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PDF versionRC Leaders Challenge Gingrich & Santorum
by Michael Sean Winters on Jan. 20, 2012
An illustrious collection of Catholic leaders has signed an open letter to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Senator Rick Santorum, asking them to refrain from racial stereotyping and other demeaning comments as they seek the GOP nod for the presidency. The signatories remind the candidates that racism is an "intrinsic evil."
Hope is a Christian virtue and a splendid thing, and hoping that GOP candidates will refrain from dog whistling about race in the midst of a South Carolina primary shows that hope can spring eternal, even when the likelihood of it attaining fruition is slim indeed.
It is great these leaders did
It is great these leaders did this, but they should have included something on the gays as well especially to Santorum. He sounds a bit self righteous which turns people off, and you can bet President Kennedy would not being wearing his Catholicism on his sleeve were he running today. There is a danger of a backlash to the involvement of the Catholic bishops both in Congress, and the White House on both the abortion issue, and gay marriage.
" . . .you can bet President
" . . .you can bet President Kennedy would not being wearing his Catholicism on his sleeve were he running today."
Certainly not in South Carolina of the time.
Please see the very helpful work of Albert J. Menendez titled John F. Kennedy: Catholic and Humanist on this very topic, including the full transcript of his address to the southern Protestant preachers. It is important to see as well the recording of his off the cuff responses to their follow up questions.
Such as this should run again . . .
here is an interesting
here is an interesting article from EWTN in this regard from our new boss of phillie, who here damns JFK:
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JFK speech on faith was `sincere' but `wrong,' Archbishop Chaput states
Houston, Texas, Mar 2, 2010 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Monday evening, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver delivered a talk at Houston Baptist University, in which he criticized President John F. Kennedy's historic campaign speech on his faith impacting his possible presidency as "sincere, compelling, articulate - and wrong." The archbishop called on his audience to get involved in the Christian "vocation" of being engaged in public service, at a time when religion is being increasingly ignored in the political sphere.
Archbishop Chaput gave his address, "The Vocation of Christians in American Public Life," on the evening of March 1 at the Houston Baptist University's Morris Cultural Art center. The lecture was presented in coordination with the Pope John Paul II Forum for the Church in the Modern World at the University of St. Thomas.
After offering caveats about his remarks, Archbishop Chaput emphasized the need for ecumenism and dialogue based on truth as opposed to superficial niceties. He then remarked, "We also urgently owe each other solidarity and support in dealing with a culture that increasingly derides religious faith in general and the Christian faith in particular."
During his talk, the archbishop noted that there are currently "more Catholics in national public office" than there ever have been in American history.
"But," he continued, "I wonder if we've ever had fewer of them who can coherently explain how their faith informs their work, or who even feel obligated to try. The life of our country is no more `Catholic' or `Christian' than it was 100 years ago. In fact it's arguably less so."
One of the reasons why this problem exists, he explained, is that too many Christian individuals, Protestant and Catholic alike, live their faith as if it were "private idiosyncrasy" which they try to prevent from becoming a "public nuisance."
"And too many just don't really believe," he added.
Recounting the historical context that led to the current state of affairs, Archbishop Chaput referred to a speech that the late John F. Kennedy made while running for president in 1960 which greatly effected the modern relationship between religion and American politics. At his speech almost fifty years ago, President Kennedy had the arduous task of convincing 300 uneasy Protestant ministers in a Houston address that his Catholic faith would not impede his ability to lead the country. Successful in his attempt, "Kennedy convinced the country, if not the ministers, and went on to be elected," he recalled.
"And his speech left a lasting mark on American politics," the prelate added.
"It was sincere, compelling, articulate - and wrong. Not wrong about the patriotism of Catholics, but wrong about American history and very wrong about the role of religious faith in our nation's life."
"And he wasn't merely `wrong,'" the archbishop continued. "His Houston remarks profoundly undermined the place not just of Catholics, but of all religious believers, in America's public life and political conversation. Today, half a century later, we're paying for the damage."
"To his credit," he noted, "Kennedy said that if his duties as President should `ever require me to violate my conscience or violate the national interest, I would resign the office.' He also warned that he would not `disavow my views or my church in order to win this election.'"
"But in its effect, the Houston speech did exactly that. It began the project of walling religion away from the process of governance in a new and aggressive way. It also divided a person's private beliefs from his or her public duties. And it set `the national interest' over and against `outside religious pressures or dictates.'"
Archbishop Chaput then clarified that although "John Kennedy didn't create the trends in American life that I've described," his speech "clearly fed them."
In light of this separation of religion from the public sphere, "What would a proper Christian approach to politics look like?" the archbishop queried.
