaches the dignity and necessity of work more than the Catholic Church? How any Catholic can justify the recently imperialistic “executive order “work no longer necessary for welfare” is beyond logical thinking and the best interests of the least among us.
The reality is, we are drowning in debt of which the bulk will be passed on to our children. Yes, we all need health care, but not a plan mired in taxes, hidden regulations, and government calling the shots. Part of the Republican platform is not just a repeal of the ACA, but a “redo” of it, in a more affordable and higher quality way for all. We should all want that.
As for the always hot button issues of abortion and same sex marriage, it’s not necessary to debate the differences between Ryan and Biden. Life, and marriage between a man and women, is the heart of the gospels. Abortion and gay ‘marriage’ are clearly against the teachings of the Catholic Church, no exceptions, ever, even in those rare cases of rape and incest. That said, it’s easy to understand why the rape and incest inclusions are beyond radical to our American Culture.
Let’s take the worst case scenario: brutal rape of a 13 year old resulting in pregnancy. Would even the “best” Catholic allow his or her daughter to endure such a pregnancy, even if the baby were going to be put up for adoption? I suspect only the ones who believe in something our culture can’t and probably will never grasp; true martyrdom. Yes, it’s a heavy cross indeed, but is it heavier than the one Christ or His mother carried? Perhaps this real life story of a nun, Sister Lucy Vertursac, raped in Serbia in 1995 will help at least a few understand how a real Catholic discerns a gut wrenching decision; a profound example of Christian Martyrdom. This letter was published in an Italian Newspaper.
___________
"I am Lucy, one of the young nuns raped by the Serbian soldiers. I am writing to you, Mother, after what happened to my sisters Tatiana, Sandria, and me.
Allow me not to go into the details of the act. There are some experiences in life so atrocious that you cannot tell them to anyone but God, in whose service I had consecrated my life nearly a year ago.
My drama is not so much the humiliation that I suffered as a woman, not the incurable offense committed against my vocation as a religious, but the difficulty of having to incorporate into my faith an event that certainly forms part of the mysterious will of Him whom I have always considered my Divine Spouse.
Only a few days before, I had read "Dialogues of Carmelites" and spontaneously I asked our Lord to grant me the grace of joining the ranks of those who died a martyr of Him. God took me at my word, but in such a horrid way! Now I find myself lost in the anguish of internal darkness. He has destroyed the plans of my life, which I considered definitive and uplifting for me, and He has set me all of a sudden in this design of His that I feel incapable of grasping.
When I was a teenager, I wrote in my Diary: Nothing is mine, I belong to no one, and no one belongs to me. Someone, instead grabbed me one night, a night I wish never to remember, tore me off from myself, and tried to make me his own . . .
It was already daytime when I awoke and my first thought was the agony of Christ in the Garden. Inside of me a terrible battle unleashed. I asked myself why God had permitted me to be rent, destroyed precisely in what had been the meaning of my life, but also I asked to what new vocation He was calling me.
I strained to get up, and helped by Sister Josefina, I managed to straighten myself out. Then the sound of the bell of the Augustinian convent, which was right next to ours, reached my ears. It was time for nine o'clock matins.
I made the sign of the cross and began reciting in my head the liturgical hymn. At this hour upon Golgotha's heights,/ Christ, the true Pascal Lamb,/ paid the price of our salvation.
What is my suffering, Mother, and the offense I received compared to the suffering and the offense of the One for whom I had a thousand times sworn to give my life. I spoke these words slowly, very slowly: May your will be done, above all now that 1 have no where to go and that I can only be sure of one thing: You are with me.
Mother, I am writing not in search of consolation, but so that you can help me give thanks to God for having associated me with the thousands of my fellow compatriots whose honor has been violated, and who are compelled to accept a maternity not wanted. My humiliation is added to theirs, and since I have nothing else to offer in expiation for the sin committed by those unnamed violators and for the reconciliation of the two embittered peoples, I accept this dishonor that I suffered and I entrust it to the mercy of God.
