The Catholic Vote was Heard!

Unfortunately, it was the wrong voice that was speaking.  If Catholics had voted in accordance with Church teachings, not Church orders, but by its teachings, our president would not have been re-elected.  First, let me go over Catholics today and then I will cover those issues that caused the President to win.
 
Today, we have a lot of "cafeteria Catholics".  Those are the Catholics who pick and choose those things about Catholicism that they like and can live with.  They are the people who like to say they are Catholic, but find that being a true Catholic is a lot of work.  These are the Catholics who voted for the President.  A true Catholic, following the Church's teachings should NOT have voted for President Obama.  Here are just a couple of reasons why:

Abortion:  Abortion is an intrinsic evil as taught by the Catholic Church.  No matter how you slice it, abortion is wrong.  To vote for someone or be involved with an abortion makes you an associate of that evil.  President Obama is the most Pro-Abortion president we have ever had.  Four times he voted against a law that would protect a baby born from a botched abortion.  He supports abortion on demand throughout the duration of a pregnancy as well as the procedure known as Partial Birth Abortion. You cannot be Catholic and pro-abortion.  To say you are is a lie...and a stance you will have to defend on judgement day.

Religious Freedom:  The HHS Mandate that the Obama administration is pushing onto religious organizations is NOT a Catholic issue, it is a Christian issue, a religious issue.  We constantly hear about the Separation of Church and State...when people want religion to stay out of abortion laws, etc.  But when Government wants to tell a religious organization that they MUST provide a service to someone that goes against their beliefs and conscience, we see no issue?  This is not about birth control and access to pills and abortion.  It is about the government telling religions what the will do...or else.  Honestly, I see it also as a thinly veiled attack on the Catholic Church specifically by the President, who is no fan of the Church.

Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide:  This has become a new thing in our country.  Massachusetts called it "Death with Dignity" on their ballot.  The culture of death that the Democratic Party tends to espouse is a moral affront to everything the Catholic Church teaches.  Pro-Life is not just about abortion.  The Church teaches that life is sacred from conception to NATURAL death.  So, take out Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, and the death penalty in all but severe cases.  The point at which we start deciding who will live and who will die based on age, health, legal matters...is scary.  In Europe there has been a suggestion that people should be able to "post-birth abort" their child who may have gotten sick, have a health issue, or is just a financial burden; up to one year after it was born.  Is that a route we want our country to follow?  Have we become that morally sick?

Same-Sex Marriage:  This really should be a no-brainer, but we are seeing more and more Catholics treating this issue as if it is no big deal.  It completely goes against the natural order and God's law.  The Church does not hate homosexuals.  Quite the contrary.  We are told to be compassionate and not to judge.  We are also told that homosexual acts are wrong.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church is quite clear on the Church's position.

There are other issues that makes our current President a wrong vote for Catholics, but these are the big ones that were prominent in this election.  It is not easy being Catholic.  We have a lot of rules to follow and many of them are not easy.  A former priest at my home parish once answered a question about why the Church doesn't change and modernize to attract more people by saying, "It is not God who needs to change for us, but we who need to change for God".  I believe that is what Jesus told us during his time on Earth and yet, here we are 2012 years later trying to tell Him he is wrong.

So if you say you are a Catholic, BE a Catholic.  Let your actions, your words, and your vote show your Catholicity.  When we say we are Catholic and fail to act as our church teaches, we confuse those who aren't Catholic and present a false position for our Church.  Like I said, it is really hard being a Catholic, but I am proud to say I am one!

Contraception...the True Teaching

Lately, contraception has been forefront in the news.  Not only because of the Health and Human Services Mandate, backed by President Obama; but also because it has taken a front seat in the Republican Presidential Candidates' debates.

The Catholic Church has once again been under fire as being against women's health care, anti-choice, and stuck in the dark ages.  Feminist organizations have attacked it for its hard stance against contraception and abortion, and have questioned how a bunch of old men can sit there and make decisions for women.

The truth is, it isn't those "old men" making the decisions.  In order to understand that statement you need to be able to accept that the Church is following teachings from Jesus Christ since the time he created the Church.  The Church stands by it's teaching that nothing should stand in the way of the possibility of having a child every time the husband and wife have sexual relations.  The reason God made us male and female was so that the parts went together and life is created.  If you try to use the same parts, no baby can be had.  I heard a statistic once that said that if all the people alive today were homosexual, in three generations mankind would vanish from the face of the earth.

As time has gone by, I have heard an even better way to explain why contraception should not be used.  When a man and woman marry, they commit to each other 100%.  In sickness and in health, richer and poorer, etc., but 100% nonetheless.  If you now use contraception, you are no longer giving yourself to each other 100%.  You are now keeping a part of yourself away from your spouse.  What most of secular society fails to realize is that the Catholic Church places a very high honor on the sacrament of Marriage.  It is not just a contract, something we conveniently do so that we can share medical costs or get tax breaks.  That is what a civil union is for.  Marriage is two people becoming one...forever.  You cannot become one, share in each other in the richest of ways, if you have placed a barrier between you.

