{"id":2914,"date":"2012-01-07T12:43:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T12:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2012\/01\/rick-santorum-the-catholics-president.html"},"modified":"2012-01-07T12:43:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T12:43:00","slug":"rick-santorum-the-catholics-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2012\/01\/rick-santorum-the-catholics-president.html","title":{"rendered":"Rick Santorum the Catholic&#8217;s president?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>It sure looks like it from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholic.org\/politics\/story.php?id=44308&amp;page=1\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">this glowing report <\/a>on Santorum\u2019s sudden rise in the wake of Iowa.\u00a0 Apparently, he has\u00a0won the endorsement of Catholicvote.org.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet, on the other hand, we find out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/01\/empty-suit-and-wartorture-enthusiast-win-iowa.html#comment-25412\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">why such is evil and demonstrative of the horrible corruption and anti-Catholic sin in America<\/a>, that Catholics would support this lover of Human Cloning, unjust wars, and torture.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>That, kiddies, is why I don\u2019t get too involved in politics on this blog.\u00a0 It\u2019s too easy to lose perspective \u2013 one way or another. I\u2019ve known of Santorum for many years.\u00a0 Personally, he seems a decent fellow.\u00a0 I agree with him on many issues, disagree with others.\u00a0 I am troubled by the thought of America \u2018offically\u2019 endorsing what we used to condemn when the Vietcong, the Gestapo, or the KGB did it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also noticed a tendency Santorum has for looking the other way when it comes to helping those diametrically opposed to his foundational morals just because they\u2019re from the same area, or he likes them, or whatever.\u00a0 That\u2019s an issue, and suggests a lack of firmness in those convictions, or at least a willingness to compromise them at certain moments.<\/p>\n<p>Doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t like him.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t mean I think he\u2019s some \u2018torture luvin\u2019 scum.\u00a0 My stomach churns at descriptions like that, especially of a brother in Christ, a Catholic brother no less.\u00a0 From the MSM\u2019s take, his views are \u2018extreme\u2019, \u2018radical\u2019, \u2018wrong\u2019, \u2018evil\u2019, and \u2018stupid\u2019 \u2013 all words used on MSNBC and CNN to describe those views he holds in allegiance to the Catholic Church.\u00a0 As good and righteous as it makes me feel, I\u2019m not going to hand one of my own over to the grinding mill since I don\u2019t see him giving the Church a big middle finger, as much as I see him disagreeing with certain interpretations of the Church teaching.\u00a0 I think he\u2019s wrong.\u00a0 I can\u2019t help but wonder if he\u2019s just twisting it for political expediency.\u00a0 But right now, since the Church has refused to make an according to Hoyle definition of Waterboarding being torture, and therefore sin, that\u2019s not going to hold the same for me as a Catholic politician proudly dismissing the Church\u2019s teaching on abortion, or homosexuality, or care for the poor.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to Ron Paul.\u00a0 Ron Paul is an anomaly in all this.\u00a0 Like many his age, he adopts the America Sucks approach to history.\u00a0 To him, the reason there are problems is because America got in and screwed everything up.\u00a0 He is a staunch libertarian, a staunch non-interventionist (which is just a euphemism for what used to be called isolationist, but since the term carries so much negative baggage, we prefer non-interventionist), and a lover of Ayn Rand.\u00a0 His whole viewpoint is that as long as the Federal Government is out of the way, everything is fine.\u00a0 Sure, there may be suffering and dying, but that\u2019s a small price to pay for my freedom, Freedom, FREEDOM from the Federal Government.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>Of course, his views are out there.\u00a0 Really, really out there.\u00a0 His views are extreme, often based on tortured interpretations of history and reality, and he tends to gather advisers and supporters from as many fringe sides as possible, while appealing to young people\u2019s natural post-Boomer tendency to support anyone \u2018raging against the machine.\u2019 <\/p>\n<p>The support of Paul in light of opinions that flow against traditional Christian social teaching, is one of the more disturbing phenomena that has occurred in recent years.\u00a0 I have no problem with a person that supports Paul.\u00a0 If you are willing to look away from the evil he would allow, fine.\u00a0 In a fallen world, we\u2019ll all have to hold our noses at some point.\u00a0 Coming into the Catholic Church during the high point of the priest abuse scandal, I had to do some nose holding myself.\u00a0 It\u2019s what comes from dealing with people.<\/p>\n<p>What I can\u2019t abide is those supporters of Paul who dismiss or ignore or even defend those positions which clearly fly in the face of Christian Social Ethics, while then condemning with near hatred those who support any other candidate.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a dangerous temptation, to begin looking at a\u00a0candidate and reshaping our faith to fit him, even if we\u2019re sure we aren\u2019t.\u00a0 To be so obsessed with not being part of a political team, we become part of one despite our best efforts, and end up being twice the zealot in defending its own problems.<\/p>\n<p>For me?\u00a0 If I vote, it will be for someone who either asks me to vote for a person who advocates grave evil somewhere, or one who asks me to ignore grave evil.\u00a0 Since the opposite of supporting grave and intrinsic evil is NOT ignoring grave and intrinsic evil so that my hands won\u2019t get dirty, it\u2019s doubtful I will feel 100% comfortable with the choices.\u00a0 There are a couple I wouldn\u2019t vote for, and if it comes to it, I might take the extraordinary measure of not voting. <\/p>\n<p>But since the Bishops have said that, when faced with a choice between the lesser of two evils, I can choose the one I think will advance the most good and do the least evil, then depending on the final choices, I will go there.\u00a0 I won\u2019t condemn those who disagree with my choice.\u00a0 And I certainly won\u2019t insult and call those candidates I didn\u2019t support nothing more than human excrement scraped from Satan\u2019s rectum.\u00a0 Such is unbecoming of a Christian, and nothing more than rank fundamentalist-style self-righteousness in\u00a0Catholic garb.\u00a0 Even Paul, who is probably a decent sort with whom I strongly disagree, wouldn\u2019t find me insulting him or his supporters.\u00a0 It would simply find me taking the extraordinary step of being unable to vote for him.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It sure looks like it from this glowing report on Santorum\u2019s sudden rise in the wake of Iowa.\u00a0 Apparently, he has\u00a0won the endorsement of Catholicvote.org.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet, on the other hand, we find out why such is evil and demonstrative of the horrible corruption and anti-Catholic sin in America, that Catholics would support this lover of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rick Santorum the Catholic&#039;s president?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It sure looks like it from this glowing report on Santorum&#039;s sudden rise in the wake of Iowa.&nbsp; Apparently, he has&nbsp;won the endorsement of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2012\/01\/rick-santorum-the-catholics-president.html\" \/>\n<meta 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