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CajunRick
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Posted: Sun Dec 9th, 2007 02:59 pm |
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CNA STAFF, Dec 7, 2007 / 07:14 pm (CNA).- Mitt Romney’s speech on his Mormon faith was meant to clear the air about its impact on his potential leadership as president of the United States. In an effort to determine if that was the case, CNA contacted some influential Catholic leaders to hear their assessment of Romney’s speech.
"There was a lot to like in Governor Romney's speech, particularly his clear understanding that the alternative to today's vibrantly religious public square is not a naked public square but state-enforced secularism -- the establishment of secularism, if you will,” Catholic author and scholar George Weigel told CNA.
One portion of the presidential candidate’s speech that resounded with Catholic intellectual and author George Weigel was Romney’s attack on secularism.
Speaking about those who advocate for the separation of church and state “way beyond its original meaning,” Romney claimed that “they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism.”
Another highlight for Weigel was “the governor's understanding that the 'no establishment' provision of the Constitution was meant to serve the end of free exercise of religion.”
Weigel summarized his thoughts to the speech saying, “[t]here were a number of clumsy formulations in the speech, but given the complexities of the subject and the demands of politics, it was an impressive and heartening performance."
Catholic League president, Bill Donahue, took a different view of Romney’s explanation of the interplay between faith and politics. “The timing is suspect, as soon as his [poll] numbers started going south and Huckabee’s started going north, he decided to make the speech,” Mr. Donahue told CNA.
“He’s just trying to get back in the news, and it worked, for a day,” said Donahue.
When asked if he thought Romney’s speech added anything substantial to the discussion about the role of faith in politics, Donahue said, “it’s apple pie, it doesn’t add anything new [to the discussion] that everyone doesn’t already know.”
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver took a different view of the Republican candidate’s speech on his faith. In an email to the Denver Post he wrote that, "In some ways, it's the speech John Kennedy should have given in Houston, but didn't.”
"Romney, unlike Kennedy in Houston, does not separate his faith from informing his citizenship, and by extension, his vision of public service," he wrote. "Romney, offered a more reasonable and fruitful explanation of how faith actually works in public service, regardless of one's political party,” the archbishop explained.
Archbishop Chaput also added further comment on the role on the role of religion in politics saying, "Religious officials shouldn't and can't determine public policy. No sensible person would disagree with that. But that's very different from claiming — as some people now do — that religious believers, communities and leaders should be silent in public debate or stay out of public issues."
While none of the Catholic leaders offered their endorsement of Romney, both Donahue and Chaput mentioned that they see his Mormon faith as a non-issue.Their comments on his Mormon faith are well summarized by Archbishop Chaput: "Catholics, like most other people, want to elect someone who has the skills, the moral character and the real commitment to the common good that will enable him or her to lead.”
The above article is reposted with permission from Catholic News Agency.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
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Ali
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Posted: Tue Dec 11th, 2007 08:58 am |
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I'm a bit undecided at this point. I've heard some comparisions between the LDS faith & the JW faith. I would want to look into that a bit more first. But overall personal morals and religion do not affect my voting.
Ack! With the campaigning going on for so long now I've started to tune them out. I'm gonna hafta start paying more attention again.
Ali
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anfan
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Posted: Sat Jan 26th, 2008 10:28 am |
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Here's Jimmy Akin's perspective:
Not Impressed
Jimmy Akin
Today Mitt Romney delivered a speech billed as his "JFK moment"--when he spoke to the American people about his religion in a way intended to clear barriers that could otherwise stand between him and the presidency.
HERE'S THE TEXT OF THE SPEECH.
I'd like to do a detailed response to his speech, but I don't have time at the moment, so allow me to make a few brief comments.
1) I'm not impressed with what Romney said, but before I go further, allow me to add that I'm not impressed with what John Kennedy did, either. Kennedy ran away from his religion in his speech to Protestant pastors in Houston, and while I understand the political expedience of what he did, I am fundamentally a person of faith and what I care about most is fidelity to one's beliefs and not the political expediency of the moment.
2) A lot of what Romney said--in fact the whole first part of the speech--was simply wrapping himself in the flag and picking up the tacit endorsement of the first George Bush.
3) At one point in the speech, Romney states:
There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution.
Romney needs a lesson in constitutional law. This is flatly false.
Or let me rephrase: Romney either needs a lesson in constitutional law or he is deliberately misusing what the Constitution says in an effort to pull a fast one on voters. Your choice.
