Can a Catholic (or any religious person) be a Democrat?
Jack Kemp
I posted this piece, more a series of notes and quotes than a structured article, in April 2011 at Tea Party Nation - and perhaps here. But it is definitely worth reposting here in a slightly edited form.
First, some notes on the book by David Carlin which provides the title and topic of these comments.
The author of "Can a Catholic be a Democrat?", Mr. Carlin, says essentially that the whole liberal agenda (Global Warming, Pro Gay Marriage, Abortion, Affirmative Action, etc.) is a form of snobbery and also a de facto basis for refuting religion (Catholicism and others), for if Abortion is a Civil Right, then the Holy See is wrong and not a true religion.
David Carlin comes from working class parents and says the rich and upper middle class fail to see the strength that the poor and working class draw from religion in order to face the challenges of their daily life. I'll give my own example of Murphy Brown or a real live movie star having the child out of wedlock: they can do this without the consequences the daughter of a machinist from Youngstown, Ohio would face - or a black on welfare who felt compelled to drop out of junior college for living such a "liberated" lifestyle. Carlin also discusses Jews in the last chapter with great insight about how they are destroying themselves by being secular. And he also says that people today are not only not taught about their own religion, but they know nothing of other people's religion, thus making it easier for elitists to insult regular people (I will cite here "clinging to guns and religion" and attacks on Sarah Palin).
Author Carlin says that poor people vote Republican because they at least don't get their cherished values attacked but it isn't enough for him. He then concludes that if the Republicans reconnected with the actual problems of the poor, he would become a Republican. What he is describing in this book written a few years ago is the Tea Party movement, Republicans reconnecting with regular people, non-elites. Whether a lifelong Democrat such as this author considers the Tea Party movement a reconnecting with basic American values or not, many other Democrats have reconnected with the Republicans via the Tea Party movement. On Election Day 2010, I was standing outside a polling place when a retired Irish Catholic policeman, a friend of someone else standing with me handing out flyers. The Irish ex-cop said to my face, "I'm a lifelong registered Democrat, but I voted the straight Republican ticket."
"Can a Catholic be a Democrat?" Here are some significant quotes from the book.
P. 84-85:
Would an alliance between Catholics and secularist be any stranger than this old alliance? (NOTE: with Southern Protestants). Secularists are hardly any more hostile towards the Catholic religion than Southern white Protestants were during the century following the Civil War. Granted, many secularists probably believe that the world place if Catholicism were to vanish from it....If Catholics for a century could sleep in the same political bed with Protestants of this stripe, why can't they today sleep with the secularists?
The answer is simple: Southern white Protestants didn't like the Catholic religion, to be sure, and in their sermons and Sunday Schools they relentlessly found fault with it. But they didn't use the Democratic Party to promote their anti-Catholicism. By contrast, secularists ARE using their position of dominance in the Democratic Party effectively to destroy Catholicism in America (and old-fashioned Protestantism too). (JACK's NOTE: and Judaism). Through the party, they're vigorously promoting moral values that clash so directly with those of traditional Christianity that if they're validated in American culture, traditional Christianity must be invalidated.
P. 196-197:
By embracing a liberal or non-orthodox version of their religion, liberal Catholics, like liberal Protestants, have been enlisted to give aid and comfort to secularism in its great anti-Christianity crusade. On matters political and cultural, liberal Catholics, like liberal Protestants (JACK's NOTE: I'll throw in liberal Jews), tend to find more sympathy with secularists on the left than with traditional co-religionists on the right. And since secularism now plays a dominant role in the Democratic Party, it follows that liberal Catholics should provide - and in fact are
currently providing - a significant share of money, work and votes for the National Democratic Party. Liberal Catholics too are unwittingly aiding the very forces that seek their Church's destruction.
Final insights
The author David Carlin says that the more anti-church dogma a Catholic or Protestant becomes, the more strident they become in their personal morality. Thus you see the harsh stance against smoking, transfat, global warming and offshore drilling. Or for gay marriage and affirmative action . Carlin says if the Bible stated specifically it was against SUVs, the liberal Christians would be for them.
