The Political Catholic

What Do You Stand For? "When you stand for nothing, you will fall for everything!" I am taking a poll it does not matter if you are a democrat, republican or independent if you wish please participate. What i want to know is what you stand for as a Republican, Democrat or Independent. What is your core political belief. Now answering might be a little harder than you think because I don’t want to hear what you don’t agree with or don’t believe - when answering the question tell me what you believe in, what you stand for - not what you are against. I will go first. What do I stand for as a Democrat? I stand for a government that is willing to create possibilities for people. To invest in education and training to give people the skills to better themselves economically. I stand for a fair distribution of resources so that poorer areas get the same economic opportunities as more affluent areas. Schools with technology and emphasi...

Religious Freedom Part III You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a lampstand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In my last 2 posts I have spent some time developing my thoughts on religious freedom; from what I believe were the intentions of our founding fathers   to the views of the Catholic Church in regards to Religious Freedom in the last several centuries.    In this post I am going to struggle to give voice to what should be our response as Catholics to the exhortation of Jesus that I have quoted above.   How do we become salt and light for the world? First let us look at what Jesus said about Authority in his time: And they sent to him their di...

Religious Freedom Part II In my last post I spoke about the First amendment and the importance of the separation of church and state.  Today I am going to write about why that is so important and why religious leaders are mistakenly attempting to erode that separation in their defense of religion.   In 1962 Pope John XXIII called an Ecumenical council - Vatican II.  Out of that council came many of the changes that we now recognize as ordinary in the Catholic church.  One of those changes occurred in a document called Dignitatis Humanae - or the Declaration of the Religious Freedom. This document was radical in its approach to the theology of Religious freedom.   Dignitatis Humanae professed that:  “A sense of the dignity of the human person has been impressing itself more and more deeply on the consciousness of contemporary man, and the demand is increasingly made that men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making us...

The Religious Right and the dismantling of the Wall between Church and State 2017 marks the 226 anniversary of the United States Bill Of Rights ratified December 15, 1791.  A list of rights that the Founding members of our country decided to enshrine in our most sacred documents that created what we know as American Democracy. When the founders crafted this document they started with the protection of the freedom of Religion, Speech and Protest.  These protections  were important enough to be the first words that they wrote when declaring the rights that we have as human beings; rights that were derived from that first revolutionary document - The Declaration of Independence.   The first amendment states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redres...

The Way Forward. Anyone who paid attention to the 2016 election cycle has realized that things have changed. Politics has moved past the usual Republican/Democratic bickering that has been the status quo for the last 8 years; we are entering into the wilderness and what we shall be when we come out on the other side is not known.  Just as the Hebrews wandered in the desert for 40 years or as Jesus who spent 40 days in the desert - we as people of color are beginning our own period of testing and purification.  And unless we come together, we will not survive.  In my previous post I said that by the year 2050 we will become a minority-majority country.  That means that the sum total of the minority population will outnumber the white population of the United States. Therefore creating the potential to shift the balance of political power from the White majority that has held it for the past 241 years.  But this reality is in jeopardy unless we as people of c...

Robert E. Lee, Really? On Saturday August 12, 2017, groups of white supremacist, neo-Nazis and the KKK converged on Charlottesville VA to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee a confederate general who had taken up arms against the United States during the civil war.   They were loud and belligerent and they clashed with counter-protesters.   Sadly a young woman lost her life standing up against hate that day.   We will forever honor Heather Heyer’s sacrifice on that tragic day.   Since then the debate has raged about these statues that stand in many places in the south honoring a group of men who actively fought against the United States of America. Calls that they be left alone or relocated have rung out on both sides. I even got pulled into the discussion by a white friend of mine who didn’t understand all the fuss over these statues and during the conversation I realized that I had also fallen for the diversion.   The bottom line is th...