The prohibition on a religious test for office that the Constitution contains is a prohibition on a particular creed being a legal requirement for office. In other words, it prevents Congress from passing a law that says, "To hold this federal office, you are legally required to be an Episcopalian" or "you are legally required not be a Catholic."
It has absolutely nothing to do with what decisions voters choose to make based on a candidate's religion. To cite an extreme example for purposes of illustrating a principle, if I don't want a Satanist in office, I don't have to vote for one. And if I as a voter have questions about a candidate's religion, I am perfectly entitled--without violating the intent of the founders--to withhold my vote from a candidate until I have those questions answered to my satisfaction.
Suppose, for example, that a particular candidate for the presidency is a Quaker who takes his religion seriously. One of the distinctive doctrines of Quakerism--often times--is pacifism. I'm going to want to know whether this Quaker is one who feels that war under all circumstances is immoral and therefore he will never be willing to go to war to defend the nation's interests.
So--contra Romney--questions about a candidate's distinctive beliefs can be quite relevant to his fitness for office, and asking these questions does not enable the religious test proscribed in the Consitution.
4) In the speech, Romney appears to want to have it both ways. On the one hand, he says that the authorities in his church will not influence his decisions as president. On the other hand, he stresses that the values he holds on the basis of his religion will.
This might be an intelligible position if he were an Evangelical Protestant, given what Evangelicalism claims about the nature of church leaders, but Mormonism holds that its highest leaders--its prophet and apostles--speak directly for God in a way that not even the pope is capable of doing. (The pope is held by Catholics to be capable of infallibly clarifying something that God has already revealed, but he is not held to serve as a channel of new divine revelation.)
Further, the Mormon prophet has a history of weighing in on social and political issues, such as whether polygamy should be allowed or disallowed and whether black people should have the same rights or not as white people, and the prophets have gone different ways at different times.
How can Romney intelligibly claim that values but not leaders will influence his decisions when the values flow from the leaders via new divine revelation?
And isn't it legitimate, since Romney says values from his Mormon faith will influence his decisions, to ask about the precise details of those values. If the Mormon church is softer on abortion than it should be (and it is), what does that say about Romney. Isn't it legitimate to ask follow-up questions of Romney about the extent to which he shares his church's position on abortion and what he would do on this question in office?
And this is just an example of a particular issue. There is also a larger issue that goes right to the heart of his Mormon faith:
5) To bend a phrase from Bill Clinton, "It's the Polytheism, Stupid."
Something conspicuously absent from almost all press reporting on the controversy over Romney's religion is the fact that Mormons are polytheists. That is, they believe in multiple gods. They also believe that men can become gods (and women can become goddesses).
This is a radically different vision of God and man than that taught by the Christian faith. It cuts out and replaces the central doctrine of Christianity--its understanding of God and man--and replaces it with an alien one. This means that Mormons are simply not Christians.
Yet they claim to be Christian.
And thus Mormonism is subversive of the Christian faith in a way that other polytheistic faiths, such as Hinduism or Shintoism, are not.
One of the things that is undoubtedly fueling Romney's campaign is a desire on the part of Mormons to have a Mormon president. That's understandable. It's a human desire for any group of people to see one of its own achieve the highest office in the land. It doesn't have anything to do with wanting to impose their religion on others, but it does have to do--among other things--with achieving a level of social prestige and acceptance as a group.
And this is not to be discounted. No doubt the social acceptance Catholics found in America in recent decades was in part due to the presidency of John F. Kennedy.
And now Mormons want their own Kennedy, and the social acceptance for their religion that will come along with that.
Which is precisely why Christians should be concerned with the idea of a Mormon president.
It would be one thing to elect a polytheist who makes no pretensions of being a Christian, but to elect a polytheist who claims to be a Christian--and, indeed, whose religion claims to be the true form of Christianity--would create enormous confusion about what Christianity is and what it teaches.
For anyone who holds to the historic Christian view of God and man, that alone is reason to feel very, very uncomfortable with the idea of electing a polytheist who claims to be Christian to our nation's highest office.
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beachmoss
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Posted: Sun Jan 27th, 2008 03:28 am |
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Another thought to consider--
Mormons are required to tithe 10% of their earnings. If his salary as president is $400,000, which is paid with our tax dollars, that means we are giving the Mormon church $40,000 a year! Wow!
