{"id":905,"date":"2016-02-06T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/catholics-can-vote-for-bernie-sanders.html"},"modified":"2016-02-06T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T13:00:00","slug":"catholics-can-vote-for-bernie-sanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/catholics-can-vote-for-bernie-sanders.html","title":{"rendered":"Catholics can vote for Bernie Sanders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Of course they can<\/a>.\u00a0 Again, I\u2019ve long said<\/a> a Catholic can vote for Sanders, or Clinton, or Bush, or Romney, or Rubio, or Reagan, or Obama or anyone.\u00a0 If they are convinced in their mind and heart, which has been informed by Church teaching, that the candidate represents the greater good, or at least the lesser evil, they can vote for him or her.\u00a0 Pretty simple stuff.<\/p>\n

What makes it seem complicated\u00a0is that many Catholic apologists and Internet voices that had decried such a compromise based on the lesser of two evils, now seem quite open about how well that works in a vote for Bernie.\u00a0 Not that they will vote for him.\u00a0 But suddenly, that lesser of two evils, while not preferred, is not some horrible thing that should make a Catholic hang his head in shame.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In fact, in some quarters it is because<\/em> of Bernie\u2019s socialism, that we can vote for Sanders, all other considerations be damned.\u00a0 Oh sure, he passionately supports abortion rights up through partial birth abortion, assisted suicide, oppressing religious liberties under the HHS mandate, but hey!\u00a0 He embraces a secular liberal democratic socialist vision!\u00a0 And apparently that is the teaching that is truly in line with the Catholic Church<\/a>. <\/p>\n

So here\u2019s what I\u2019ve noticed.\u00a0 Pope Francis has made poverty and loneliness into the great evils of our age.\u00a0 They are the non-negotiables.\u00a0 Those things which appear to lead to those evils: greed, consumerism, capitalism run amuck \u2013 they are the powers of hell that must be defeated.\u00a0 But other sins, such as gay sex,\u00a0 abortion, LGBT rights, euthanasia, assisted suicide, compromising religious liberty \u00a0\u2013 sure they\u2019re still wrong, but they are those issues over which we can agree to disagree.<\/p>\n

And so what were once the non-negotiables of life: protecting it womb to tomb,\u00a0are now set aside as still important issues, but not nearly so great as the foundational problems of poverty and loneliness.\u00a0 And more to the point, only one political and social approach to the problems can be condoned, the other traditional approach being the stuff of Satan.\u00a0 Even if it\u2019s not explicitly called evil, it is treated that way. <\/p>\n

So a Catholic who chose to support Romney or Bush, despite issues related to not limiting abortion enough or using torture or waging war against terrorism, was a bad Catholic.\u00a0 A weak Catholic.\u00a0 A Catholic who chose the way to hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Looking on the changes with interest<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

But now a Catholic who chooses to support Sanders, despite Sanders\u2019 passionate support for abortion, assisted suicide, and compromising religious liberties, can be quite the good Catholic after all.\u00a0 Why the change?\u00a0 Because the Church is lurching ever closer to a liberal framework through which to interpret its teachings.\u00a0 And in so doing, it has made those sins of the Left into the negotiables, the areas of prudential judgment, or at least respectful willingness to agree to disagree.\u00a0 And ideals and economic theories of traditional Western values\u00a0are now the intrinsic evils that cannot be supported.<\/p>\n

Sort of like the Left and sex.\u00a0 I\u2019ve often said that the great coup of our age is that liberalism was able to change the way we deal with sex and religion.\u00a0 It convinced us to treat sex the way we used to treat religion, and religion the way we used to treat sex.\u00a0 So today, religion is something almost shameful that should be kept behind closed doors and only whispered about\u00a0in dark places, while sex should be proclaimed from the rooftops, the basis of morality and moral law, and the very thing with which identify ourselves.<\/p>\n

And so it is here.\u00a0 The grave and intrinsic evils of the Left which were once non-negotiable and the stopping point of all compromise are now those issues we can simply set aside for the greater good.\u00a0 And old theories and ideas and solutions that were once\u00a0the stuff of debate and discussion between Catholics of good will are now the non-negotiables.\u00a0 They are the evils against which anyone can vote, even if it means supporting the passionate advancement of those sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.\u00a0 Or at least those sins that used to cry out to Heaven for vengeance.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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Of course they can.\u00a0 Again, I\u2019ve long said a Catholic can vote for Sanders, or Clinton, or Bush, or Romney, or Rubio, or Reagan, or Obama or anyone.\u00a0 If they are convinced in their mind and heart, which has been informed by Church teaching, that the candidate represents the greater good, or at least the […]<\/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-905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCatholics can vote for Bernie Sanders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Of course they can.  Again, I've long said a Catholic can vote for Sanders, or Clinton, or Bush, or Romney, or Rubio, or Reagan, or Obama or\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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