Drawing on St. Augustine and several theologians, Archbishop Chaput answered, "Christianity is not mainly - or even significantly - about politics. It's about living and sharing the love of God. And Christian political engagement, when it happens, is never mainly the task of the clergy."
"That work belongs to lay believers who live most intensely in the world," he asserted.
"Christian faith is not a set of ethics or doctrines. It's not a group of theories about social and economic justice. All these things have their place. All of them can be important. But a Christian life begins in a relationship with Jesus Christ; and it bears fruit in the justice, mercy and love we show to others because of that relationship." This fundamental relationship then informs how we involve ourselves in public life, he explained.
"As I was preparing these comments for tonight," he added, "I listed all the urgent issues that demand our attention as believers: abortion; immigration; our obligations to the poor, the elderly and the disabled; questions of war and peace; our national confusion about sexual identity and human nature, and the attacks on marriage and family life that flow from this confusion; the growing disconnection of our science and technology from real moral reflection; the erosion of freedom of conscience in our national health-care debates; the content and quality of the schools that form our children."
Because of the immensity of these issues, the Denver archbishop stressed that Christians need to united in their societal involvement. "The vocation of Christians in American public life does not have a Baptist or Catholic or Greek Orthodox or any other brand-specific label. Our job is to love God, preach Jesus Christ, serve and defend God's people, and sanctify the world as his agents. To do that work, we need to be one. Not `one' in pious words or good intentions, but really one, perfectly one, in mind and heart and action, as Christ intended," he said.
Archbishop Chaput concluded his remarks by saying that "We live in a country that was once - despite its sins and flaws - deeply shaped by Christian faith. It can be so again. But we will do that together, or we won't do it at all."
"We need to remember the words of St. Hilary from so long ago: Unum sunt, qui invicem sunt. `They are one, who are wholly for each other.' May God grant us the grace to love each other, support each other and live wholly for each other in Jesus Christ - so that we might work together in renewing the nation that has served human freedom so well."
Flaming out liberals do not
Flaming out liberals do not equal to an illustrious collection of Catholic leaders.
So, you are saying that it is
So, you are saying that it is alright to use racial sterptypes? Though not racial, your discription of those who signed the letter seems like just the kind of bigoted sterotype that the leaders were addressing. Is it only the dignity of those who agree with you that should be considered?
Yours in Christ,
John David
... and if, God forbid, you
... and if, God forbid, you "flame out" today, PStanley, is that the sort of comment by which you want to be remembered?
I think it is racist if you
I think it is racist if you automatically think that anyone on food stamps is African-American.
these two fraudulent
these two fraudulent candidates explicitly specify race.
Seems like a random
Seems like a random collection from the Old Guard of Liberal Catholicism. They are the secular left's tame Catholics.
Roger, don't be so entrenched
Roger, don't be so entrenched in your side to not realize when those with whom you often disagree have a point.
In response to your comment,
In response to your comment, I've taken another look at this, but, it still seems to me that they are a random collection from the Old Guard of Liberal Catholicism, tame Catholics always ready to attack the target assigned to them by the secular left, and that is what is going on here.
I don't think anybody is appealing to racism. I think liberals twist non-racist statements and falsely claim that they are opposing racism. Do you think Santorum is racist? Do you think he's not a racist, but making racist statements to get votes? Here's a fact about food stamps: "11.2 million more people have joined the rolls from 2009 through 2011, including 4.4 million last year during what was ostensibly an economic recovery." Should we be allowed to talk about that fact, or should anybody who mentions it be attacked as a racist?
Do you think the organizers of this group acted to prevent racist statements, or to highlight their claims of racism for political purposes? You make your own decision, of course, but it just seems to me that if they were sincerely, even if mistakenly, trying to prevent future racist statements, they'd use a different method.
I am with Wardog. Newt et al
I am with Wardog. Newt et al are deliberately using code talk when they say things like "food stamp president" and make ridiculous claims that black people are the biggest food stamp users (not true, majority of food stamp use is by whites). They are playing to a racist group of voters and they know it, and so does everyone else.
If Obama's skin was light pink Newt would not use the phrase "food stamp president" and you know it.
Furthermore, Newt likes to go around bragging about how he is a new man since he converted to Catholicism. Let's see it. A Catholic has no business doing this racial stereotyping.
yeah and he was born again
yeah and he was born again when he went Southern Methodist . . .
"The signatories remind the
"The signatories remind the candidates that racism is an "intrinsic evil."
And I remind Mr. Winters and the signatories that the Catholic Church says the same thing about all the GLBTQ people who are not running for the Presidency.
cf. #3:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_...
Not to mention this "second class" pastoral care from the USCCB:
http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/homosexual...
So how POWERFUL a statement have they really made from their cushy, tenured watchtowers?
