Catholics Against Rudy

What does it mean that he "outed" himself? In this day and age, that has an unnecessarily vulgar connotation.

I am glad for Steve Dillard. I just started getting into his blog when he suddenly up and quit. I will pray for his success.

I just heard Mr. Dillard, on Chris Matthews, call protection of the unborn "the civil rights issue of our time." I might agree with him, except for one detail he conveniently forgets to mention: His church's oppressive campaign against gay men and women. In view of tens of millions of Americans, homophobia is a greater civil rights issue than abortion.

Exactly how does the Church oppress those with same-sex attraction. Are they given capital punishment or locked up? Or is merely saying that homosexual acts themselves are sinful and that having same-sex attraction itself is not sinful count as oppression?

Should the Church also not mention adultery either because adulterers would be oppressed?

Though those that resort to charges of homophobia prove that they know little of the Church's actual position. The Church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful out of love, because not calling a sin a sin is not charitable. You might not agree with what Jesus through his Church teaches, but to say that they teach it out of an irrational hatred of itself would be Catholicphobia.

Just saw Stephen Dillard on Chris Matthews tonight, 5/30; try speaking for yourself--as a Catholic I'm not against Rudy--I'm not for him either since I'm a Democrat, but every Catholic has a right to their own opinion regarding abortion and a woman's right to choose. Pretty soon Steve will be sounding like the far right and that's definitely not for me.

Seems to be against all that Catholics are about to be "against". Sounds hateful and bitter. Just go and vote and vote your values.

I'm sorry, Dorothy and Steve; both of you are severely misinformed.

A true Catholic--one who truly values life--cannot embrace abortion or any aspect of it. Abortion is not a matter of opinion or a matter of choice--it is about murder of an innocent child, imbued with the Holy Spirit from the moment of conception. The Church has never wavered on this issue. Someone who professes them self to be a Catholic cannot turn a blind eye to this holocaust proceeding daily in our midst. To date, the number of murdered is 40 million plus.

Abortion is directly--in most cases--related to alleged sexual freedom, something we were "given" by the atheists and secularists in the 60's and 70's under the guise of the sexual revolution.

And yet, the Bible teaches that sex outside of marital committment is wrong and immoral. Sexual relations outside of marriage and the Church's stance has also never wavered.

Having started from an immoral act, an unplanned pregnancy cannot "right" that immoral act with an even more severe immoral act, that of pre-meditated murder.

As to the oft-repeated and completely worn out "rape and incest" arguements, they simply do not apply. One act of violence leading to an unplanned pregnancy does not justify the taking of an innocent life. God granted that life--it is not yours or anyone else's "right" to take that life.

A further arguement to justify this on-going murder is the "health of the mother". Perhaps one of the most overlooked cases of such a dilemma can be found in the case of Maria von Trapp--yes, that Maria of Sound of Music fame. God brought her and her child through the danger just fine, thank you very much.

As for the alleged oppression of homosexuals, the Church advises the same restrictions is does on single heterosexual persons--sex outside of marriage is wrong. Yet, I don't hear the "heterosexual" victim card being played for that restriction. It's not oppression--it's the same rule for all.

Perhaps what scares people about the far right is simply how far they themselves have strayed from their moral teachings. They LIKE "being the boss" rather than acknowledging they most certainly are not the boss.

Plain and simple, God gave us 10 rules in the Old Testament and 1 in the New...and if people followed those rules, just 11 little rules, we wouldn't need the entire legal field, trying to "figure out" what God meant. He said what He meant and He meant what He said.

Well said Miss Beth! Indeed! I for one have always my standard on a person's "vote-ability" that of his/her stand on life. To me, and I believe millions of others, Catholic and non-Catholic, a person willing to declare publically, without waiver, their belief that all life, from conception to natural death is sacred and must be protected, will have declared the standard from which all the rest of their beliefs will follow. It's the measure of the person.

Mr. Dillard should remember that America was founded as a PROTESTANT country. My people, Scots-Irish came to the Colonies in the 1600s to avoid conflicts with Irish Catholics. Most people came to the Colonies to avoid organized religion.

Thomas Jefferson was so skeptical of the Catholic Church, he put into the Constitution the Separation of Church and State so no religion could be imposed on the America people.

Many brave people, including mine, fought sacrificed and died for our Constitutional freedoms. If Catholics are too fragile for our cherished freedoms, they should never have immigrated to this PROTESTANT country and should move to a Catholic Country -- Italy, Ireland, Mexico, Haiti, etc. Bon Voyage!