Do not be surprised, Mother, when I ask you to share with me my "thank you" that can seem absurd.
In these last months I have been crying a sea of tears for my two brothers who were assassinated by the same aggressors who go around terrorizing our towns, and I was thinking that it was not possible for me to suffer anything worse, so far from my imagination had been what was about to take place.
Every day hundreds of hungering creatures used to knock at the doors of our convent, shivering from the cold, with despair in their eyes. Some weeks ago, a young boy about eighteen years old said to me: How lucky you are to have chosen a refuge where no evil can reach you. The boy carried in his hands a rosary of praises for the Prophet. Then he added: You will never know what it means to be dishonored.
I pondered his words at length and convinced myself that there had been a hidden element to the sufferings of my people that had escaped me as I was almost ashamed to be so excluded. Now I am one of them, one of the many unknown women of my people, whose bodies have been devastated and hearts seared. The Lord had admitted me into his mystery of shame. What is more, for me, a religious, He has accorded me the privilege of being acquainted with evil in the depths of its diabolical force.
I know that from now on the words of encouragement and consolation that I can offer from my poor heart will be all the more credible, because my story is their story, and my resignation, sustained in faith, at least a reference, if not example for their moral and emotional responses.
All it takes is a sign, a little voice, a fraternal gesture to set in motion the hopes of so many undiscovered creatures.
God has chosen me-may He forgive my presumption-to guide the most humble of my people towards the dawn of redemption and freedom. They can no longer doubt the sincerity of my words, because I come, as they do, from the outskirts of revilement and profanation.
I remember the time when I used to attend the university at Rome in order to get my masters in Literature, an ancient Slavic woman, the professor of Literature, used to recite to me these verses from the poet Alexej Mislovic: You must not die/because you have been chosen/ to be a part of the day.
That night, in which I was terrorized by the Serbs for hours and hours, I repeated to myself these verses, which I felt as balm for my soul, nearly mad with despair.
And now, with everything having passed and looking back, I get the impression of having been made to swallow a terrible pill.
Everything has passed, Mother, but everything begins. In your telephone call, after your words of encouragement, for which I am grateful with all my life, you posed me a very direct question: What will you do with the life that has been forced into your womb? I heard your voice tremble as you asked me the question, a question I felt needed no immediate response; not because I had not yet considered the road I would have to follow, but so as not to disturb the plans you would eventually have to unveil before me. I had already decided. I will be a mother. The child will be mine and no one else's. I know that I could entrust him to other people, but he-though I neither asked for him nor expected him-he has a right to my love as his mother. A plant should never be torn from its roots. The grain of wheat fallen in the furrow has to grow there, where the mysterious, though iniquitous sower threw it.
I will fulfill my religious vocation in another way. I will ask nothing of my congregation, which has already given me everything. I am very grateful for the fraternal solidarity of the Sisters, who in these times have treated me with the utmost delicacy and kindness, especially for never having asked any uncareful questions.
I will go with my child. I do not know where, but God, who broke all of a sudden my greatest joy, will indicate the path I must tread in order to do His will.
I will be poor again, I will return to the old aprons and the wooden shoes that the women in the country use for working, and I will accompany my mother into the forest to collect the resin from the slits in the trees.
Someone has to begin to break the chain of hatred that has always destroyed our countries. And so, I will teach my child only one thing: love. This child, born of violence, will be a witness along with me that the only greatness that gives honor to a human being is forgiveness.
Through the Kingdom of Christ for the Glory of God.
__________
Perhaps it’s time for all Catholics to ask the rarely if ever asked question (s), how Catholic am I, really? Am I radical, counter cultural, willing to pick up my cross and follow Christ, regardless of its weight , shame, or life changing consequences as Christ asked of all of us? If called, would, or could, I say yes to martyrdom?
Lastly, if the most we are asked as well blessed Americans is to vote for the party most closely associated with the teachings of Christ and His Church, are we even able to do that much, or will our ideologies and comfortable lifestyles continue to blind us?