Mr. McKee, I can assure you
Mr. McKee, I can assure you that the people who signed this document are 100% with you in opposing the teaching of the Catholic Church on sexual morality. So you can put your mind at ease of that score. Your comment does, however, indicate that you do not understand Cathoilc teaching, or are deliberately misrepresenting it. You are misrepresenting a simple and important distinction. The Church does say that some things are "intrinically evil." The Church does not say the "same thing" about anybody.
I commit sins. I imagine that some of these sins are, in the technical language you favor, "intrinsically evil" acts. The more I think about it, the more sure I am that some of the things I do fit that definition. So the Church teaches that sin is wrong, and that at least some of the things I do are "intrinsically evil." The Church does not say the "same thing" about me. The Church does not say that I am "intrinsically evil" even though it does say that about some of the things I do.
I hope that in the future you will avoid misrepresenting the Church in this way. Roger Conley.
Please, spare me the
Please, spare me the casuistic hair-splitting of your LOVE THE SINNER, HATE THE SIN bunk. Any church that has taught you to so cavalierly toss about the INTRINSICALLY EVIL label is no church of mine...or of its founder. Unless, Mr. CONley, you've dug up some new Scriptural data on what Jesus had to say about gay people in the Gospels.
Sign me in as Augustine's FELIX CULPA; who also has no problems with Luther's PECCA FORTITER!
You did not say the Church
You did not say the Church makes a false distiction between people and sins. You said the Church "says the same thing." Now you've changed your story. You admit the Church doesn't "say the same thing." But somehow, even though the Church doesn't say the same thing, it means the same thing.
In the real world, of course, this is a distinction everybody makes. Let's say there are some intrinsically evil acts. Let's assume somebody did one. Would that make the person intrinsically evil? I don't think so. I don't think you think so either. Similarly, I don't believe, despite the Latin, that you disbelieve in the existence of intrisically evil acts. Read the newspaper. Some acts are intrinsically evil. You can misrepresent St. Augustine all you want, but Jesus was against sin. Matt. 18:6. I'm trying to figure out why you're write in this indignant manner. The only theory I can come up with is that you know you're wrong.
Not one bishop signed the
Not one bishop signed the letter. Why not? Could be that theylack testicular stolidity.
the bishops were selected for
the bishops were selected for their party affiliation, and their party has not yet put out any internecine hit on these two candidates.
this in from the AP
this in from the AP today:
GINGRICH: "Under Jimmy Carter, we had the wrong laws, the wrong regulations, the wrong leadership, and we killed jobs. We had inflation. We went to 10.8 percent unemployment. Under Ronald Reagan, we had the right job — the right laws, the right regulators, the right leadership. We created 16 million new jobs."
THE FACTS: Sure, inflation was bad and gas lines long, but under Carter's presidency unemployment never topped 7.8 percent. The unemployment rate did reach 10.8 percent, but not until November 1982, nearly two years into Reagan's first term.
Most economists attribute the jobless increase to a sharp rise in interest rates engineered by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker in an ultimately successful effort to choke off inflation. Unemployment began to fall in 1983 and dropped to 7.2 percent in November 1984, when Reagan easily won re-election.
The economy did add 16 million jobs during Reagan's 1981-1989 presidency. Gingrich's assertion that "we created" them may have left the impression that he was a key figure in that growth. Although Gingrich was first elected to the House in 1978, his first Republican leadership position, as minority whip, began when Reagan left office, in 1989.
This is the list of prominent
This is the list of prominent theologians and Catholic Church leaders:
Francis X. Doyle
Associate General Secretary
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (retired)
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Institute Leadership Team:
Sisters Patricia McDermott, RSM (President) Eileen Campbell, RSM Anne Curtis, RSM Mary Pat Gavin, RSM Deborah Troillett, RSM
Sister Pat Farrell, OSF
President
Leadership Conference of Women Religious
Rev. Bryan N. Massingale
Associate Professor of Theology
Marquette University
Rev. Clete Kiley
Director for Immigration Policy
UNITE HERE
Rev. Anthony J. Pogorelc, M.Div., Ph.D.
The Catholic University of America
Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies
Rev. David Hollenbach, S.J.
University Chair in Human Rights and International Justice
Boston College
Sr. Patricia J. Chappell, SNDdeN
Executive Director, Pax Christi USA
Marie Dennis
Co-President, Pax Christi International
Rev. John F. Kavanaugh S.J.
Professor of Philosophy
St. Louis University
Rev. Jim Keenan, S.J.
Founders Professor in Theology
Boston College
Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J.
Senior Fellow
Woodstock Theological Center
Georgetown University
Sister Mary Ellen Howard
Executive Director
Cabrini Clinic, Detroit
Rev. James E. Hug, S.J.