I posted this piece, more a series of notes and quotes than a structured article, in April 2011 at Tea Party Nation - and perhaps here. But it is definitely worth reposting here in a slightly edited form.
First, some notes on the book by David Carlin which provides the title and topic of these comments.
The author of "Can a Catholic be a Democrat?", Mr. Carlin, says essentially that the whole liberal agenda (Global Warming, Pro Gay Marriage, Abortion, Affirmative Action, etc.) is a form of snobbery and also a de facto basis for refuting religion (Catholicism and others), for if Abortion is a Civil Right, then the Holy See is wrong and not a true religion.
David Carlin comes from working class parents and says the rich and upper middle class fail to see the strength that the poor and working class draw from religion in order to face the challenges of their daily life. I'll give my own example of Murphy Brown or a real live movie star having the child out of wedlock: they can do this without the consequences the daughter of a machinist from Youngstown, Ohio would face - or a black on welfare who felt compelled to drop out of junior college for living such a "liberated" lifestyle. Carlin also discusses Jews in the last chapter with great insight about how they are destroying themselves by being secular. And he also says that people today are not only not taught about their own religion, but they know nothing of other people's religion, thus making it easier for elitists to insult regular people (I will cite here "clinging to guns and religion" and attacks on Sarah Palin).
Author Carlin says that poor people vote Republican because they at least don't get their cherished values attacked but it isn't enough for him. He then concludes that if the Republicans reconnected with the actual problems of the poor, he would become a Republican. What he is describing in this book written a few years ago is the Tea Party movement, Republicans reconnecting with regular people, non-elites. Whether a lifelong Democrat such as this author considers the Tea Party movement a reconnecting with basic American values or not, many other Democrats have reconnected with the Republicans via the Tea Party movement. On Election Day 2010, I was standing outside a polling place when a retired Irish Catholic policeman, a friend of someone else standing with me handing out flyers. The Irish ex-cop said to my face, "I'm a lifelong registered Democrat, but I voted the straight Republican ticket."
"Can a Catholic be a Democrat?" Here are some significant quotes from the book.
P. 84-85:
Would an alliance between Catholics and secularist be any stranger than this old alliance? (NOTE: with Southern Protestants). Secularists are hardly any more hostile towards the Catholic religion than Southern white Protestants were during the century following the Civil War. Granted, many secularists probably believe that the world place if Catholicism were to vanish from it....If Catholics for a century could sleep in the same political bed with Protestants of this stripe, why can't they today sleep with the secularists?
The answer is simple: Southern white Protestants didn't like the Catholic religion, to be sure, and in their sermons and Sunday Schools they relentlessly found fault with it. But they didn't use the Democratic Party to promote their anti-Catholicism. By contrast, secularists ARE using their position of dominance in the Democratic Party effectively to destroy Catholicism in America (and old-fashioned Protestantism too). (JACK's NOTE: and Judaism). Through the party, they're vigorously promoting moral values that clash so directly with those of traditional Christianity that if they're validated in American culture, traditional Christianity must be invalidated.
P. 196-197:
By embracing a liberal or non-orthodox version of their religion, liberal Catholics, like liberal Protestants, have been enlisted to give aid and comfort to secularism in its great anti-Christianity crusade. On matters political and cultural, liberal Catholics, like liberal Protestants (JACK's NOTE: I'll throw in liberal Jews), tend to find more sympathy with secularists on the left than with traditional co-religionists on the right. And since secularism now plays a dominant role in the Democratic Party, it follows that liberal Catholics should provide - and in fact are
currently providing - a significant share of money, work and votes for the National Democratic Party. Liberal Catholics too are unwittingly aiding the very forces that seek their Church's destruction.
Final insights
The author David Carlin says that the more anti-church dogma a Catholic or Protestant becomes, the more strident they become in their personal morality. Thus you see the harsh stance against smoking, transfat, global warming and offshore drilling. Or for gay marriage and affirmative action . Carlin says if the Bible stated specifically it was against SUVs, the liberal Christians would be for them.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 5:17 AM
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