Will we as Catholics, to whom more has certainly been given, in probably the most important election of our lifetimes, be voting “Catholic or comfortable?” The “Catholic” decision is beyond obvious .
.
This editorial succintly states the dilemma faced by Catholics commited to the whole body of Faith and the complete moral teachings of the Church in the political climate of today's America. Each major politcal party does need a strong Catholic voice to help guide its policies; neither seems to have that, even though, as you point out, each has a powerful political figure and practicing Catholic as their Vice Presidential candidate. What a wasted opportunity. This Catholic dilemma is the core reason why I am a political independent and have been for many years. The situation seems to force on Catholics a choice of "the least worst candidate" for President and for many other offices.
I have recently started reading COmmonweal and am shocked by the political bias. YOur use of language to describe the candidates is vitriolic and extreme. While forgiving Biden for going against church teaching and making excuses for his absurd use of his Catholicism you then act as if Paul Ryan is a horrible and decietful person. This is absurd and unfortunately representative of a bias that the Catholic laity should avoid in politics. There are many Catholics who beleive that the conservative apporach to our social problems would result in a more godly and generous world instead of empowering false gods (government) with the rights to mandate and control people. SHow me a country with a controlling government (NOrth Korea, CUba and Venezuela come to mind) in which the people are free to practice their faith or live lives that are even half what the poor of the US have. Instead they are starving and desperate populations with no religious freedom. COmmonweal is a sad sate of CAtholic affairs.
I agree with Wayne's assessment of the article. It adequately scopes out the ven diagram of how Biden and Ryan fall within the scope of Catholic belief as well as the grey areas where they diverge from one another and the areas where they diverge from catholic teaching.
I also agree that it is a shame that neither Biden nor Ryan provide "moral leaven", but I would add that neither do most catholics when they enter the highly polarized arena of politics. Witness SB Gravely's comment which inflects precisely that.
Humbly, I suggest that perhaps the trouble with articulating and witnessing the breadth of catholicism's "both/and" approach (i.e. both social issues and economic ones) is that the heart of the catholic view rests upon the view of the human person imbued with dignity and made in the image and likeness of God. The responsibility, outlook, and mission of such a person tends to get flattened in America to a cult of personality, self-improvement, self-fulfilment. In such a view, people and policies aren't just obstacles, but moments where we can moralize about their evils too in the attempt to be "holier than thou." In the end, prudential judgment gets flattened into "the lesser of two evils" and the cheap cyncism that accompanies evaluating that type of politics.
One thing is for certain, the poor and the unborn didn't built that by themselves.
For starters, Catholicism doesn’t neatly fit into any box or political party, anymore than Jesus would if he were forced to join a 2012 political party. That said, being that the Catholic Faith is the keeper (in fullness), of the immutable teachings of Jesus Christ, any serious Catholic need only look at the issues/party platforms at hand, and apply them accordingly to the party that either holds most of them or, if in both cases, when or if intrinsic evils are part of their platforms, vote with the side upholding the “lesser of the intrinsic evils.”
A true Catholic is always, “Catholic First.”
So, let’s consider the issues at hand, starting with Catholic communitarian social teachings. In a perfect world, where we all loved and served God, the “one size fits all” could actually work. “Let’s just throw it all into one pot and use as needed, according to our needs.” Outside of Catholic monastic monasteries (where that is the case), any bets how long that would last in America? One need look no further than a busy afternoon at a Costco when the free food samples are flowing. Rest assured, despite those who line up and wait their turn for a small sample, among them will always be the ones who barge in and grab as much as two hands can hold.