Beth
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JillD
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Posted: Sun Jan 27th, 2008 08:39 pm |
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I'm sorry, but I'm appalled by the bigotry I'm reading. He's running for President, not Pope! Do you really think people have never heard of Mormons, that Romney being President will suddenly make people aware of their existence? Do you think that one more denomination is going to confuse people when the tens of thousands that already exist are doing a great job of that?
And then we get mad at anti-Catholic bigotry.
sheesh
____________________
"I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are our works! My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret." Ps 139
"Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men." Ps 140
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CajunRick
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Posted: Sun Jan 27th, 2008 09:22 pm |
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JillD wrote: I'm sorry, but I'm appalled by the bigotry I'm reading.
I'm not sure it's bigotry, Jill. I think it's more a fear of the unknown. Most of us know little about Mormonism. Personally, I don't think a person's religious affiliation is particularly relevant, but his belief structure certainly is.
I'm old enough to remember the discussions over John Kennedy's Catholic faith. Richard Nixon was a Quaker, and that raised a lot of eyebrows. Jimmy Carter was our first Evangelical president. As a Catholic, you would think that Kennedy would be faithful to his wife, and yet we know of several affairs he is alleged to have had. Quaker Nixon ordered the bombing of North Vietnam, the invasion of Cambodia, and the break-in at Democratic Party headquarters and the subsequent cover-up that led to his resignation. Carter is the only one who really practiced his faith in office, and he was president during the 444-day Iranian Hostage Crisis and presided over 20% inflation, astronomical gasoline prices, and near-record unemployment.
I want to know what someone thinks and believes, and the church he chooses to attend is part of that knowledge, but only a small part. I have read that Clinton attended Methodist, Episcopalian, and Baptist churches, but I don't think he read scripture to Monica. Ted Kennedy was never president, but he considers himself a faithful Catholic in spite of his position guaranteeing the availability of an abortion to every American woman, publicly funded when necessary. Nancy Pelosi is also a "faithful Catholic".
I will not vote for or against Romney because of his Mormon faith. But I do want to know how his faith will influence his performance. If he truly believes Mormon doctrine that the leaders of the church speak the infallible word of God with every pronouncement, how will that affect his decisions as president? What if the head of the LDS calls and tells him that God said he's supposed to attack Iran or North Korea?
That's where his Mormonism matters to me.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
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DrDave
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Posted: Sun Jan 27th, 2008 09:36 pm |
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JillD wrote: I'm sorry, but I'm appalled by the bigotry I'm reading. He's running for President, not Pope! Do you really think people have never heard of Mormons, that Romney being President will suddenly make people aware of their existence? Do you think that one more denomination is going to confuse people when the tens of thousands that already exist are doing a great job of that?
Jill, I do understand what you are saying, yet I think if you look at the poll at the top of the page, and look closely at what others are struggling with, you will find it a bit more complicated than simple bigotry.
Lets put the shoe on the other foot for a moment and assume that we are non-Catholics considering voting for a Catholic. I would think it legitimate to enquire how seriously this "Catholic candidate" took his faith. This question is particularly pertinant for Catholicism and Mormonism since they are in certain regards "all or nothing" propositions, without the diveristy inherant in faiths that do not have a Central Authority. The Catholic politician is either
1. Completely against all forms of abortion from the moment of conception, in accordance with the teachings of the Magesterium, or
2. Not a faithful Catholic.
This dichotomy exist on all the "non-negotiables" of Catholic Dogma that affect public life.
The bigot would simply say "I wont vote for this person because he is a Catholic", other serious voters however have to consider the two positions
1. "If I vote for this person, I am de-facto voting for the positions of the Church's Magesterium, do I want to do that?" or
2. "This person claims Catholicism, yet clearly is not (or at best not good at it), do I want to vote for the kind of person who does not live up to the claims he makes for himself"? (sounds like a politican)
In the case of Romney, what distinctive features of LDS theology would he be required by his faith to impose upon the US? Or is he the kind of person to ignore his God and/or faith "for the good of the American people"?
I think we are entitled to ask these kind of questions of aspiring Catholic politicans, and of course of non-Catholic politicans, indeed, I think we would be negligent not to. The point Jimmy Akin was making in his article above is that Romney seems to be arguing that he has a right to tell us what he believes, but that we do not have a right to ask.
Regards Doc
P.S. I wont be voting for Romney because I'm an Australian  I likewise didn't vote for this poll so as not to skew the results.
