Ron Paul is Best Catholic Choice - US Bishops' Faithful Citizenship Guidelines

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been rated the Best Choice for Catholic Voters, based on an independent analysis by The Defend Life blog of Maryland. The analysis used the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' criteria in Faithful Citizenship - its guide for Catholic voters - to rate the various candidate's platforms and has determined that Ron Paul's positions are most compatible with the USCCB standards.

Using a point system that gave greater weight for "non-negotiable" issues such as abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, and gay marriage, the analysis lined up all the candidates to see where they stand on a broad array of issues.

Ron Paul (R) scored highest with a score of 99, with Alan Keyes (R) following with 70, and Mike Huckabee (R) third with 69. Dead last was the purportedly Catholic Rudy Giuliani (R) with -28 and Barack Obama (D) with -15. Hilary Clinton (D) scored a -11 and Fred Thompson (R) scored only a 4.

The Catholic vote in America is critical for the 2008 presidential election. Some have argued that Catholics are statistically invisible as voters, that they divide along the same partisan tribal lines as most Americans.

This is not true.

The last election was won in Ohio due largely to the presence of Catholic voters who significantly voted against John Kerry because of his culture of death platform and his rationally inconsistent statements such as, "I believe life begins at conception, but I can't impose my Catholic beliefs on others as president." Such idiocy was not going to wash over faithful and informed Catholics.

After this election, the Democrats began a deliberate "values voters" offensive to cloak these same culture of death positions in a rhetoric of "faith and values." The Democrats haven't changed their positions, they have just massaged their rhetoric and scheduled more speeches at churches.

The Republicans have shown their true colors as well. Last election was all about values, but then the neo-conservative radicals in the party have such a grip that the party has shrunk and they have given the electorate Rudy - the most terrible candidate on values - because he is a war hawk neo-con who will continue to wage an unjust war.

So the Catholic vote is important. But more importantly, Catholic voting principles are what matter. These principles are immutable and the best source for learning about them is the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

A number of faithful Catholics (and not so faithful Catholics) have published Voter's Guides to help inform the Catholic population as to the Catholic framework for choosing a candidate. In that same spirit, the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote "Faithful Citizenship." As a document of the USCCB, Faithful Citizenship does not have magisterial status along the same lines as a document from the Holy Father, or one of the Congregations in the Curia, or even one from a bishop writing to his flock.

Often bishop conference documents are criticised for being unhelpful, bland and inconclusive. A bishop's conference does not have ecclesial status and the process of creating a collective document results in undermining the authority that the Church truly has. Even Cardinal Ratzinger has noted that the bishops' conference in Germany during the rise of the Nazis had the effect of watering down and muting the strength of the church's opposing voice to this evil.

So in making reference to the Faithful Citizenship document, it is done with a hefty grain of salt and light because true to form the document tends to lack both.

The Defend Life analysis can be read in detail here:

http://defendlife.blogspot.com/2007/11/evaluation-of-presidential-candidates.html

Benedict XVI & Ron Paul

In August of 2005, over four hundred thousand youths from around the world flocked to Cologne to see a frail old man preach the message of the Gospel. Benedict XVI did not have the fire or charisma of his predecessor John Paul II, but nonetheless, the world's youth hung on this man's every word. There was no need for fireworks, no need for liturgical dance, the world's youth needed none of the worldly things many of their parents try to placate them with. What they needed was the Message: "My dear young people, you too offer to the Lord the gold of your lives, namely, your freedom to follow Him out of love, responding faithfully to His call..." With that call, thousands knelt behind this old bishop in Eucharistic adoration. Benedict XVI's profound commitment to the Message, in spite of his relatively bland persona, has won over world youth. It is their hope that Benedict will deliver into action the wonderful ideas and rhetoric espoused by the great John Paul.

