Redstate

Well said, well put.

While I of course disagree with much of your message here, I wholeheartedly agree with its central tenat, that its absurd to assert that Catholics have a natural allegience to Democrats, and that a vote for Kerry would be a horrible setback for protection of the unborn.  If it were up to him, he'd overturn the ban on the indefensible partial birth abortion.  That is hard to countenance.

But, it does seem that conservatives sometimes do their best to alienate many other Catholic opinions, which is unfortunate.  We could do better on this.

Unrelated:  I notice a lot of contributors around here include an admonishon to "Read on" or "See below for more" on their intro text.  I believe this weakens your prose, and is redundant since immediately below this there is invariably a Scoop link to "Read Story" or similar.  Most of the established and experienced Scoop sites dispense with the convention, and it reads better. Just my two bits, take it or leave it.

The best thing I've read on RedState so far. Well done, Thomas.

But, it does seem that conservatives sometimes do their best to alienate many other Catholic opinions, which is unfortunate.  We could do better on this.

Well, it's true that we don't do a good job of explaining how our policy goals mesh with Catholic pragmatic positions (and dogmatic ones). Catholicism is not politically conservative; it is conservative in the least adverbial sense possible. We should explain how it is possible, for example, in the conservative sense, to have a radical preference for the poor, through voluntary, non-governmental acts, rather than the cheap and easy (and ultimately expensive and counterproductive) governmental programs.

We agree with your goals, but our methods actually get there.

How much better a thing can be said if you're not exhausted (or at least if I'm not).

Exactly.

To paraphrase the old, tangentially related joke: I no make-a the rules, I just play-a the game.

Why is it that most of the private charities with volunteers crave government assistance? Where is the evidence that private giving would compensate for loss of government support? It didn't in Dickens' day.

Now, they have a government back onto which to fall.

In addition, there were other safety nets in place then that filled the gaps of ordinary charities: Family and social networks, for example. Was it perfect? Heck no. But any city now has testaments to the failures of government charities.

The poor will always be among us.

I also note that the ground rules were different: In Victorian England, debtors could indeed go to prison; social mobility was highly constrained; and social stratification kept private charities to the works of Christian faith and noblesse oblige. None of those things is at play here.

Fundamentalists of all stripes, whether they are Catholic Protestant or Jewish, all tend to feel more comfortable in the Republican party.

I find your tone to be unnecessarily contemptuous.  (Maybe one day, the phrase "high comedy" will be uttered by someone who actually shows a sense of humor, but I doubt that it will be Thomas..)

It seems to me that your attack here is based on misinterpreting Kos's post as a "lecture" that speaks to specific points of Catholic doctrine.

What you have either missed or chosen to ignore is the fact that Kos is writing about real voters who self-identify as Catholic and their real world political leanings.  Hence the phrase issues of importance to Catholics.

You might be attempting to use this article to declare who is and is not a faithful Catholic - awfully presumptuous of you, that - but it doesn't change the fact that the real-life Catholic vote is divided and that, given Kos's broad range of issues important to real-life people who self-identify as Catholic, there is an alignment with the Democratic Party on many of them.

That's Democratic Party, incidentally.  Surely you could get the name of my party right.

Now, it's perfectly fair, as a Catholic, for you to take other Catholics to task for considering other issues to be just as important - if not more so - than abortion, and to vote accordingly.  But it's disingenous to pretend that Kos was discussing the infallibile teachings of the Catholic Church and then to mock him for it, when he clearly was doing no such thing.

...you guys do still want my vote, right?  I ask because Thomas was only slightly less interested in bashing us than he was in bashing Kos - who I'm not fond of, myself.  Hey!  Got that message out in only seven words.  Who woulda thunk it?

What's a fundamentalist?  Where does the term come from?  How old is it?

My confidence that you can answer these questions without resort to Google is pretty low.

....Kos is writing about real voters who self-identify as Catholic and their real world political leanings.

AKA Thomas.

Kos missed the point, and badly, that these issues are not all created equal in the Catholic mind.  Furthermore, he explicitly argued at various points from a standpoint of what was important to the Church, not the voters per se -- and got what was important to the Church rather wrong.

And Thomas has rightly slapped him down for it.

"My confidence that you can answer these questions without resort to Google is pretty low."

Your confidence is quite correct.

I'm guessing from your tone that the origins of the word 'fundamentalist' has more positive connotations than the Jerry Falwell / Osama Bin Laden connotations I would put on it today.

But I'll let you educate me on the details...