What does work, and in accordance with Catholic Social Teaching, is subsidiarity and solidarity, together, both the hallmark of Paul Ryan’s plan, which by the way, is also approved by his Bishop. Farther Barron of Word of Fire has also weighed in, with a short and excellent video explaining not only the “First Things vs Commonweal debate”, but even more so, the correct teaching of the Catholic Church.
http://www.wordonfire.org/WOF-TV/Commentaries-New/Paul-Ryan-and-Catholic-Social-Teaching.aspx
It also needs to be pointed out that Ryan is not and never was an Objectivist. One can easily agree with Ayn Rand’s philosophy on free markets or Austrian Economics while totally disagreeing with a selfish Godless personal philosophy. In addition, who teaches the dignity and necessity of work more than the Catholic Church? How any Catholic can justify the recently imperialistic “executive order “work no longer necessary for welfare” is beyond logical thinking and the best interests of the least among us.
The reality is, we are drowning in debt of which the bulk will be passed on to our children. Yes, we all need health care, but not a plan mired in taxes, hidden regulations, and government calling the shots. Part of the Republican platform is not just a repeal of the ACA, but a “redo” of it, in a more affordable and higher quality way for all. We should all want that.
As for the always hot button issues of abortion and same sex marriage, it’s not necessary to debate the differences between Ryan and Biden. Life, and marriage between a man and women, is the heart of the gospels. Abortion and gay ‘marriage’ are clearly against the teachings of the Catholic Church, no exceptions, ever, even in those rare cases of rape and incest. That said, it’s easy to understand why the rape and incest inclusions are beyond radical to our American Culture.
Let’s take the worst case scenario: brutal rape of a 13 year old resulting in pregnancy. Would even the “best” Catholic allow his or her daughter to endure such a pregnancy, even if the baby were going to be put up for adoption? I suspect only the ones who believe in something our culture can’t and probably will never grasp; true martyrdom. Yes, it’s a heavy cross indeed, but is it heavier than the one Christ or His mother carried? Perhaps this real life story of a nun, Sister Lucy Vertursac, raped in Serbia in 1995 will help at least a few understand how a real Catholic discerns a gut wrenching decision; a profound example of Christian Martyrdom. This letter was published in an Italian Newspaper.
___________
"I am Lucy, one of the young nuns raped by the Serbian soldiers. I am writing to you, Mother, after what happened to my sisters Tatiana, Sandria, and me.
Allow me not to go into the details of the act. There are some experiences in life so atrocious that you cannot tell them to anyone but God, in whose service I had consecrated my life nearly a year ago.
My drama is not so much the humiliation that I suffered as a woman, not the incurable offense committed against my vocation as a religious, but the difficulty of having to incorporate into my faith an event that certainly forms part of the mysterious will of Him whom I have always considered my Divine Spouse.
Only a few days before, I had read "Dialogues of Carmelites" and spontaneously I asked our Lord to grant me the grace of joining the ranks of those who died a martyr of Him. God took me at my word, but in such a horrid way! Now I find myself lost in the anguish of internal darkness. He has destroyed the plans of my life, which I considered definitive and uplifting for me, and He has set me all of a sudden in this design of His that I feel incapable of grasping.
When I was a teenager, I wrote in my Diary: Nothing is mine, I belong to no one, and no one belongs to me. Someone, instead grabbed me one night, a night I wish never to remember, tore me off from myself, and tried to make me his own . . .
It was already daytime when I awoke and my first thought was the agony of Christ in the Garden. Inside of me a terrible battle unleashed. I asked myself why God had permitted me to be rent, destroyed precisely in what had been the meaning of my life, but also I asked to what new vocation He was calling me.
I strained to get up, and helped by Sister Josefina, I managed to straighten myself out. Then the sound of the bell of the Augustinian convent, which was right next to ours, reached my ears. It was time for nine o'clock matins.
I made the sign of the cross and began reciting in my head the liturgical hymn. At this hour upon Golgotha's heights,/ Christ, the true Pascal Lamb,/ paid the price of our salvation.
What is my suffering, Mother, and the offense I received compared to the suffering and the offense of the One for whom I had a thousand times sworn to give my life. I spoke these words slowly, very slowly: May your will be done, above all now that 1 have no where to go and that I can only be sure of one thing: You are with me.
