"You can't be a catholic and a Democrat" according to some twitwit calling himself fr.

[niyad]

altman. This comes on the heels of the US bishops thumbing their noses at their head, the discoveries of mass and unmarked graves at forced residential schools run by the church, the enslavement, torture and murder of Indigenous peoples, the Burning Times and Inquisition, the pedophile priests, the Magdaline Laundries, women as second-class non-thinking beings, and (on a personal note), the disgusting patriarchal propaganda that I heard yesterday at a funeral mass.

So I think that, in spite of himself, that nutbar may be correct. For none of those things are Democratic values.

[sprinkleeninow]

1. Although however, you can be one and a stellar repukliQuan?

Lettuce prey.

[Moostache]

2. As a former forced Catholic, I say good riddance to bad rubbish

There was a time in my youth that I was TERRIFIED of going to 'Hell'. I believed that if I was bad I was going to burn for eternity. This fear was played up weekly in classes and sermons from the priest and nuns of the Catholic ideological camp, err, I meant 'school' my parents sent me to. Eventually, I attained the age of reason, quit accompanying them to mass on Sundays and in adulthood abandoned the entire sick charade.

My own children have been raised entirely in a secular upbringing and while I freely answer their questions about 'god', religion, the church and everything else, I have never once fobbed off my own forced religious upbringing onto them. I am exceedingly proud of all of my children, as they are empathetic, kind and engaged in making sure that people are treated fairly and with dignity - and not one them ever had nightmares as a 7-year old child, fearing a molten pit of lava and being slowly lowered into it for thought crimes.

I am a proponent of completely ending the tax-exempt status of ALL religious organizations and support a massive property tax on all Catholic Church holdings as well. The money can be used to pay reparations to the evil cabal's victims around the world. Christ knows I could probably use a few additional therapy sessions from my own experiences 40+ years ago...

Free the world. Ban the Church and the Temple and the Mosque.

[MANative]

3. DITTO!!!!!!!!! NT

[lagomorph777]

6. Me too. I am a proud Democrat and glad to have dumped the Catholic crap in early childhood.

Of course, I had to play along until I left for college. But I stopped believing in the Easter Bunny, Santa, and Gawd all on the same day at about age 5.

[Ritabert]

10. Dumped that nonsense 50 years ago

...although I was never afraid of going to hell. As soon as I went away to college that was the end.

[3catwoman3]

11. It sounds as if you raised your 4 much the way I raised...

…our 2 sons. I wanted to be sure that we were the only ones “indoctrinating” them with social and spiritual values, because I knew we would do our best to make sure they would be open-minded adults.

Did you ever find people looking askance at you, so to speak, if you “confessed” that you did not take your kids to church? As if you were neglecting them somehow? I did, and usually avoided the topic. I decided that I would call what I was doing “home churching” - many people home school their kids. I home churched mine, and we discussed responsibility, morality, decency and compassion regularly while they were growing up. Probably more than those who only deal with it on Sundays.

[Moostache]

15. My wife and I partnered equally in the effort...

We have 5 children overall and they experienced 'religion-creep' occasionally from parents of their friends. In most cases, we would answer our children's questions with the most straight forward answers and tell them that not everyone believes as we do and that it was OK - in both directions. Their friends' parents rarely ever said anything directly to us relating to religion and we never challenged the sane ones directly.

I can count on one hand the number of people who openly said anything to us or stopped allowing our children to be friends. In most cases, when conversations tilted towards religion, I would withdraw or change the subject. If pressed, I was honest and told them straight up that because I did not share their beliefs I was not comfortable trying to convince them of mine. I have been surprised by how effective that has been.

Now, behind our backs I am sure that many of the neighbors and even acquaintances have whispered all kinds of prayers for my heathen soul and dark tidings for the fate of my children, but associating with few closely chosen friends and families while remaining outwardly cordial to all has worked thus far.

That does NOT include the aggressive Evangelical types though. When pushed by them, I push back, hard. I have no quarrel with freedom of AND from religion. But once people cross that line and refuse to return to a respectful disagreement, they are no longer part of my or my family's life.