....that outside of a Protestant context, it's misapplied and inapt.  "Fundamentalism" comes from an American publication of barely a century old called, well, The Fundamentals, which called Protestant Christians back to their "original" faith.  (Curiously, they did not therefore become Catholics.)  It was essentially an anti-modernist reaction and as such did not enjoin its adherents to political action.  Indeed, the present existence of Christian conservatives as a coherent voting bloc is a historically unique phenomenon -- Karl Rove is right to fear that they might stay home one day.

Fundamentalism gets misapplied to other expressions of other faiths as a synonym for perceived "extremism" or simply political conservatism.  I suspect you use it in that latter sense there.  But it's a meaningless and much-abused term in this context.  Muslims labeled "fundamentalist," for example, are almost wholly orthodox practioners of their faith.  On the other hand, Buddhists or Unitarians whose strong faith (such as it is) impels them to left-wing political activism are almost never labeled as fundamentalist by others.  Not that they should be; the point is that the label is inconsistently applied.  As, well, a smear.

"Speaking as a self-identified Catholic, you guys do still want my vote, right?"

John Kerry is a man of faith, even if he doesn't wear it on his sleeve.  (Though he does wear it on his forehead on Ash Wednesday...)

We need more members of the VRWC to abandon the sinking ship.  We'll take your vote.  We're actually tolerant!

"Fundamentalism gets misapplied to other expressions of other faiths as a synonym for perceived "extremism" or simply political conservatism."

Sorta.

In the parlance of the day, fundamentalism is an overly literal reliance on religious texts to explain things for which better modern explanations exist.

The Catholic sect that Mel Gibson belongs to is fundamentalist.  So are some of the Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish sects.  So are Al-Qaida and the Wahabis.

The word has nicely mutated to cover the followers of all of the religions of Abraham who retreat into their holy books to oppose modern life.

Of course we want your vote. I don't care if you're a tree-chewing atheist; the results count.

As to the rest: Moe, you can self-identify however you like; just because you call yourself something does not make it so. Doesn't mean you're not; you might just be in a state of grave error. You'd know better than I the state of your soul, and how your beliefs line up with the Church's fundamental teachings. (Please note that I tried very hard not to say who is and who is not a Catholic. Hence, "One Pope at a time.")

As for the number of words: Mea culpa.

In Dickens' time there was significant private giving to charity. There was exceedingly little money appropriated by Parliament for relief and then only in exceptional situations of famine (like Ireland in the mid-1840s). The lion's share of money to aid the indigent was provided through involutary tithes to the established Church of England.

"Of course we want your vote. I don't care if you're a tree-chewing atheist; the results count."

You're going to need a lot more than just the tree-chewing atheists to get over the top this year.

But on the bright side, the magnitude of your loss will make reforming the Republican Party a much easier task.  There's nothing like a party in the wilderness to focus the mind...

You're actually a comedian! No serious human thinks Kerry has a chance.

Tell me when you're coming to Florida. I'll book front-row tickets.

First of all, you presuppose an objective standard for an "overly" literal reliance.  Second, if you think the hardline Catholic traditionalists are strictly reliant on the Bible, you've got another thing coming.  Sola scriptura types they are not.  Third, lumping those Catholics and those Jews together with the likes of al Qaeda is outright absurd.  There's the reason the former two coexist peacefully in modern civilization -- even making hit Hollywood movies! -- while the latter seeks to annihilate it.

Or allow it to inform his policy preferences.  One might ask what good it is.

"You're actually a comedian! No serious human thinks Kerry has a chance."

And the punch line is that I think you'll be able to maintain your confidence right up until the last week or two of the campaign.  Only then will the floor suddenly fall out from beneath you with a sickening thud.

But on the bright side, you've got a better than 50-50 shot of holding the House, thanks to the Exterminator's shenanigans.  So it's not all bleak.

And we could reach a point of Edwards fatigue in 2016...

Mel Gibson is a Traditionalist it's semi-schism with the Roman Catholic Church has absolutely nothing to to with religious beliefs or doctrines or a flight from modernism. It is rooted in adherence to Latin Mass and forms of worship that were pushed aside by Vatican II.

Even by your definition his particular faith practice is not fundamentalist anc clearly demonstrates the extent to which the term is nothing short of a pejorative.

Tacitus is correct. Fundamentalist refers to someone who adheres, knowingly or not, to John Nelson Darby's "Fundamentals". You have to be 1) a Protestant and 2) a dispensationalist to be a fundamentalist.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."

"Even if he doesn't wear it on his sleeve.  Or allow it to inform his policy preferences.  One might ask what good it is."

Same good as it was for John Kennedy.  It provides a nice moral foundation for a man to fall back on as he considers the non-religious issues of state.