Mother, I am writing not in search of consolation, but so that you can help me give thanks to God for having associated me with the thousands of my fellow compatriots whose honor has been violated, and who are compelled to accept a maternity not wanted. My humiliation is added to theirs, and since I have nothing else to offer in expiation for the sin committed by those unnamed violators and for the reconciliation of the two embittered peoples, I accept this dishonor that I suffered and I entrust it to the mercy of God.
Do not be surprised, Mother, when I ask you to share with me my "thank you" that can seem absurd.
In these last months I have been crying a sea of tears for my two brothers who were assassinated by the same aggressors who go around terrorizing our towns, and I was thinking that it was not possible for me to suffer anything worse, so far from my imagination had been what was about to take place.
Every day hundreds of hungering creatures used to knock at the doors of our convent, shivering from the cold, with despair in their eyes. Some weeks ago, a young boy about eighteen years old said to me: How lucky you are to have chosen a refuge where no evil can reach you. The boy carried in his hands a rosary of praises for the Prophet. Then he added: You will never know what it means to be dishonored.
I pondered his words at length and convinced myself that there had been a hidden element to the sufferings of my people that had escaped me as I was almost ashamed to be so excluded. Now I am one of them, one of the many unknown women of my people, whose bodies have been devastated and hearts seared. The Lord had admitted me into his mystery of shame. What is more, for me, a religious, He has accorded me the privilege of being acquainted with evil in the depths of its diabolical force.
I know that from now on the words of encouragement and consolation that I can offer from my poor heart will be all the more credible, because my story is their story, and my resignation, sustained in faith, at least a reference, if not example for their moral and emotional responses.
All it takes is a sign, a little voice, a fraternal gesture to set in motion the hopes of so many undiscovered creatures.
God has chosen me-may He forgive my presumption-to guide the most humble of my people towards the dawn of redemption and freedom. They can no longer doubt the sincerity of my words, because I come, as they do, from the outskirts of revilement and profanation.
I remember the time when I used to attend the university at Rome in order to get my masters in Literature, an ancient Slavic woman, the professor of Literature, used to recite to me these verses from the poet Alexej Mislovic: You must not die/because you have been chosen/ to be a part of the day.
That night, in which I was terrorized by the Serbs for hours and hours, I repeated to myself these verses, which I felt as balm for my soul, nearly mad with despair.
And now, with everything having passed and looking back, I get the impression of having been made to swallow a terrible pill.
Everything has passed, Mother, but everything begins. In your telephone call, after your words of encouragement, for which I am grateful with all my life, you posed me a very direct question: What will you do with the life that has been forced into your womb? I heard your voice tremble as you asked me the question, a question I felt needed no immediate response; not because I had not yet considered the road I would have to follow, but so as not to disturb the plans you would eventually have to unveil before me. I had already decided. I will be a mother. The child will be mine and no one else's. I know that I could entrust him to other people, but he-though I neither asked for him nor expected him-he has a right to my love as his mother. A plant should never be torn from its roots. The grain of wheat fallen in the furrow has to grow there, where the mysterious, though iniquitous sower threw it.
I will fulfill my religious vocation in another way. I will ask nothing of my congregation, which has already given me everything. I am very grateful for the fraternal solidarity of the Sisters, who in these times have treated me with the utmost delicacy and kindness, especially for never having asked any uncareful questions.
I will go with my child. I do not know where, but God, who broke all of a sudden my greatest joy, will indicate the path I must tread in order to do His will.
I will be poor again, I will return to the old aprons and the wooden shoes that the women in the country use for working, and I will accompany my mother into the forest to collect the resin from the slits in the trees.
Someone has to begin to break the chain of hatred that has always destroyed our countries. And so, I will teach my child only one thing: love. This child, born of violence, will be a witness along with me that the only greatness that gives honor to a human being is forgiveness.
Through the Kingdom of Christ for the Glory of God.