President
Center of Concern
Sister Simone Campbell
Executive Director
NETWORK, A Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Steven Schneck
Director
Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies
The Catholic University of America
Sister Karen M. Donahue, RSM
Justice Team
Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Community
Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale
Assoc. Prof. of Theology
Boston College
Tom Allio
Cleveland Diocesan Social Action Director (retired)
M. Shawn Copeland
Associate Professor of Theology
Boston College
Sister Maria Riley, OP
Senior Advisor
Center of Concern
Todd Whitmore
Associate Professor
Department of Theology
University of Notre Dame
Terrence W. Tilley
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology
Chair
Theology Department
Fordham University, Bronx, NY
Michael E. Lee
Associate Professor
Theology Department
Fordham University, Bronx, NY
Paul Lakeland
Aloysius P. Kelley S.J. Professor of Catholic Studies
Director, Center for Catholic Studies Fairfield University
Lisa Sowle Cahill
Monan Professor of Theology
Boston College
Eric LeCompte
Board Member
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good
Tobias Winright
Associate Professor of Theological Ethics
Saint Louis University
Christopher Pramuk
Assistant Professor of Theology
Xavier University, Cincinnati
John Sniegocki
Associate Professor of Christian Ethics
Xavier University, Cincinnati
Kathleen Maas Weigert
Carolyn Farrell, BVM Professor of Women and Leadership
Loyola University, Chicago
Daniel K. Finn
Professor of Theology and Economics
St. John’s University, Minnesota
Gerald J. Beyer
Associate Professor of Christian Social Ethics
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia
Jeannine Hill Fletcher
Associate Professor of Theology
Faculty Director
Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice
Fordham University, Bronx, NY
Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale
Assoc. Prof. of Theology
Boston College
John Inglis
Professor and Chair
Department of Philosophy
University of Dayton
Anthony B. Smith
Associate Professor
Department of Religious Studies
University of Dayton
David O’Brien
University Professor of Faith and Culture
University of Dayton
William L. Portier
Mary Ann Spearin Chair of Catholic Theology
University of Dayton
Alex Mikulich
Research Fellow
Jesuit Social Research Institute
Loyola University, New Orleans
Susan M. Weishar
Migration Specialist
Jesuit Social Research Institute
Loyola University
Kristin Heyer
Associate Professor
Religious Studies
Santa Clara University
James Salt
Executive Director
Catholics United
Vincent Miller
Professor of Religious Studies
University of Dayton
Nancy Dallavalle
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Religious Studies
Fairfield University
These so called leaders
These so called leaders should be ashamed of themselves. The food stamp remark was not racial it was the truth as far as rick santorum it was a mistake of words a mixup. There is nothing here that goes against the teaching of the church. Race baiting is what this letter is doing trying to divide american catholics. These are the kind of catholics that perpetuate culture of death by not preaching the truth. The president is forcing people to go against the teaching of the by supporting programs that force abortion funding down the throats of catholics.
The usual gang of tired out
The usual gang of tired out discredited radical nuns, priests and academics, nanny nagging the general public on behalf of pro-abort and pro-"gay" and "if it works economically, hamper it, hamstring it and burden it by brainless socialism and regulation until it collapses into futility in the name of the false god of equality" Democrats like Obama. They are trying to homogenize the GOP Catholic candidates into Democrat lite sound alikes and it is not going to work. Many are trying to relive their salad days in the 1960s by substituting letters of "concern" for more strenuous activity like Freedom Rides. Ordinary Americans have been forced to give until they bleed via the taxes imposed by these luminaries and their lapdog liberal politicians but the liberal solutions are nothing more than a job-generating industry for wannabe professional left-wingers who want good jobs and good pay for patting themselves on the back for faux "moral superiority" over those stupid non-liberal wogs who need to be bullied into line. They just cannot find another Kennedy (here all genuflect) to re-create their corrosive fantasies of lost Camelot. And a good thing too for the survival of what remains of our nation. This stuff is soooooo weary and useless.
I think this is perceptive:
I think this is perceptive: "Many are trying to relive their salad days in the 1960s by substituting letters of 'concern' for more strenuous activity like Freedom Rides."
Trad,your right except the
Trad,your right except the media makes it sound as if the pope himself has said this. most of the people on the list are collegite professors and many catholic universities have become so lefty that it is pityful. check with cardnial newman socity they have all types of information on how far left the catholic universities have gone.
SHHHHHHHHH! Let Santorum and
SHHHHHHHHH! Let Santorum and Gingrich make fools out of themselves. Either of these fools in the White House would be a disaster. Don't help them by making them look less foolish.
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