McCain, Obama, and Palin are all Protestants from different denominations. Because of the nature of their religion, they do not agree on what Christianity is and what the teachings of Christianity are in total. Biden is an out of communion Catholic. So, none of these people represent Catholic belief. They, like us, are all sinners. If you are going to base your vote of what one of their pastors has said or what they may have believed at one time, you are a fool.

However, McCain/Palin have made their stance on abortion crystal clear, and so has Obama/Biden.

JohnH: I’m glad nobody’s been parsing my pastor’s statements as if they were my own, or else people would think I’m for women’s ordination and civil unions.

Good point. Any Catholic on this blog who has a priest that wears rainbow colored stoles and prays that the Church will wake up to the priestly vocation crisis and allow women to receive Holy Orders is dealing with a similar wacko (even though that priest is clearly going against Church teaching and his vocation, whereas, in the Protestant religions, the reigning rule is subjectivity and there is no crystal clear doctrine that cannot be negotiated with).

What you, MM and other like-minded folks are doing on this blog is smearing somebody just because of their previous associations. If this is Christianity, then I’m in the wrong religion.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20712.htm

See how they pray fervently for the destruction of our devotion to the Mother of God, claiming it is merely “Artemis of the Ephesians” vaguely baptised!

Uh, love the girls, you forget a couple of things:

1. The United States’ involvement in the Middle East has to do with supporing the only nation in that region that shares American political values, Israel, against those nations that wish to destroy it.

Let’s suppose that the Arab-Muslims destroy Israel. What makes you think they would stop there? After all, the imperialistic Germans and Japanese didn’t stop when they “accomplished” their geopolitical goals 70 years ago, did they?

2. It also has to do with — shall I say the dirty word? — oil.

3. If 9/11 is a direct result of American policy in the Middle East, then why did Islamic terrorists attack 1)transportation facilities in London 2)trains in Madrid 3)a schoolhouse full of children in Russia 4)their fellow co-religionists every day in Iraq?!?!? What do any of the latter four have to do with American foreign policy?

While the Protestant God is an irrational God insofar as their theology is irrational, why do you say that it is a God without reason as the Islamic God is?

Really? Well, the “Protestant” God is the same as the “Catholic” God, which is the same as the “Jewish” God. The fact that Protestants and Catholics have different theological understandings, as do Christians as a whole vis-a-vis Jews, doesn’t mean that the God they worship is different.

But the Islamic understanding of Allah is fundamentally different from Christian and Jewish understandings of Yahweh. Please read the following:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=D4F6548C-4553-4C8A-8B35-77B66808AEDE

More importantly, get a copy of the May 2004 edition of Commentary magazine for Alain Becancon’s article, “What Sort of Religion Is Islam?”

The Holy Father now SIMPLY HAS TO, in a very “pre-Vatican-II” way that leaves no doubt in the mind of all those that dwell on the face of the earth, issue, in person, and standing at the balcony of St. Peter’s, with all the world’s media in attendance. having been alerted in advance, an unambiguous statement of Catholic eschatology, especially it’s amillenial (or rather, liturgically amillenial) elements, in order to bear witness before the world that any carnage loosed upon the planet by ignorant Protestant fundamentalists has no rooting in Scripture and Tradition.

If the Holy Father does this, then the seemingly inexorable wave of Voltairean wrath and rationalist bile that will without a doubt be unleashed like a tidal wave inexorable against all that dare to own the name of Christian will possibly bybass the barque of St. Peter, and merely wash away much of the sectarianism without, a deluge from which the remnant of the ekklesia will be able to emerge to palnt the vine of Christ anew.

No, you don’t bother trying to defend the assertions as not bigoted. You merely attack the person making the assertion.

As I said before, not even liberal Catholic pacifists are immune from Sinful Human Nature.

No wonder you and yourn (ideologically speaking, of course) love the Democrats and love liberalism. They allow you to feel good about yourselves w/out putting your money where your mouth is!

No wonder you and yourn (ideologically speaking, of course) hate Sarah Palin. Her mere existence exposes you for the screwed-up poseurs and cretins you really are.

As far as Roger the Truth Dodger is concerned, he has worse in store for him. As that great saint, John Chrysostom, once said: “The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.” Now, does that make good ol’ Johnny a prophet, or what?

BTW, how many box tops did you have to submit to get your correspondence degree? Whatever it was, it was too much. You got ripped off, dude…big time!

You’re so right, Joseph. We shouldn’t make judgments of people based on things they say. Like we should not judge you just because you publicly said that Cardinal Mahony’s mother should have aborted him. Who the hell are you to point fingers at MM for being a “bigot”?

I think it’s more an American way of thinking than anything… plenty of Catholics of various stripes parish shop.

Re: voluntarism, I’m sympathetic to your point, but we have to be honest: the roots of voluntarism go back to Ockham, and before that, to Duns Scotus, the Subtle Doctor. So it’s not a problem unique to America or Protestantism or American Protestantism.

I think when it comes to prayer, there is a fine line between kooky and non-kooky.

It does not seem kooky (to me) to pray for a successful harvest, for rain, for protection from a storm, or, for that matter, to pray that you have the winning ticket in the lottery. Some or all of those may be theologically very dubious. (Is there a good book that answers questions about the “efficacy” of prayer, whether praying can persuade God to do something he would otherwise not have done, and so on? I would love to read it.)

But praying about the oil pipeline does strike me as kooky. For a politician to pray that he or she is making the right decision does not strike me as kooky, but it does seem kooky (and presumptuous) for a governor to ask her church to pray for the success of her oil pipeline.

I thought her statements about Iraq were overinterpreted and the criticisms not really warranted. In fact, some of her statements about Iraq seemed basically to express a lack of confidence in the way the war was being prosecuted.

I think marianna was off-base above about The Lord’s Prayer. I think Jesus was telling us to pray the very words “thy will be done.” I don’t think he was telling us to say, “I think it is God’s will for there to be a stop sign at the intersection, so let us pray that the authorities acceded to our demand for a stop sign. And I think it is God’s will that the bond issue passes and that Proposition 44 fails, so let us ask God to get out the vote for the bond issue and against the proposition.”

Finally, I don’t know whether this is reassuring or critical (or both), but I have a very strong feeling that we don’t need to be worried that Sarah Palin listens to God, gets instructions on building an oil pipeline, and then carries out the plan God gave to her. I think she probably makes decisions about oil pipelines the way any other governor would and then talks about it in religious terms. So I find it kooky, but I do not find it frightening, as if somehow her next message from God might be to reinstitute the draft in preparation for an invasion from outer space. She appears basically to be a pragmatic politician who talks about God, not someone with fragile mental health who hears voices and obeys them.

But I do find it kooky.