__________
Perhaps it’s time for all Catholics to ask the rarely if ever asked question (s), how Catholic am I, really? Am I radical, counter cultural, willing to pick up my cross and follow Christ, regardless of its weight , shame, or life changing consequences as Christ asked of all of us? If called, would, or could, I say yes to martyrdom?
Lastly, if the most we are asked as well blessed Americans is to vote for the party most closely associated with the teachings of Christ and His Church, are we even able to do that much, or will our ideologies and comfortable lifestyles continue to blind us?
Will we as Catholics, to whom more has certainly been given, in probably the most important election of our lifetimes, be voting “Catholic or comfortable?” The “Catholic” decision is beyond obvious .
.
Wayne's approach seems best, putting church ahead of politics, rather than vice versa, as most of us are doing these days. In 2008 I first decided I couldn't vote Republican, then after strongly considering not voting, I decided to vote for Barack Obama. I can't see balancing the budget, caused largely by Wall Street excesses, on the backs of the present day poor. I'm not impressed with the Republican's expressed concern about tomorrow's poor, while they are all too ready to let today's poor starve (including WIC babies). So I'm where I was in 2008. I suspect I'll again go with the president, but I haven't ruled out not voting.
Romney no one is sure about. He withholds information on himself. He doesn't appear to follow the Republican platform on abortion. Instead he appears to follow the Mormon outlook: basically against it in most but not all cases, such as rape or when mother's life is at stake. They also don't hold that human life begins at conception; they say there is no scriptural evidence for this. Mormon leaders have also said some very negative things about Catholicism. What does Romney think? This would be good for our bishops to know.
Of course I meant to say something like, "I can't see solving our budget problems, caused largely by Wall Street excesses, by taking away necessities from present day poor..."
Patricia's commentary was thoughtful and, at the level of personal Catholicism, the theology seems impeccable.
What is under consideration, however, is public policy. Religious freedom involves both rights and obligations -- most particularly the rights to personal religion and personal conscience and the obligations to respect the personal religions and consciences of others.
I want to address two specific issues: abortion and health care.
It was stated that Biden supports "abortion on demand." That is an unfair characterization. What he supports is allowing others to have the religious freedom to make this decision themselves, based on their own personal religions and consciences and life situations.
Catholicism asserts that human life begins at conception. This is a religious definition, however, and not an unchallengeable scientific definition. What is the difference between life in general and human life in particular? The most obvious biological feature which defines humanity is the human brain, or, more specifically, the human cerebral cortex, which does not form until the end of the 2nd trimester and is not functional until even later than that.
Is abortion of an embryo or fetus, lacking a cerebral cortex really "baby killing?" According to a particular religious definition -- yes. According to a highly defensible scientific definition, consistent with other religious beliefs -- no. In a secular society, is it religious freedom to criminalize abortion or is it religious tyranny?
The moving example of Sister Luc Vertursac is certainly something which should and does speak directly to the Catholic conscience. But it's one thing to use that as an example to inform one's own conscience, when one is personally faced with a situation such as that. It's something else to use that example to inflict a 9 month pregnancy, carrying the offspring of a monster, on one's own 13 year old daughter (Rosemary's Baby being an apt metaphor). But it's beyond the pale to inflict that on someone else's 13 year old daughter, especially when that other family isn't even Catholic.
Again, one person's "religious freedom" is another's religious tyranny.
Unlike Ryan, Biden remembers the problems of Catholic politicians in the pre-JFK era, and Biden is informed by JFK, who arguably made it possible for there now to be a heavily Catholic US Supreme Court and two Catholic Vice Presidential candidates. Prior to JFK, the thought of Catholics in positions of great political power was frankly fightening to many Americans, who did not themselves want to be forced to follow the marching orders of the Pope.
JFK proved to Americans that a President could be privately Catholic, while not inflicting his Catholicism on the governed. JFK remains a hero to many of us, despite his private failings, and deserves credit for blazing a trail now followed by Ryan. Just as Ryan was undeniably informed by Ayn Rand, Biden was informed by JFK.