[andym]

4. If the conservative Supreme Court overturns Roe V Wade, will the ultra religious welcome Democrats

With Amy Barrett many observers of the SC believe Roe V Wade will be overturned. If abortion is declared unconstitutional, will these ultrareligious folk such as evangelicals and catholic bishops etc be more open to the Democratic Party?

[vanlassie]

13. Why would they?

[NCjack]

18. The Repugs will revisit their "restroom" issue. After that, gays in

the Boy Scouts. No end in sight to reaching an accommodation.

[meadowlander]

5. I know lots of Catholic democrats.

Catholic priests do a lot to advocate for the poor in urban areas and were instrumental in the labor movement in the US.

You can't write off every member of a 1.2 billion member religion because of the actions of some of those people. Your post is the logical equivalent of blaming every Muslim for 9/11 and if anything doesn't belong on a democratic website, it's that.

[Treefrog]

8. I do too. We always joke that all my friends are Catholics. It does seem that way.

And they are all Democrats also.

[niyad]

12. I am simply talking about the comments of someone claiming to be a priest, and reviewing

some of said church's history (much of which is ongoing today).

I m well aware of the work of various members if the church advocating for social justice. That changes nothing of church structure and history, and ongoing behaviour at the institutional level.

And I speak as an ex-comm about this extremely patriarchal (as all the abrahamic systems are) oorganization.

Please do not try to put words in my text. That looks more like you extrapolating, not me.

[meadowlander]

14. ""You can't be a catholic and a Democrat"" "So I think that, in spite of himself, that nutbar may be

correct."

I'm not extrapolating anything. And I'm an atheist by the way.

But as a liberal and a democrat, I think that people can believe whatever they want to believe up to the point that it hurts someone else. There are hundreds of millions of people who are Catholics and also very liberal, notwithstanding what the organisation as a whole does. And people are not defined solely by one quality or belief or by the actions of every other member of every group they are associated with.

You do have the option to just admit that your OP was wrong and painting with a broad-brush instead of getting defensive and pretending you didn't write what you very obviously did write. We can all go back and read it perfectly clearly.

[niyad]

19. I do not have to do anything, Church history and current actions are there for everyone to see,

individual catholics doing good works ( and I know, and have worked with, many) does not change the foundational system.

But feel free to keep at it.

[Lovie777]

7. Are they going to chase the "other" away that are not 100% . . .

in their mind set? In the USA they will see the dwindling numbers both body and cha ching.

[oswaldactedalone]

9. Maroons like him

is one reason why I left that church with no intention of returning. Not sure which religion is the most evil but the Catholic Church is clearly in the running.

[Beringia]

16. My father was a Trappist Monk for a while and Thomas Merton was his novice master

My Godmother is Dorothy Day. I wonder what Merton or Day would say about the Catholic Church with regards to all the abuses. I never was Catholic myself, but I feel my roots are in it from my father.

I talked to my mother a little near the end of her life and I pointed out that the Catholic Church does not accept divorce and my mother got somewhat disgusted by my suggestion (my parents divorced). But she was getting kind of senile and I never could have spiritual discussions with her.

[TheBlackAdder]

17. Priests

.



.

[sanatanadharma]

20. Caesar, meet God. God, you know Caesar

Now get off each others' lawns!

Is it too much to expect that religious people would read their scriptures?
It is seriously beyond time for a Caesar-tax on the churches that confuse temporal party-politics with rendering onto eternal-God.

[niyad]

21. Yes to both.

[niyad]

22. . . .

[Kath2]

23. Thank you.

Exactly. They are not Democratic values. I was recently enraged by the homophobic and anti-woman rhetoric at a Catholic funeral I attended.

[niyad]

24. You are most welcome. The funeral that I attended did not include homophobia (we

Won't talk about what happened the last time sucha sermon was given there), but the patriarchal bs and the emphasis on pain and suffering made me ill.

[Skittles]

25. yes, they love the pro-guns, anti-birth control type