text: American Catholicism's Pact with the Devil - Page 2 - Catholic Answers Forums
  #16 Feb 14, '12, 7:16 am
  The problem is he is right to a degree. Cardinal Bernadin was not a bright light for Catholics at all. The U.S Bishops were achingly silent as a body on the issue of abortion right after Roe v. Wade. ... I also think he underplays how many priests speak out on abortion, and sexual ethics though. This is becoming more and more common as we get better educated priests with some back bone.
  You are correct about Cardinal Bernardin, but, according to the chronology of U.S. bishops' political activism against abortion, he led - or participated in - a group that pressed both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter during the 1976 presidential campaign to support an amendment outlawing abortion. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m.../ai_n29114624/
  "We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour." - GK Chesterton
  #17 Feb 14, '12, 7:47 am
  I disagree with his assertion that the US leadership of the Catholic Church believes there is a "Christian duty to confiscate other people's money and redistribute it."
  I also disagree with his opinion that Roe v. Wade could have been overturned by the sort of protest which greeted the recent Obama decision regarding contraception and insurance. Overturning a Supreme Court decision can't be done by political pressure. However, an executive branch decision can be reversed by political pressure.
  The confiscation issue probably depends on your view of the Democrats' social policies. Is taking more taxes from one group ostensibly to pay for a better life for another group redistributing wealth? Much of Church social teaching seems to be state and federal Democrats' quality-of-life issues given a moral/theological veneer by Diocesan peace-and-social-justice staffs - all too often exclusively Democrats themselves. You're right that Supreme Court decisions can't be overturned by political pressure, but I respectfully suggest that our Supreme Court justices made it to the highest court in the land because they are political animals, who are sensitive to - if not directly influenced by - the national political climate. A strong outcry before the Roe v. Wade decision (backed by some legal muscle) would at least have made them think twice about what they were doing.
  #18 Feb 14, '12, 2:50 pm
  I also disagree with his opinion that Roe v. Wade could have been overturned by the sort protest which greeted the recent Obama decision regarding contraception and insurance. Overturning a Supreme Court decision can't be done by political pressure. However, an executive branch decision can be reversed by political pressure.
  This is a little disingenuous. If we consult lawyers, you are correct that executive mandates are very much different than Supreme Court decisions. But in the larger picture, if the bishops had excercised a bit more muscular leadership in 1973, Roe could have been overturned within 12 years. Presidents select SC nominees, you realize. Mobilized and unified, catholics would be the mother of all political constituencies. But we've been gutted of any political influence by leadership that has been permissive to moral equivalence arguments that are and always have been absurd. One can argue whether or not Cardinal Bernadin intended that effect when he made his "seamless garment" explanation. But the results are the same regardless of his intentions. It was a pastoral disaster that rendered catholics impotent as a moral influence on American politics for 30 years. We cancel each other out and smaller, but more unified interests determine US political direction.
  #19 Feb 14, '12, 3:32 pm
  What's done is done. What is your point exactly?
  Whether or not overturning Roe could have been a determining issue in presidential campaigns is speculative. I am not sure that, even with the USCCB pushing the issue, that it would have worked. In the era of Women's Liberation, abortion was seen as an overdue right and any attempt to remove it would have been very hotly contested. And I am not sure that Catholics would have been anymore willing to let abortion determine their votes than they are today.
  One can argue whether or not Cardinal Bernadin intended that effect when he made his "seamless garment" explanation. But the results are the same regardless of his intentions. It was a pastoral disaster that rendered catholics impotent as a moral influence on American politics for 30 years.
  I disagree with that very much. I do agree that many Catholics who wanted to justify downplaying abortion as an issue wrapped themselves in the Seamless Garment. But that was just a fig leaf to cover the views they already held.
  Arguably, the pro-life movement in choosing to abandon the Seamless Garment approach helped to diminish the pro-life cause by essentially turning it into a politically conservative movement instead of one which reached across the aisle.
  #21 Feb 14, '12, 6:58 pm
  I hope someone can steer things back to what is charity, and if the American church has made a deal with the devil. I sort of felt the same way when my Catholic German friends explained to me that your "tithe" to the church is taken out as a tax by the government every year, and they don't give little envelopes like we do here. You basically register your religion with the Govt, the govt collects, and pays the churches.
  Does that mean there is a financial incentive to be an athiest? Please excuse grammar or spelling - chemo all day - brain not sentences correctly making
  Oh yes, I forgot. This detachment from direct seems to make them consider "charity work" as something the Govt should do, and therefore something like bringing food to a soup kitchen is looked at like something govt should do. I don't know if that is a universal feeling there, but it was a big surprise to me.
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  #22 Feb 14, '12, 9:44 pm
  Yes, Max. The Church has been in terrible shape in Germany for a long time. You have summed up the way it works quite well. Their Sunday mass attendance rates are very low too.