Moving on to health care, there are currently 45,000 deaths per year in the USA attributable to lack of health insurance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19762659
Government programs to increase health insurance coverage reduce the number of these preventable deaths: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19762659
ObamaCare, if not repealed, will expand coverage to more than half of the currently uninsured. It would be greater than this, were it not for the stated intentions of some Republican governors (e.g. Rick Perry) to refuse to expand their Medicaid programs, as a result of the recent Supreme Court decision allowing states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare.
Patricia notes that the Republicans have some type of secret plan to improve the health care system, as an alternative to ObamaCare. I say "secret" because the only ideas they have offered are to (1) expand the ability of insurance companies to offer health insurance across state lines and (2) institute tort/malpractice reform. Neither of these plans would do anything to expand health care coverage or lower costs.
All health insurance systems require putting together a network of providers, i.e. doctors and hospitals. An insurance company based in Nebraska might well be able to put together a viable, cost-effective provider network in Nebraska, but this doesn't help residents of California or New York or Florida, who require California provider networks, New York provider networks, and Florida provider networks. There is already a ton of competition among providers to put together the largest, best, and most affordable provider networks in each of these states. Opening the "competition" to a Nebraska insurance company wouldn't do anything at all to improve the quality or lower the costs of the respective networks.
As for malpractice/tort reform, it's already been done -- thirty years ago in California, more recently in Texas. In neither case was there demonstrably beneficial impact, with respect to cost of health care and/or use of "defensive medicine." This is because actual damages (as opposed to the punitive and pain and suffering damages, which are severely restricted under California and Texas law) are sufficiently great and the professional, reputation damage resulting from a malpractice claim are so great as to provide all the incentive a physician needs to practice just as much "defensive medicine" with malpractice reform as in its absence. This doesn't mean that malpractice reform is not a good idea, but it does mean that malpractice reform doesn't do anything substantive from the standpoint of increasing coverage of the uninsured or lowering health care costs.
Stating it another way, the secret GOP health care plan is just as former US Representative stated, to wit: "Just die" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-usmvYOPfco
45,000 preventable deaths per year. 15 times the total lost in 9/11. The response to 9/11 was to start two Asian land wars which will ultimately incur 3 trillion dollars or more in expense, when the most effective measure ever taken to prevent another 9/11 was to install locks on airplane cockpit doors. And yet providing health insurance to all Americans is unaffordable and to be condemned as a socialist government takeover.
The teachings of John XXIII have also informed Joe Biden's Catholicism:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-...
64. The public administration must therefore give considerable care and thought to the question of social as well as economic progress, and to the development of essential services in keeping with the expansion of the productive system. Such services include road-building, transportation, communications, drinking-water, housing, medical care, ample facilities for the practice of religion, and aids to recreation. The government must also see to the provision of insurance facilities, to obviate any likelihood of a citizen's being unable to maintain a decent standard of living in the event of some misfortune, or greatly in creased family responsibilities.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Link correction.
In my previous post, I asserted:
Moving on to health care, there are currently 45,000 deaths per year in the USA attributable to lack of health insurance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19762659
Government programs to increase health insurance coverage reduce the number of these preventable deaths: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19762659
By mistake, I gave the same link twice. The correct 2nd link is as follows:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1202099
I regret the error. - Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
With all due respect Larry, I responded to the topic at hand as a Catholic. Keeping on topic, this is a Catholic debate regarding the giant chasm between the historic " first two Catholic VP Candidates. I do however greatly appreicate your assesment of my "correct Catholic Theology", as in doing so, you helped make my case.
You ask, "Is abortion of an embryo or fetus, lacking a cerebral cortex really "baby killing?" Semantics are of little or no importance, as the only thing that matters is that "whatever " is being killed, it's FULLY HUMAN. Be it a one minute old embryo, a one minute old newborn, or a one hundred and one person of senitlity, the human genetics remain unchanged. Even if we were debating this at the secular level, as Americans, we belong to a country that was built upon the protection of all human life, and not at various stages.
