A serious question in regards to the Pope's letter on Gay marriage

[dsc]

Is there a similar one on the death penalty?

The letter I am referring to can be found here.

www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/07/31/vatican.gay.marriages/index.html

I have no problem with religious leaders advocating the doctrines of their religion and advocating that their adherents use those doctrines to inform their public policy. I do have a problem with them not doing so consistently. I gave up Christianity due to my belief that I can't pick and choose which NT verses to follow. I think the Pope should at least do the same.

[youngred]

1. There have been

just as there have been in the past on gay marriage. The timing of this is just so that it coincides with Frist's motion, Bush saying he'd consider it and makes a good couple day coverup for more casualties.

The Pope spoke out strongly against Iraq, against Abortion, against Stem Cell Research, against arms sales by the US and Russia, against Gay marriage, against the death penalty and many other topics, its just what gets covered.

[dsc]

2. Did he specificly call

politicans supporting the death penalty immoral? This seems to be very strongly worded and I do wonder if his anti war and anti death penalty letters were similarly worded.

[youngred]

4. He calls Homosexual marrigae immoral, not the support thereof

The thing about Catholic Doctrine is that being homosexual isn't a problem, engaging in homosexual sex is. And, since one is only supposed to have sex within marriage therefore Homosexual marriage would be considered condoning an immoral act. Please note this is not MY logic, but theirs. i would fully support Gay and Lesbian marriage within and without the church.

The decree was not just aimed at the US. With Canda, and much of Europe passing more and more laws coming closer to allowing Homosexual marriage the Pope felt the need to try and motivate the troops, so to speak.

He did call the war immoral and "evil" and the perpetrators of war (W) evil. The reason you do not hear as much about the death penalty and the church is twofold. one the US is the only industrialized nation to still allow it, and therefore it is not as growing a concern. So small a group of countries with Catholics in them to listen have the death penalty its a secondary (though still important issue here) issue. Secondly the American Church is the ugly cousin of Catholicism. No one in the Vatican really likes us and the way we handle things much, so the idea that its all written down from Rome-on-High is actually kind of ridiculous. but the criticism is still markedly there

[dsc]

9. According to CNN the letter says this

To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral," the document said.


That seems to be calling those politicians gravely immoral.

[roughsatori]

3. I have a problem with any religion

that attempts to block equal rights for all Americans.

[youngred]

5. Amen!

so to speak :-)

[IndianaGreen]

6. I applauded the Pope when he came out against the war in Iraq

and I pointed out the Pope's opposition to the war in order to persuade those that follow his moral authority to come to our side of the barricades in regard to the war.

We cannot expect the Pope to do or say anything un-Catholic, anymore that we can expect Jerry Falwell to endorse a liberal for office. The Pope's position and language on gay marriage is the same position and language that he has used in the past against abortion.

What we have here is the same thing that happened on the war. The very same people that cheer the Pope when he denies communion to Catholics that practice birth control or defend a woman's right to choose, are the same people that ignored him when he has spoken against the war in Iraq and against consumerism. The Left is not immune of the same hypocricy that permeates the Right.

I did not need the Pope's opinion, or the Dalai Lama's, to convince me of the evil of a war of aggression against Iraq on the pretext of WMD and America's Divine Right of Preemptive war.

I am not under the Pope's authority, and I am sympathetic towards my gay Catholic friends that have suffered in silence for so long.

The issue to me is one of human rights, and not one of religious dogma. Should gays enjoy the same rights and privileges that heteros enjoy? My answer is an unequivocal "Yes"!

[IndianaGreen]

7. For a more extensive political answer

For a more extensive political answer that I posted earlier today in LBN:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=44382&mesg_id=44382#45330

[youngred]

8. Thank You IG

you said it better than everyone else here today.

Fair and honest

[5thGenDemocrat]

11. Right on, IG

I'm a Catholic and I don't agree with the Pope on this. I don't have a problem with any church denying the sacraments to whosoever they wish (i.e. gays can't be married in a Catholic church -- so effing what?), but I'm all for gays being married at a courthouse or in Las Vegas. One is a religious matter, the other is a civil matter. And the Pope has no say over civil matters.
John
It doesn't matter what the Pope says -- the issue is whether gays should have a say over their own inheritance rights, property rights, tax matters, ability to visit their SOs in the hospital etc etc etc. And, as they are American citizens, I say "hell, yes, they do."

[Liberator_Rev]

10. Gay marriage a greater threat than Holocaust was.

While innocent Jewish old people, women and infants were being exterminated by the millions, instead of telling Roman Catholic civilians, public servants and fighting men and women that it was a grave evil for them to cooperate with their diabolical administration, they were constantly told that it was their Catholic duty to obey their rulers. They would go to hell, they were taught, if they committed grave "mortal sins" like abortion, masturbation and birth control, but whatever they did, they should fulfill the role assigned to them by Hitler.
In the end, a grand total of only SEVEN individual Germans Catholics refused to serve in Hitler's mass extermination machine, and far from being inspired to do so by their church, several of these were denied the sacraments for their insubordination.
See all the documentation for these facts and much more at http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/RCscandal .


at http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org .
WE are the Answer to the "Christian Coalition" & "Religious Right" .
YOU are the way to get the word out, because unlike THEM,
WE are the friends of the POOR and the downtrodden,
who can't give US the kind of support the RICH give to THEM