P.P.S. Don't you just hate it when you spend over half an hour trying to come up with a well reasoned response, only to find that Rick go in before you    
NOTE: Edited to add P.P.S.
Last edited on Sun Jan 27th, 2008 09:41 pm by DrDave
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JillD
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Posted: Sun Jan 27th, 2008 09:36 pm |
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If Romney had done anything of which you fear, wouldn't it have come out by now? Is there any evidence that his "Mormon leaders" have influenced his decisions? Does he appear to be such an automaton that he would put his religion over the good of the country? Why don't we have the same concerns over Huckabee who may become convinced that Armageddon is moments away and decide to drop the bomb somewhere? As far as I can tell, no good Catholics are running this time around, so who would be better?
What has Romney done? What has he said? What is his record and reputation? Does he have the experience necessary to make him qualified to fill the job? I cannot claim all the answers to those questions, but to me, those seem like the only relevant questions. By your own testimony, Rick, one's religious convictions RARELY influence one's actions once in office.
Jill
Last edited on Sun Jan 27th, 2008 09:44 pm by JillD
____________________
"I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are our works! My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret." Ps 139
"Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men." Ps 140
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CajunRick
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Posted: Sun Jan 27th, 2008 09:44 pm |
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JillD wrote: By your own testimony, one's religious convictions RARELY influence one's actions once in office.
That indeed is my opinion of presidents in my lifetime. As for the specific questions you raised in this post, I can't disagree with any of them. And for my own personal vote, I have until November to answer them to my satisfaction regardless of who the candidates may be. But I will not vote for or against Romney, Huckabee, McCain, Guliani, Obama, Clinton, or Edwards (I think those are the only remaining serious candidates, but if there are others, insert their names, too) because of their religious affiliation.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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JillD
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Posted: Sun Jan 27th, 2008 09:53 pm |
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CajunRick wrote: But I will not vote for or against Romney, Huckabee, McCain, Guliani, Obama, Clinton, or Edwards (I think those are the only remaining serious candidates, but if there are others, insert their names, too) because of their religious affiliation.
It's a good thing that a post I was composing disappeared as this is making me a little warm under the collar.
The above is good to read. I hope others are as reasonable as you.
____________________
"I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are our works! My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret." Ps 139
"Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men." Ps 140
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tedjenczewski
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Posted: Sun Jan 27th, 2008 10:57 pm |
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| Jill has made some good points here. An important question is whether or not Mormon religous beliefs interfere with Mr. Romney's swearing the oath of office to uphold the laws of the US including the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. I have not seen a problem there yet.
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"...the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth." 1Tim 3, 15
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sewnsew
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Posted: Mon Jan 28th, 2008 12:56 am |
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| Jill: I am torn only becuase I live as a non mormon in a small area with 18 families- out of the 18 houses 5 are LDS, my kids grew up from the cradle with the LDS kids. There was a lot of controversy- often my kids would come home and tell me that we were going to hell or some such. I have also worked with LDS people and have talked to them, besides the theology of it all I have been told that LDS people are going to heaven the rest of us welll I have also been told that if a great catastophe hit our community that the LDS people are duty bound NOT share with their non LDS neighbours. Now before all the above gets you hotter under the collar let me go on to say that over the years in spite of being told that we were beyond the pale so to speak my neighbours have gone out of their way to help me and mine. I am struggling with the issue and have decided to wait and see who the candidates are before I say who i will or won't vote for. if I had to decide today it would be Romney over the current democrat slate so there you go..
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Cindy
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Posted: Mon Jan 28th, 2008 10:00 pm |
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Jill,
I think Jimmy's main concern is that electing a Mormon president would give a credibility and acceptance to Mormonism that would confuse people, and perhaps mislead many into thinking that the LDS church is just another Christian denomination. And that could have eternal consequences.
Blessings,
CindyLast edited on Mon Jan 28th, 2008 11:04 pm by Cindy
____________________
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in Truth -- Psalm 145:18
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Candlemass
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Posted: Mon Jan 28th, 2008 10:55 pm |
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| Hopefully, they will think we elected the best candidate, hopefully, because we did. Pat Robertson is an evangelical christian who ran for office at one time, I think I would've voted for a pagan Celtic witch before him! Last edited on Mon Jan 28th, 2008 10:55 pm by Candlemass
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"For I the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for me!"
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