The largest group having abortion are Catholics. One third of all abortions are spontaneous. Whom does Mr. Dillard hold responsible. Is he going to campaign against God!

The best way to avoid the need for an abortion -- don't have sex with a pro lifer! I've never know a liberal or feminist who needed an abortion, only conservatives from the South!

During Ireland's potato famine, England asserted, "These potato people have no morals, we don't know what to do with them. I'm acutely aware of the reason we left them behind, but I don't understand why we allowed them to follow us. Certainly the sexual abuse that is currently taking place, and has been covered up for years by the Catholic Church is a measure of the 'lack of morals." Mr. Dillard would be far more productive if he protected these children that are being sexually abused in the Catholic Church instead of his insidious attempt to abuse women by denying them reproductive freedom.

Ted Bundy has an attitude toward women also.

Chagrined

M Delphia Block,
I have waited for an hour or two until my blood pressure returned to normal to reply to your comment. It may well be that Jeff will remove your comment as too anti-Catholic (if so, please remove my reply as well).

#1 If the Scots-Irish wanted to avoid conflict with the Irish Catholics, my advice would be to stay the **** out of a country that did not belong to you. Sometimes, when people's homelands are invaded, their property stolen, and their people murdered, they react violently. Go figure.
BTW, my English ancestors left England because they were being murdered, their property confiscated, etc by the English crown for the crime of being Catholic.
#2 Regarding your views on abortion: We are all aware of spontaneous abortion, and as you well know, noone is campaigning against the will of God. I seriously doubt that no liberal feminists ever have abortions--your anecdotal evidence notwithstanding. Oh, and thanks for the gratuitous insult to Southerners. Very classy, indeed.
#3 I hope this final insult to the Irish and to all who died in the potato famine due to the English government's indifference and outright hostility, is a joke. My ancestry is also Irish, and if you think that starving people until they die with mouths stained green from eating grass--even little children--well, there are no words fitting for publication that describe you. For shame!!
#4 "Abuse women by denying them reproductive freedom" Most of us believe that women are abused by the abortion industry. Abortion is not good enough for women--they deserve much better.

You may, of course disagree with Mr. Dillard or any of us. Respectful disagreement and discussion is certainly welcome to most of us. But your insults to our religion, our ancestors and our morals are not welcome. I believe that you owe Jeff and his readers an apology, but I won't be holding my breath.

I oppose abortion; I support birth control, except in the case where birth control is effected by abortion, i.e., with the IUD.

My Irish Catholic ancestors had too many children, were poor, and finally left the church which they considered an oppressor which wanted mainly to collect money from poor Irish miners. I feel their leaving the Christian faith because of these opinions robbed them of the faith in our Lord which they should have had. It certainly robbed me of being raised in a Christian home; my mother was adamantly atheist, and even suppressed the Protestant faith of my father who, however, died singing "We Shall Gather by the River." I became a Catholic, having no knowledge of the Bible or any other church than the church attended by my school mates, but I got into a Catholic marrriage where my husband refused birth control even when doctors told him I would be seriously ill to have children too close together, or to have more than two--I had spent much of my first pregnancy in the hospital, and he thought of me as a disappointing breeder. I was later discovered to have the genetic disease Porphyria, which he could not have known, due to ignorant doctors. He was murdered later.

The Church I love in many ways; I am more Catholic than Protestant, but I will never agree that birth control is wrong. My first husband and I might still be together, in a covenant relationship, if it were not for filthy birth control.

May God Bless you, Mariel. I can certainly understand your feeling about birth control, given your history. My own Irish Catholic and English Catholic family handled this issue largely by marrying much later in life. Children were much fewer then, due to basic biology. No man should ever force a woman to go through pregnancies that could endanger either her or their child. I can't agree with you about artificial contraception, but I admit that if I had no other choice (no good natural method of avoiding dangerous pregnancies or a husband who would not cooperate) I would probably resort to stealth contraception (maybe a diaphragm). I have to wonder how you could have still been together in a sacramental union with your first husband if he was murdered? Perhaps I misunderstood you.

I am sorry for your pain, and will remember you in my prayers. May God bless you and keep you, may He make His face shine upon you and give you peace.

