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New York, 3:12 PM
Mon Dec 7
26 posts in the last 24 hours
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07/17/09
Is that President Obama, dressed in that garb? He's getting more clever.
It erased my photo for some reason. NSA interference no doubt.
05/18/09
a) he could NOT have 'easily' done so, not without serious repercussions to his standing.
just the same as you cannot 'easily' address affirmative action and the black community, or illegal immigration and the latin community, or any wrong doings by israel towards the palestinians without hearing from the american jewish community...a large number of which are not israeli, and not serious, practicing jews.
b) all of those instances have been addressed, some to an appropriate degree, others, i wish the church could take its own medicine sometimes and seek forgiveness.
point is, you're beating a dead horse, and the ideals of the church's teachings should not be diminished by it's human and imperfect practice and institution. rome wasn't built in a day. neither was democracy. etc. al.
you also fail to realize, faith aside, how much good the church does in way of education, charity work, and donations. when was the last time you put a few bucks in the basket?
the only issue you brought up that is immediately relevant is the child abuse scandal. and on that...could you have a bit more fucking tact? you could have gotten your point across without being so crude. what happened was terrible, yes. no excuses. but this behavior was NOT condoned and NOT perpetrated by the church. you're dead wrong. you need to look these words up in the dictionary.
05/18/09
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05/18/09
The hypocrisy of the whole protest she-bang is just so ingenious; it's really just fascinating watching the way denial and disillusion works.
05/18/09
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05/18/09
The author actually made the point that Obama did the right thing by not insulting his hosts.
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05/18/09
We will debate this in the court of public opinion. And I'm going to win. Nyaah, nyaah, nyaah.
05/18/09
05/18/09
[gawker.com]
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05/18/09
Politically, it may be smart, if you are having the conversation with ardent pro-lifers. However, he says it frequently and it annoys me. Personally, I'd rather the president accept at face value the fact that I have autonomy over my own body and what is growing in it.
05/18/09
The reality is that under current laws, you have complete autonomy over your body and anything growing inside of it. Obama not only accepts that, he embraces it to a the most extreme of the pro-choice movement.
05/18/09
05/18/09
I'm curious Grim, when do you think life begins? Do you believe that there is there any point when a fetus is in a woman's body when terminating a pregnancy is killing a living being? I'm not trying to fan flames; I am trying to engage and be open minded as I am pro-life.
05/18/09
@taosaur: For many women it is a difficult decision. I have never been in that position so I can't speak from personal experience either. Other people I know have been relieved. A person's reaction probably depends on what they actually think about when life begins, and how conflicted they feel about wanting the baby.
05/18/09
The Catholic Church is by no means perfect. It is an institution that strives for perfection but is populated with sinners. Duh. We all sin. You outline some of the Catholic Churches worst sins and they are indeed horrible. I could add one more that was awful: the Catholic Church's relative silence during the time when Germany had concentration camps.
As for the death penalty, you rightly point out that GWB signed the papers which condemned those found guilty of murder and other horrific crimes. I am against the death penalty, but there is a significance difference between abortion and death penalty. With abortion, many believe that you are killing an innocent fetus/child. With the death penalty, presumably one has committed and has been found guilty of a crime. Perhaps that is why GWB was not protested against when he spoke at ND.
05/18/09
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05/18/09
[www.nd.edu]
05/18/09
As I it was explained to me by someone who went there, the protests against Bush at the University of Notre Dame were quite vociferous and were played out both in the student papers and in protests. There were also many protests on campus put on by several student organizations. The Catholic social justice peaceniks and the blanket organization that united several smaller student groups were quite vocal in their opposition to Bush. These groups were met, of course, with widespread apathy from both the students and the administration. People were either depressed that Bush was elected over Gore, or they were apathetic or they were scared of saying anything.
The problem is that at ND, in order for a student group to protest, it's necessary to receive approval from the administration. Also, many of the students are sheepish about running counter to the administration and the Board of Trustees for the latter was perceived as supporting Bush policies, as Condoleezza Rice as well as several other prominent Republicans sat on the board. The students who would have otherwise done something were just interested in getting their diplomas and getting the hell out of the university without incurring any sort of blemish on their record from an administration that did always seem to work in mysterious ways to suspend people, re-budget student funding or disband political groups on campus. That would have been a waste of the $30,000+ yearly tuition.
For the record, however, George W. Bush was protested in May of 2001 by a little under 700 people. He was protested because of his support of tax breaks for the rich and his defense policies. The capital punishment debate was sidestepped completely because it was not part of Bush's policy initiatives. It could have been discussed, but there were more pressing matters. Discussions of capital punishment at Notre Dame have a way of taking center stage over all other debates. The petition that was circulated specifically left that point out to keep the protests focused, not because, as you suggest, that people saw it as being more acceptable in comparison with abortion because it was sanctioned by the judiciary.
Here is an article for your reading pleasure about the protests and the petition.
[www.nd.edu]
05/18/09
05/18/09
Any other justification is one that's personal, and not religious.
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05/18/09
I should have said that the Vatican has no official teaching on the two wars in Iraq, so Catholics can act on it in any way they wish as long as it jives with what their bishop says and what they know Church teaching to be in general. The Vatican generally officially provides wide latitude in what the bishops and priests can say, but who knows what goes on behind closed doors? Who knows what kind of an unofficial warning the Vatican will give to an archbishop who goes around preaching against the war?
The just war doctrine I mentioned above is an important concept that is drawn out formally in a pastoral document (letters to bishops and priests) composed during the Second Vatican Council. Such documents are for bishops to understand and interpret. They, in turn, give their marching orders to priests. Ordinary Catholics don't have to deal with this though. Catholics just have to listen to the bishops -- and the priests -- who are expected to answer questions relating to all this. This is why they have a hierarchy, so that ordinary people don't have to think about it.
I should mention that I'm not Catholic, so I may be wrong about some of these things.
05/18/09
Learning to think is what education is all about (perhaps not at the Liberty Universities of the nation, however.)
05/18/09
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