Palin Once a Catholic Story is a GOP Plant, Good for McCain Courting Catholic Votes, Here is Why

[McCamy Taylor]

I just posted about this in my mega journal "A Pol Bears Oppo Guide to Gov. Palin" because I knew that Team McCain was going to try this. They are desperate for some working class Catholic votes, esp. after Hagee and his anti-Catholic spewing and after Obama selected Biden.

Forget what anyone is telling you about Palin being raised a Catholic and then leaving that church to become a right wing fundie being a negative with Catholic voters. Among Catholics, the rites of the church are extremely important. If she has been baptized a Catholic, she can go to Catholic heaven. Any person or baby that is baptized has that right. Any person or baby, no matter how saintly who has not been baptized, is going to end up in limbo (at best, it does not matter if you saved a gazillion people from the Holocaust, if you were Lutheran, too damn bad) if they were not baptized a Catholic. The rite is all important.

After the initial baptism, you have to confess and be absolved of your sins (and not commit any mortal sins) at least once on your death bed to make it to heaven. And try to live a more or less "Christian" life. But Catholics are very "catholic". They are not going to get bent out of shape over someone who moves around from church to church, since in their experience people always come back to the real church, the Catholic Church in the end, when it counts. They just pray for you.

The priesthood, the sacrament---the things are so important you can not imagine. If Democrats start running around talking about how Palin has been baptized a Catholic but now she is something else, American Catholics are going to hear just one thing.

"Palin was baptized a Catholic! And she is opposed to abortion and has five kids! Why....she is one of us!"

That is why every single blasted story that you read in the MSM and on so called progressive blogs and on right wing blogs that talks about her "Catholic roots" is coming from the same source---the McCain campaign.

Spread this story if you dare!

[Drunken Irishman]

1. As a Catholic, nothing is worse than a former Catholic who left the Church to be saved.

Seriously.

They can be lapsed, but to leave and "save" themselves is a slap in the face to the Church.

[helderheid]

2. agreed (though I'm not catholic)

BTW, did you get my invite?

[McCamy Taylor]

4. Sorry, but that does not sound like any of my Catholic family. That sounds Jewish or Fundie.

Jewish people and Fundies are very big on the "no false god before me." If you go to the Vatican, you will see why the word "catholic" means what it does. The Catholic Church has no fear of other religions. You just have to accept the rites and follow the prohibitions of the Church and do what the priests and Pope tell you.

[Drunken Irishman]

8. Leaving the Church to be saved is a problem.

It's a bigger issue than leaving the Church for another faith, say Episcopalian. Being saved essentially means you weren't saved before.

[blondeatlast]

28. Correct. My father left to marry my mom and became Presbyterian but

was never excommunicated. He generally attended at least Christmas Eve mass.

[TomClash]

9. You just contradicted your own argument

"You just have to accept the rites and follow the prohibitions of the Church and do what the priests and Pope tell you."

That's exactly what Palin does not do.

When was the last time she went to communion or confession? Are these not tents of the faith?

You're a smart guy but I think your thesis is too clever by half.

[Cleita]

5. I agree. No one is more reviled than the heretic, a Catholic that not

only has fallen from the fold but who has joined another heretical religion.

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Yeah, Martin Luther was a big hit with the pope

plus the 100 years war.

[fed_up_mother]

24. LOL great answer

[Buck Rabbit]

12. I agree. Lapsed Ok. "Saved" by leaving, not so much.

[RollWithIt]

3. I'm catholic, and leaving the catholic chruch to get saved is not positive...

I don't care how it's spun.

[McCamy Taylor]

14. "Saved" is the rite of baptism. You guys are shooting Obama in the foot.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/289

In my journal I posted a link to this site which seeks to call Palin a "Catholic" who was simply dissatisfied that the Church would not let women preach (lots of American Catholics can understand that).

Now, check out this post.

http://deacbench.blogspot.com/2008/08/sarah-palins-catholic-roots.html

Palin appears to be a good Christian women with a Catholic heart. Her catechises might have been poor, but God, in his greatness and all things for the greater good syle, appears to have fed her baptised Catholic heart and most likely, many graces from that initial Catholic baptism.

Let's face it, a women is one thing, but a CAHTOLIC women a breath away from the POTUS--I don't think so; not in this country. IMO, this is perfect! Perhaps when the country starts praying for her, in God's time, she will go back to her Catholic roots.

The irony of it all is that she is LIVING the JPII "womanhood"--open to life, marriage, and all of it's necessary sacrifices. I'd much rather see the shining example of a Protestant (with a baptised Catholic heart of course), than the name only hypocritical catholic of which Washington already has far too many.

This site is intended to sway Catholics.

The part about her being baptized is all important. If Team McCain goes around talking about it, they sound cynical. So, they are going to have their moles at places like DU talk about it.

Just great!

[nini]

19. You also need to stay in a state of grace

She has made sure she'll go to hell by not doing so and she is certainly not doing so by renouncing Catholicism.

(in the eyes of the hard core believers)

[Cleita]

29. Being baptized isn't enough to be saved you also have to keep it up by

being in the state of grace by receiving the sacraments and not sinning. Being baptized can earn you a deeper ring of Hell if you don't do those things than just being unbaptized.