Thanks for your prayers, Marymargaret. My first husband was murdered because he was a single man with a Ph.D. from a prestigious university. The murderer was a con man who wanted his credentials as a Metalurgist, to sell phony mining stock. This sounds ridiculous but our life WAS ridiculous. He was murdered after we were divorced, when our son was fourteen and I was already remarried.

My Irish ancestors managed to have fourteen children per generation even though they married "late," over thirty. My great grandmother's last two sons, out of fourteen sons (no daughters) were twins born to her when she was fifty-two. These babies died in an accident when they were put in a cart while they were moving from one place to another, and the cart's stuff shifted and hit them--they were sort of "extra," I guess. One of her other sons became a well known union leader but died in a railway accident when my mother, his tenth and last child, was two.

The worst thing is that these people totally lost their faith. I grew up in a home where my mother hated God. She had only one child, me, and her brother had two--three children born into a famil of ten siblings. They were sure into rebellion.

I never used birth control myself. I used "removal of opportunity." My second husband was sterile, although I didn't know that and would have had a second child.

Thanks again for prayers. May you be blessed as well. I am sure my first husband is in Heaven--he didn't deserve his life.

Mariel, Thank you for your prayers. Guess my parents and grandparents just weren't as fertile! My Irish grandmother had three sons; my parents just my brother and myself. I guess if Mom hadn't had the miscarriages (not sure how many), there would be some more of us here on earth. I have only two daughters myself, and really wished I could have had more. I would have loved a large family, but I am certainly blessed with my girls. I will pray that your first husband is in heaven, and for your whole family's peace and joy. God bless you. It is a pleasure to enter into a conversation on a blog that is not contentious!! (BTW, my elder daughter is in Ireland now--on her honeymoon!! Prayers for her and her new (wonderful) husband would also be appreciated.)

Hi Mariel!

I completely understand your stance on artificial birth control. I can't personally accept it, again because of the teachings of the Church and because most of the artificial methods available are actually abortifacients--not just the IUD.

When I was in high school in the '70's (I was in parochial school from K-12), we were taught the natural methods of the time. Of course, we laughingly called them Vatican Roulette, because at that time, they were not all that effective.

Now, however, the natural methods taught and endorsed by the Church are as effective, if not more so, than artificial methods. That's a definite plus to couples who want to effectively plan their families and space their children.

The mid-1800's and early 1900's were indeed difficult for the Irish--I had several ancestors myself who immigrated. Once they got here, they homesteaded parts of Oklahoma, Colorado and Utah. The Colorado homesteader branch became rather famous due to a novel published in the '70's. We have Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Anglican and Mormon branches in the family as well as the Catholic, although my direct lineage is Catholic. The most children I can remember any of the branches having is 6 and I remember my great-grandmother telling stories of having to run to town for a doctor (and she meant run on her own two legs), often to get back home only to have had the patient die before she got there. Times were indeed hard.

Perhaps, speculating only, you and your first husband wouldn't have had the child-bearing difficulties you had if you had been able to take advantage of the natural methods taught.

I'm certainly not saying I'm any saint--not by any means. My mother (not quite sane) forced me on the pill when I was 13 because, as an athlete, I was delayed in certain areas--however, she swore I was fooling around. When I finally went off, I was only able to have one child before I became chronically ill. It was ten years without any method of birth control before I had another child; by the time I had my third, the previous two children had taken a huge toll on me and my third was delivered early due to her failing health in utero. Later, I was told I HAD to have my tubes tied--any future children would result in dead children and a dead me. Being the idiot I was, I complied (duh, it was almost impossible to have the 3 I DID have); the ligation led to further complications and I had to have a full hysterectomy 2 years ago.

When I was on birth control, my body went nuts--it directly led to my chronic illnesses and major migraines. It wasn't good for me at all. I truly wish I would have left well enough alone with my body, not flooding it with all the chemicals and such, and let God do what He needed to do without me jumping in His way all the time.

I can understand your ancestors losing their faith, particularly with the hardships they endured. I can understand why you feel you need to use articial methods. But, keep in mind, it's still a barrier to God's will. Check out the current natural methods being taught. Or suggest them to someone who's making the decision themselves. Maybe, just maybe, by using what the Church recommends, someone else won't find out later what they thought was safe birth control was actually an abortifacient and not mess up their body with all the chemicals. And, as a bonus, be following God's will.

I truly hope your life has met with some peace and serenity with the passage of time. It sounds like it was very difficult and I hope that difficulty has lessened.