Currently, in America we have a similar phenomena with Dr. Ron Paul. The media, the elites, and most baby boomers are baffled by the growing youth movement in support of a man whom they describe as "ordinary, frial-looking" with an "unexceptional" speaking ability. Of course, once again youth are lured not by the condescending superficialities of the candidate's persona, but his commitment to a profound message, freedom. Paul's predecessor in the freedom message was none other than the late Ronald Reagan. Like John Paul II, Reagan's charisma and freedom oriented rhetoric inspired Americans throughout the 1980's. What America's youth are hoping for in Ron Paul today, is that Reagan's freedom oriented rhetoric is set into action, particularly against both the domestic and foreign policies of the culture of death.

And so their respective followings grow, in spite of derision by American elites. For instance, when the Tridentine Latin mass was recently given liberalized status in the Catholic Church, Cardinal O'Malley of Boston tried to downplay its significance: "This issue of the Latin Mass is not urgent for our country..." He, of course fails to see the growing number of young families as well as old pre-boomers who are finding a great interest in the ancient liturgy. The same goes for Ron Paul's messages. For example, with regard to banking and finance, Paul seeks to eliminate the Federal Reserve, replacing it with a gold standard. While elites deride these ideas as both anachronistic and unrealistic, America's youth is much more skeptical of the current power structure, with a growing interest in the "classical" ways of doing things. In both Benedict XVI and Ron Paul, we see a rebirth of the practices and ideals held onto for decades by a tiny remnant. [Maybe we needed restoration of the Latin Mass before we could restore the gold standard.]

I was originally tempted to compare Benedict XVI and a Ron Paul presidency to the collaboration between John Paul II and Ronald Reagan, but their collaboration dealt with a more black and white challenge than what we face today. Today, like in the early 20th Century, we see a world fractured by nationalism, terrorism, and total war. I'm hoping we see the waning of the leviathan that began amidst the heroic protests of Benedict XV and Blessed Karl of Austria less than a hundred years ago. I'm hoping for a Ron Paul presidency to help Benedict XVI bury the leviathan and curtail the destructive power lust of the 20th century. Benedict eliminated the papal tiara from his coat of arms, symbolically demonstrating that the Church's authority is not authoritarian. Paul, like Benedict, seeks to restore the proper role of power vested in the American presidency by bringing its office back to the enumerated powers delegated to it by the Constitution. In other words, the President and the Federal government's authority is not authoritarian. A Ron Paul presidency during a Benedict XVI papacy would make a formidable challenge to a world enthralled by the culture of death. Both men know how to intelligently deal with the Middle East such that both east and west will mutually benefit from a peace based on free trade, actual diplomacy, and understanding.

I wonder if Benedict XVI knows who Ron Paul is and how well the revolution reconciles with the Message of his Papacy?

Blessed Karl and Benedict XV, pray for us.

"Abortion on Demand is the Ultimate State Tyranny"

In the last presidential election, serious Catholics voted overwhelmingly for the pro-life candidate and cultural catholics were split between the pro-life candidate and the anti-war (pro-abortion) candidate.

When "Kerry Catholics" were challenged with the reality that, "You can't be Catholic and be pro-abortion," the usual erroneous response was, "You can't be pro-life and pro-war!"

When it came down to it, informed Catholics understood that voting for a candidate that supports a public policy that violates the Dignity of the Human Person is itself gravely wrong, no matter how well intentioned. The issue of war is serious, but ultimately it comes down to the prudential judgement of the legitimate state authority. War is a position the State can morally take, Abortion simply isn't.

Catholics are not single issue voters, they are voters who understand what issues are of singular importance!

No other issue is more gravely important than the principle of the inviolable Dignity of the Human Person - it is this idea which is so unique in human history (arising from the Judeo-Christian Tradition) and so critical for all our human rights, freedoms and duties.

The idea that human beings are endowed with certain inalienable rights comes from the genius of the Jewish story of creation and the unique anthropology that flows from it that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Contemporary creation stories make man into a slave of god(s), and thus this creates a very different set of assumptions regarding man's Liberty and his relationship with the State (but more on that in the days ahead).

Either God has endowed man with basic rights and liberties which the State must respect, OR the State gives man these rights and liberties and man must respect the State as god.

