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Two views of Catholic morality set to collide

 |  NCR Today

Vice President Joseph Biden and vice-president candidate Congressman Paul Ryan Thursday night will disagree on issues across the board and in the process will display a large tent Catholicism.

I expect the subject of religion to come up. It will be interesting to see how the men handle it.

Both men, of course, profess to be good Catholics, even as they stand at opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman, says he is pro-life, opposed to abortion in all cases, including of rape and incest. He has little to no misgivings, however, about de-funding programs that support pregnant mothers come to term. Ryan, meanwhile, supports the death penalty and his hardly a pacifist. So he is more inconsistent in pro-life matters than his absolutism on abortion suggests. Ryan also opposes the rights of gays and lesbians to marry.

Vice-president Biden supports the legal right of a woman to choose to have an abortion while supporting aid programs that help pregnant mothers. He's no pacifist and he supports same-sex marriage

Same Creed, tradition; different applications.

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May 10-23, 2013

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