[napi21]

6. It will turn off the Baptists thogh! They think Catholics are cultists! n/t

[McCamy Taylor]

16. Not really. They will think that she was too young to decide. Baptists do not

see Catholics as a "race" the way that they see Jewish or Blacks.

[napi21]

35. They may not see them as race, but they sure see them as a cult!

I was born and raised in Pgh. Pa. as a Catholic. I've been called a Mickey, but that was about it. I was really surprised when we moved to Ga. and not only say the disgusted look on the faces of the people who came to our front door trying to recruit us to their church when I told them thank you, but we're Catholic, but then I heard we were all considered cultists! They actually back away from you like we are carrying some infection disease!

[mzmolly]

7. I read that her familly started attending the Assembly of God Church when she was FOUR.

:eyes: desperation and lies ...

[OneGrassRoot]

10. Well, I'm making headway informing them that her being "re-baptized" is a slap ...

in the face of the Catholic Church. Once should be enough; to be re-baptized into another church is an affront.

That and the whole "pentacostals thinking Catholics are heathens and aren't Christian" tidbit.

[Undercurrent]

13. Thanks.

You just answered a question I asked in another thread.

[nini]

15. bullshit

They're going to see that she renounced her Catholic faith and is now part of a religion that believes Catholics are not Christian and evil.

EVERY Catholic I know feels that way - she has basically said she is too good for the Catholic faith.

[NEDem]

17. I see Your Bullshit and raise you 20

The OP is complete crap.

This is bad news for mcsame. Very bad news

[McCamy Taylor]

18. The next step is some priest will say Biden is in sin and no Catholic should vote for him.

Just watch.

[NEDem]

Thank you for your concern

[nini]

22. I'm sure there will be the opus dei idiots just like with Kerry

BUT priests like my nephew - no freaking way. He's giving lots of money to the Obama campaign and would NEVER vote republican because Jesus was a liberal community organizer!

You're WAY OFF on this one.

Are you Catholic? I really find it odd you're that worried about this when every Catholic I know does not like it when someone joins a fundie religion like her's that believes Catholics are not Christian.

[DevonRex]

31. Amen. She thinks Catholics are not Christians. That is an insult to

ALL Catholics. She thinks they are going to hell. She mocked their community efforts. THAT is a slap in the face.

Look, I don't agree with the Pope on a lot of things. But the Catholic church has ALWAYS helped the needy. The parishoners are the ones who put in the time and effort, often when they themselves don't have much in the way of material goods either. But they're out there raising money, giving out food and clothing to those who need it. And they wish they could do more. Palin smacked them down in a mocking way and Catholics will not forget it.

[nini]

32. yup

my nephew was livid!! - he called me the next day after she slammed the community organizers and was ranting like crazy about that.

I hope they keep up that tactic because it's pissing off wayyyyy more than it's amusing their base.

[anonymous171]

20. The fact that Palin thinks that I am a hellbound sinner will HELP McCain?

[nini]

23. exactly

:thumbsup:

[yardwork]

21. In any case, the Catholics are very angry with TaliPalin for her smears on their volunteerism.

The faith-based organization that Obama ran when he was 23 years old was formed by a coalition of Catholic churches in Chicago. They are displeased by the Republicans' ignorant slams on their work.

[a la izquierda]

25. I'm Catholic...

renouncing your faith by being baptized in another seems like an abomination to pretty much everyone in my very religious family.

I think people forget, too, that many Catholics also divide their faith from politics. Not all of them, for sure, but a lot of them choose the path of JFK and can separate the two. My grandmother, voted Democrat her entire life and went to church every Sunday, and sometimes more often than that. Her sister-in-law, who is a nun, is also a registered Democrat. Faith, in my family, is between you and god; it is not something the government should impress upon you. It's like that in hundreds of thousands of Catholic families.

Getting back to the point of the OP, that Palin was baptized Catholic should be publicized by the McCain campaign. They do it at their peril and will win Catholic voters who use their politics and religion in the same way that other conservative Christians do: as a tool to suppress free will. But they're certainly not going to get the generations that grew up around Kennedy (again, unless they're ultra-conservative Catholics).

[dailykoff]

26. That's my strong suspicion also.

Nothing else in her bio checks out, so why should that? It's all so convenient, Biden having been selected at least partly because he's Catholic. If he parents are Catholic and had her baptized in a Catholic church, that should be VERY easy to prove, and I'll believe it when they do, but not before.

[suston96]

27. You must be an older Catholic...that Limbo stuff is no more.......

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/18025/limbo

[DevonRex]

30. My Catholic relatives are offended by her rejection of the Church.

That's how they view it. And her comments about the community work of the Catholic organization that Obama headed in Chicago have really, really pissed them off.

So I disagree wholeheartedly with your post.

[Zero Division]

33. I strongly disagree. My family experiences tells me this...

will look bad to many Catholics who resent the strong strain of anti-Catholicism present among many evangelicals and fundamentalists. I can just hear my own church-going Catholic parents throwing a fit over this. My mother still tells stories about growing up and being bullied for being Catholic in certain parts of the South. And, believe it or not, my parents are both strongly opposed to abortion but haven't voted Republican in many years despite that fact.

[kurth_]

34. U.S. Catholics are a different breed

Most of them don't attend church on a regular basis. They show up for baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

They know who the pope is, but they don't do what he says.

Many of my relatives are Catholic.