This is issue is critical, as it is the lynch pin upon which every civil liberty hangs; the whole social fabric will be undone in time if this basic truth is violated.

War is sometimes necessary, but when the State makes laws which violate the Dignity of the Human Person, it is a sign of deep sickness in the body politic which will bring about the collapse of all human liberty in the society.

So this issue is simply non-negotiable. If the United States desires to keep its Liberty, the it has to say NO to:

• Abortion
• Embryonic Stem-Cell Research & Cloning
• All Fertility Treatments which involve the destruction of human embryos, and
• Euthanasia

So where does Ron Paul stand on the issue of the Dignity of the Human Person?

Let Ron Paul speak for himself:

Libertarians believe, along with the Founding Fathers, that every individual has inalienable rights, among which are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Neither the State, nor any other person, can violate those rights without committing an injustice. But, just as important as the power claimed by the State to decide what rights we have, is the power to decide which of us has rights.

Today, we are seeing a piecemeal destruction of individual freedom. And in abortion, the statists have found a most effective method of obliterating freedom: obliterating the individual. Abortion on demand is the ultimate State tyranny; the State simply declares that certain classes of human beings are not persons, and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law. The State protects the "right" of some people to kill others, just as the courts protected the "property rights" of slave masters in their slaves. Moreover, by this method the State achieves a goal common to all totalitarian regimes: it sets us against each other, so that our energies are spent in the struggle between State-created classes, rather than in freeing all individuals from the State. Unlike Nazi Germany, which forcibly sent millions to the gas chambers (as well as forcing abortion and sterilization upon many more), the new regime has enlisted the assistance of millions of people to act as its agents in carrying out a program of mass murder.
. . .

We must promote a consistent vision of liberty because freedom is whole and cannot be alienated, although it can be abridged by the unjust action of the State or those who are powerful enough to obtain their own demands. Our lives, also, are a whole from the beginning at fertilization until death. To deny any part of liberty, or to deny liberty to any particular class of individuals, diminishes the freedom of all. For libertarians to support such an abridgement of the right to live free is unconscionable.

There you have it.

Ron Paul understands that the Dignity of the Human Person is essential to preserving our Liberties and a cornerstone for living in a healthy society.

This is the single most important reason why Catholics should support Ron Paul for President.

Welcome to Catholics for Ron Paul!

This website is a place for ordinary Catholics who are serious about the wholistic body of principles known as the Social Doctrine of the Church to examine how Ron Paul's message and public policy proposals square up against these natural principles.

The Social Doctrine of the Church, or Catholic Social Teaching ("CST"), are an organic set of wholistic principles which are necessary to develop a free, virtuous, prosperous society that promotes the common good for all not just Catholics.

These universal principles can be found operating in healthy societies and these principles are found violated and discarded in sick ones.

All the principles are important and necessary, but some principles are more vital and necessary than others because of the gravity of the evil that occurs when they are violated and the impact that has on the social body of the community.

This blog is a place to learn about Catholic Social Teaching and to examine these principles and in light of the practical proposals Ron Paul is making. Only a return to these universal principles which are profoundly represented in our Declaration of Independence , the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights can return America to a place where life can flourish, where social development occurs for all and a sustainable and lasting peace can grow.

This is why Ron Paul candidacy is Hope for America.

At Catholics for Ron Paul, we are faithful to the Magisterium and the Social Doctrine of the Church; if there are areas where Ron Paul's policies don't square with CST, we will not jettison CST to promote Ron Paul but will examine the issues. It is important to remember that CST does not offer any "model" solutions, it only teaches the principles and leaves the application of these principles to more competent authorities working in the public square at any particular moment in history. As a result, there does exist some debate disagreement among men and women of good will as to the particular application of these principles. However, on the essentials there is no disagreement among those of good will as to what is essential and necessary to promote the common good.

It is our contention that Ron Paul's candidacy has the most reality based understanding of the problems facing America and his policy proposals are profoundly in harmony with CST.

Over the course of the coming weeks and months, this blog will take up the work of making that case.