Catholics Care. Catholics Vote.

Tuesday, November 8

Read the Guide

God or Caesar

Rembrandt:  Stoning of St. Stephen
(source:  http://www.artbible.info/art/large/682.html )

As a Roman Catholic in America, where do you stand?   Notre Dame’s faculty cabal apparently missed the original lecture: “Render unto Caesar . . .” (Mark 12:17.)    Cf. Discourse of first martyr, Saint Stephen (Acts 7) 

Fire Upon the Earth



Archbishop Charles J. Chaput (Source: Catholic News Agency photo)

Is modern American culture hostile to religious values?   In a recent Catholic News Agency article, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput outlines the case in "A Heart on Fire":

“Religion is under pressure in the public square because traditional religious faith, and the morality that flows from it, are obstacles to a very different and much more aggressively secular model of American life.” 

 Read more here.

The Writing on the Wall

Art source:  USCCB

Religious liberty is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home. It is about whether we can make our contribution to the common good of all Americans. Can we do the good works our faith calls us to do, without having to compromise that very same faith? Without religious liberty properly understood, all Americans suffer, deprived of the essential contribution in education, health care, feeding the hungry, civil rights, and social services that religious Americans make every day, both here at home and overseas. 

from, A Statement on Religious Liberty
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty 

Read more

Fortnight for Freedom

Stop HHS Mandate - San Francisco
(C) 2012 On Being Roman Catholic in America

On July 4, 2012, the fireworks in the night skies over America will have special meaning for those who participated in the Fortnight of Freedom. Find out more, here.

Labels

In a recent op-ed piece about religion and politics in America, Michael Gerson, of the Washington Post Writers Group, eventually comes to his point that neither the politics of sectarianism nor the politics of secularism fits the American model of "religious pluralism, humanized by tolerance."  Point taken.  Yet the opinion begins by describing Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum as "(t)he pre-Vatican II Catholic candidate."  The pre-Vatican II Catholic.  An odd phrase.  With this code-laden description, Gerson neatly categorizes Santorum's religious beliefs, labels them--and marginalizes them.  Pre-Vatican II Catholic and other such labels--name calling, in essence--cut against the fostering of a society built upon pluralism and tolerance.  Lacking thought, honesty, or civility, labels serve the lowest form of persuasion, the ad hominum argument.  Why debate ideas when you can attack, label, and marginalize the person?  As such, labels are a first step to intolerance.  As Catholics and Christians, we have a right, as do all Americans, to participate fully in the markeplace of ideas, including religious ideas.  As aptly described by Archbishop Chaput, it is our duty.