  #23 Feb 15, '12, 7:45 am
  The history is very clear on the matter. Catholics around the time of Roe were heavily Democratic voters and that changed VERY little after "abortion rights" became the central plank of the Democratic party (in deed, if not in rhetoric). The failure of the bishops to immediately rank abortion as an era-defining issue along with slavery, racial civil rights and communism is what enabled the abortion boosters to retain large chunks of otherwise faithful catholic voters. I'm not making this up, I KNOW these people. They are in my family, my friends, my cowrokers. They don't love abortion and would never procure one, but have been hoodwinked into seeing it as one issue among many, as if a million Americans die every year from lack of health insurance or unemployment checks. You seem to be overlooking the fact that there was NO electoral demand that created Roe. Few states allowed abortion at the time it was imposed on us by unelected judges. A swift and decisive reaction would not have been seen as political, but moral.
  It is only now, 40 years later that denouncing abortion is seen as partisan posturing, rather than moral leadership. The simple fact is that catholics could easily have said "Social Justice matters, is crucial and we will attend to it the very moment this more basic moral catastrophe is resolved." Some, in their day, accused the Quakers of partisanship for selecting slavery as an era-defining issue that commanded their full attention (incidentally making them minor players at best in struggles against immirgant exploitation and OTHER social issues of their day). Fortunately, history has been a fairer judge of their character. It will be to us as well.
  Somebody asked me what my point was. The author is obviously using hyperbole calling this a 'pact with the devil.' There hasn't been that and he goes too far claiming that bishops should shut up about government poverty assistance. But he has a point that there have been disasterour pastoral leadership decisions.
  #24 Feb 15, '12, 8:42 am
  What many don't seem to understand was that this was an opinon piece or editorial. It was not intended to be a scholarly treatise, complete with footnotes. In other words, the piece was similar to something you might find on the editorial page of a newspaper (NY Times, Washington Post, etc. excepted.).
  #25 Feb 16, '12, 8:07 pm
  Has anyone read Paul Rahe article : a call to arms. (for Catholics) It is the most shocking thing I have read in the last 10 years. I agree with and trust Catholic Answers and it's forum. Can somebody please comment.
  #26 Feb 17, '12, 3:47 am
  http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Americ...A-Call-to-Arms
  " I posted on Ricochet a piece entitled American Catholicism's Pact With the Devil. In it, among other things, I traced the crisis now faced by American Catholicism to the reign within the American Church of Joseph Bernardin, Cardinal-Archbishop of Chicago. In my haste, I got a detail or two wrong, and I was challenged not only with regard to the Cardinal's cursus honorum but also with regard to the role he played in the scandal concerning the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy. This post is meant to correct the record with regard to minor details, to flesh it out with regard to the profound damage done the American Church by Cardinal Bernardin, and to suggest that we might be witnessing a turning of the tide."
  "In the Bernardin era, Catholic clergymen lost their way. On questions of faith and morals, they spoke in at best a muted fashion. On political questions beyond their ken, they ran their mouths incessantly. To professed Catholics who openly rejected the teaching of the Church on the pre-eminent moral issue of the day, they lent their support. Barack Obama has now shown them the price that they will have to pay if they do not radically reverse course. Maybe, just maybe, they will."
  Lastly, I am a bit confused why this thread was moved from the "Moral Theology" section to "Social Justice". Although I don't think either of these sections were 100% in line with what this topic deals with, I thought that "Moral Theology" was more appropriate given the points that were discussed. Can the Forum Moderator provide a rationale? jenkiedad
  #27 Feb 17, '12, 7:57 am
  Rome lies in ashes, and there are a lot of fiddles being handed round.
  #28 Feb 17, '12, 10:31 am
  Lastly, I am a bit confused why this thread was moved from the "Moral Theology" section to "Social Justice". Although I don't think either of these sections were 100% in line with what this topic deals with, I thought that "Moral Theology" was more appropriate given the points that were discussed. Can the Forum Moderator provide a rationale? Any threads that are connected with the HHS mandate are being sent to this forum.
  #29 Feb 17, '12, 11:12 am
  If any of the information in that article or the one on American Catholicism's Pact with the Devil surprises you, frankly I'd be shocked. I'd ask you what closet you've been hiding in for the last 20 years. This stuff has all been reported before. Apparently most people can't put 2 + 2, all known and documented facts, together into a narrative. Nothing new there.
  The only things new about the mandate story are:
  1. The government finally felt that it was strong enough to take over completely in defiance of the Constitution. We shall see shortly whether that's going to be allowed or not, and
  2. The bishops are all in agreement that they're not irrelevant. And they've come together to write letters to that effect. That's new. I hope we win this fight, but we might not in the short run. Catholics need to write to their legislators in Congress, and then pray. And then find out what the Church REALLY teaches and abide by it. Or there will be more of the same.
  #30 Feb 17, '12, 11:22 am
  The other thing that really needs to happen is that the bishops need to get off their padded thrones and apply some pressure to organizations that use the word "Catholic" and don't follow the laws of the Church. I'm seeing some scant evidence this might be happening. That is wonderful but it's LONG OVERDUE. It's a start.