I will cover marriage and divorce in another blog...it deserves much more time than this.

So what about all the arguments for contraception?  You know, the rather weak excuses given to allow promiscuity between unmarried couples...and selfishness between married couples.  This statement is a bit judgemental, but often the truth hurts.  The pill and other devices have allowed unmarried people to have carefree sex with little fear of repercussions.  It has caused a huge drop in morality in our society.  We now see an increase in premarital sex, infidelity, and numerous other issues.  Married couples place their wants and desires ahead of what God intended marriage to be, the avenue for procreation.  Natural Family Planning can do the same for a married couple as the pill can, with almost the same effectiveness.

One last reason the Church has against the use of contraception is that most of the methods out there today, other than a condom, are abortifacient.  That is, when they do their job, a baby is aborted.  To accept this, you must first agree with the Church's teaching that life begins at conception.  By the way, science has, in the past couple of years, come to agreement with what the Church has taught all along.  That being said, as soon as the egg is fertilized, a new life begins.  The pill, keeps that fertilized egg from implanting in the woman and aborts it.  If it does implant, it starves for lack of nourishment caused by the pill and aborts.  The IUD, sponge, and other methods like those, have much the same effect.  They either stop and kill the sperm, or keep the fertilized egg from implanting.  Basically, every time these methods work as designed, a baby is aborted.  Don't believe me?  Do some research.

The usual defense against what I just wrote is that it is just a clump of cells, it isn't a baby until it implants in the woman.  And then, it is still able to be aborted because it is only a fetus...the term baby seems to make it harder to abort.  Personally, every time I have heard a woman say she is pregnant, she says she is having a baby, not a fetus.

Contraception is not a positive tool in a marriage.  It divides and separates what is supposed to be a union created by God in which his intent for a marriage can be carried out.

We Are Called, But Can We Follow?

As Catholic Christians we are called to evangelize, to spread the Good News.  Admittedly, Catholics are not as good at this as our Protestant brethren.  We tend to be uncomfortable about discussing our faith with others, we don't go door-to-door sharing our message of God's love.  You also don't see too many Catholic programs on mainstream television, they are usually broadcast on the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) or The Catholic Channel on satellite radio.  Why do you think we have such a tough time sharing our Faith? 

I believe the answer is twofold.  First, we have become poorly catechized as a church.  We, as Catholics, know less about our Church and what/why it teaches what it does ,than most atheists.  This leads to and intertwines with, the second.  That is, we find ourselves often defending our Church and what it teaches and believes from an onslaught of secularist thinking and false understandings by other churches and peoples.  I would like to discuss some of the major issues in society today that seem to be the hardest for people to understand, and difficult for most Catholics to explain because they just don't know. 

Over the next couple of blogs, I will lay down an explanation for these, to the average Protestant, as I have had them explained to me and learned through my own continued education in the Faith.  The topics will offer my best understanding on them, and what I go by when I explain to others.  They are:  contraception, Mary's place in the church, Confession, marriage (maybe mixed with contraception)/divorce, statues (idolatry), and the three parts of where our beliefs come from; The Majesterium, the Bible, and tradition.

Mary

Many Protestants misunderstand the position of honor the Catholic Church gives to Mary, the Mother of God.  They falsely believe that Catholics worship Mary and place her on an equal footing with God.  This is absolutely not true.  Yes, there is a prayer called The Hail Mary which we say a lot, especially if you say the Rosary regularly.  There is an important line in this prayer which, by the way, is taken from the Bible (Luke 1:42).  It says, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners...".  Note the request for prayers.  We are not praying to her as we would to God, we are asking her to intercede for us.  Now the arrow flies, that we don't need to have her pray for us, or the saints for that matter.  We can pray right to God!  Absolutely, you sure can.  But I pose this question then.  If there is no need to go to others, then why do people ask for "travel mercies", or please pray that my father gets better, or ask us to pray for them for any number of reasons?  If Jesus will listen to anyone, wouldn't he listen to his own mother?  We Catholics call on what we call, The Communion of Saints to help us in times of need.  That is why you will hear Catholics pray to saints for different reasons...asking for their help.

Here is a simple example that shows how our request for intercession from Mary works.  I had discontinued my son's allowance due to a lack of work performed.  After a while, he went to my wife to see if she would talk to me about getting his allowance back.  Why didn't he just go to me?  Why ask her?  He thought maybe she could sway me a little bit better than he could.  He needed her to intercede for him.

Mary is given the honor due her by her position in life.  As the Mother of God, she deserves to be revered and honored, not worshipped.  If a Catholic never said a Hail Mary his entire life...it would be OK.  It doesn't make him a bad Catholic.  Mary is given the honor we should all give to our mother's.

Next time I will take a look at statues and art and the misconceptions behind the Church's use of them.