As Catholics, it's our obligation to vote in the best interest of public policy, regardless of how our non-Catholic brothers and sisters vote. The crux of being Catholic is to be God's Light to others, not to join in with the culture and stay popular. To imply that we should vote as others in the culture would want us to, and not with a Catholic Conscience, is beyond absurd. The essence of Catholicism it to follow Christ, not the crowds! That said, only a heretic would take marching orders from anyone but Christ and His Chruch, and that includes JFK, who, by his free will, like the rest of us, was/is free to say and do as he pleases, albeit not without consequences.
I find it most interesting that you focus on 45,000 deaths per year related to people without health care, and yet make no mention of 120,000 deaths per MONTH by abortion, a third at least, or close to your 45,000 number, are sentient/pain feeling "human lives." What politicians are looking out for those lives? Certainly not the ones who started out staunchly pro life (including the Democrats), only to cave to the culture when abortion started to equate to votes and power.
My intention is not to get into a long abortion debate, but mostly to appeal to the Catholic (well-formed via the heart of the Church), conscience. Mother Teresa used to say, "Abortion always involves two victims, a dead baby and a dead conscience."
Having once had a dead conscience, I can relate. No doubt it's much of the reason I do what I can to bring those dead consciences back to life, a feat easily done by one's will, the great mercy of God, and the gift of being Catholic. As I said in my previous post, as Catholics, we were given much, and much is expected.
I also realize that above all things, faith is a gift. All Catholics don't yet have the gift of faith, so plesae don't take offense in my suggestion of how to get it: Just do it! Really, live as the church teaches, vote as the church teaches, and obedience will have personal rewards beyond your wildest dreams, one of them the gift of faith.
As Catholics, we are the only people in the world who have the gift of the mass and all seven sacraments; a supernatual treasure chest of power at which most of the world scoffs. It's ours to use or lose, but at great peril and of our own free will. Through the Eucharist/Real Presence, we have an added view of the world via the eyes of Christ, as we are truly present in one with Him. While the gifts are extraordinary, so is the responsibility, especially to protect the least among us, as all social justice, as well as peace, starts in the womb (the reason I made this response more heavy on abortion than the other social issues).
I'll let Rev. Jesse Jackson ask the last question, one that he asked in 1977 when he supported the Hyde Amendment. It just might explain what kind of a world we get when we live for government and a secular society, and not Christ.
"What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth."
Hi Patricia. I was just now listening to BBC radio, which was relating the story of the young Christian girl in Pakistan, in prison for allegedly burning a Quran. Sacred scripture obviously has different meaning and importance to Muslims as to Catholics.
That's the end game of religious tyranny, which is most assuredly, to use your own example, what we will suffer as a nation, the day we demand that the 13 year old daughters of non-Catholics be forced to carry to term and deliver the progeny of rape monsters, through criminalization of her parents and doctors.
The Rev. Jackson was speaking through the prism of his own personal religious definition of personhood, and he was speaking in the context of the Hyde Amendment, as opposed to the context of Roe v. Wade. He was speaking also of aborting a "baby," which, as I noted previously, does not connote the same thing to all religious and moral people, based on both scientific and religious principles.
You casually dismiss the 45,000 fully human lives lost per year, owing to the absence of health insurance, through a numeric comparison with abortions. By your reasoning, it's OK that the former lives are lost, ostensibly, because these lives are lost in a country where Roe v Wade is the law of the land. So long as the latter is the case, the former is not a concern.
Same creed; opposing views; to reference directly the title of the editorial to which we both respond, recalling the encyclical of John XXIII.
Your statement about "cav[ing] to the culture, when abortion started to equate with votes and power," applies equally to Republicans as is does to Democrats, and it most certainly applies to the current Republican candidate for President, a strong supporter of Roe v Wade, in a prior political incarnation.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA