Ryan, introduced as ‘faithful Catholic’ on ‘human life,’ was rebuked by bishops over cuts to poor

[cbayer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/paul-ryan-introduced-as-faithful-catholic-on-human-life-was-rebuked-by-bishops-over-cuts-to-poor/2012/08/11/368ad78a-e3c5-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_blog.html


Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney announces Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate during a campaign rally at the Nauticus Museum after touring the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk. (SAUL LOEB - AFP/GETTY IMAGES)


Posted at 01:50 PM ET, 08/11/2012
By Melinda Henneberger

No one can say Mitt Romney hasn’t pitched his heart out to Catholic swing voters. On Saturday, he did so again, introducing his new running mate, Paul Ryan, this way: “A faithful Catholic, Paul believes in the worth and dignity of every human life.”

He was referring, of course, to Ryan’s position against abortion rights. But this spring, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops took the unusual step of repudiating the deep cuts envisioned in Ryan’s budget proposal as out of keeping with the teachings of Jesus. One of a series of their letters to congressional committees read in part:

“I write to urge you to resist for moral and human reasons unacceptable cuts to hunger and nutrition programs [that would] hurt hungry children, poor families, vulnerable seniors and workers who cannot find employment. These cuts are unjustified and wrong.”

In case you’re wondering, the same conservative Catholics who so often admonish the doctrinal picking-and-choosing of liberal “cafeteria Catholics’’ answered their leaders just as progressive Catholics have responded to chiding they didn’t appreciate: “The bishops were wrong on the Ryan budget,” the National Catholic Register declared again on Saturday. The cafeteria is open, but the menu doesn’t vary much.

more at link

[Freddie]

1. Unfortunately, zygotes take priority over the poor

If they have to choose

[cbayer]

2. Despicable.

And even more despicable is how Ryan uses whatever *beliefs* are most convenient to push his libertarian agenda.

[Goblinmonger]

3. So you are saying he isn't a real Catholic? n/t

[trotsky]

4. Only atheists can be as evil as Ryan.

That's the message I'm taking home from all this. Religious bigotry laid bare. Many of the players don't surprise me, I already knew how they felt. But whenever this issue comes up, it always hurts a little bit to see new names espousing this old bigotry.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

5. That's not what it is saying

The bishops are saying that Ryan's budget runs against Catholic doctrine. It says nothing about atheists, only that Ryan is not following Catholic teachings.

He is an example of something that conservative Catholics continually rail against, the "Cafeteria Catholic". A Cafteteria Catholic is one who picks and chooses among Catholic doctrines. Such as any Catholic who supports waterboarding, even though both Popes and Church Councils have stated that torture is intrinsece malum in se -- "intrinsically evil in itself" and morally unjustifiable under any circumstances. (See, for example, John Paul II's encyclical Veritatis Splendor, section 80.)

The point is that Ryan is a bad Catholic, and has nothing to do with the evility or lack thereof of atheists.

[trotsky]

6. Nope, but that's what some DUers are saying. n/t

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

7. Not in this thread.

If someone had said that in this thread, you would have reason to whine. As it has not been said in this thread, you do not have a reason to whine.

[trotsky]

8. Thanks, officer!

I will go back to my place and be quiet.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

9. Well, you must admit that you were complaining about something which did not actually exist

And you were taking attention away from Ryan and his Catholicism.

Now I've got to stop that unicorn from eating my roses.

[trotsky]

10. I have been properly disciplined for speaking out of line.

Again, thank you for putting me in my place!