"Tacitus is correct. Fundamentalist refers to someone who adheres, knowingly or not, to John Nelson Darby's "Fundamentals". You have to be 1) a Protestant and 2) a dispensationalist to be a fundamentalist."

Words have an elasticity over time.

Liberal means something quite different now than it did 150 years ago.

Orthodox Jews and Wahabi Muslims are fundamentalists according to commonly accepted modern usages.

But we've reached pure semantics now, haven't we?

Maybe in the sense that Clinton was a self-identified black man. The term beggars the imagination. It's a free country and one can call themselves Catholic or the King of Spain. That doesn't change what you are.

As so aptly noted above, being Catholic is defined by being in communion with the Catholic Church. To be accurate, though, I think this conversation is about what it is to be Roman Catholic not generically "catholic." It isn't a tribal status or a birth right.

To be in communion with the Church you have to adhere to its professions of faith (death, resurrection, actual presence in the Host, confession, the infallibility of the Magisterium when teaching on faith and morals among them).

So you can't "self-identify." It is a very simple binary situation. If you don't adhere to any one of them you can't be Catholic no matter what you call yourself. You may go to Mass but you are a Protestant.

Regular Mass-going Catholics already vote Republican (and fairly heavily, I believe). Is this a question of the "self-identifying" tag? It has to be. Combine that with the cultural aspect of Catholicism and you get many, many people who call themselves Catholic for the reasons of their choosing without the attendent moral and philosophical alignment with the Church.

Hence, they are not motivated to vote on the issues the Church weighs heavily, and instead use some other frame of reference or personal preference to determine their voting behavior.

You've been called out on your lack of knowledge and now you're trying to dodge it by playing Humpty Dumpty.

Your argument is that YOU have the right to define any word any way you wish in order to make a pretty fatuous point, in fact, a point that isn't even accurate when applied to the groups you single out.

And consequences.

"Fundamentalism" means what it means. The ultimate arbiter of additional definitions or altered meanings is the Oxford English Dictionary. Do you have a cite in the OED that proves what you say? If so, share it, that would be interesting to read.

Failing that, all you've shown is that a lot of people use the word wrongly. Which matters, as it becomes a substitute for thought. Calling Mel Gibson's strain of Catholicism "fundamentalism" is simply wrong, and shows you don't understand what he believes and why he believes it.

It's more important when it comes to Islam. There the misuse of the word can be dangerous, as it mischaracterizes the people we're fighting. Calling Osama "fundamentalist" allows you to lump him in with Falwell et al. in some kind of sweaty soup pot, instead of trying to understand what in particular about Islam and the Mid-East formed his beliefs.

AKA Thomas, and Kos, and myself, and my relatives, and my housemates, and the majority of my friends, and millions of other people.

If there is a "Catholic mind" it would be more realistic to describe it in terms of trends and tendencies, all the while making clear that they are so.  Thomas has decided for all of our "Catholic minds" that abortion is issue #1 that trumps all the others, but I don't agree with him (neither does my stridently anti-abortion, conservative Catholic, Democrat mother, for instance).  On the issues, I think social justice is a lot more important than abortion, and at the end of the day my vote counts just as much as his does.  Perhaps he will say I am not really Catholic for this reason, but that doesn't matter to me, either spiritually or politically.

Sure, when discussing the issues, Kos mentioned a few points on the Church's views of them.  He did this in a fairly general way, without ranking them in order of importance or referring to infallible teachings.  Thomas slapped him down for something he didn't bring up.  It seems to me that in order to be a good debater one ought to first learn how to be a good reader.  

Kerry's religion I won't speak of - it's nobody's damn business except his - but if you want hawks to come back to you, try nominating an actual hawk next time.  And it was Democratic factional politics (quite intolerant, those can be) that in part caused me to leave... no, I bloody well didn't, did I?  To quote the Gipper, you guys left me.

In short, don't mistake a throat-clearing in an internal dispute for a prelude to a bolt.

I find your tone to be unnecessarily contemptuous.  (Maybe one day, the phrase "high comedy" will be uttered by someone who actually shows a sense of humor, but I doubt that it will be Thomas..)

I find your writing to be utterly misinformed. Maybe some day I'll receive a scathing comment from someone with more than rudimentary literacy, but I doubt that it will be daria g.

It seems to me that your attack here is based on misinterpreting Kos's post as a "lecture" that speaks to specific points of Catholic doctrine.

No, it's based on a long laugh I had at Kos's expense, and a longer laugh I've had watching Kerry trying to pretend to be Catholic.

What you have either missed or chosen to ignore is the fact that Kos is writing about real voters who self-identify as Catholic and their real world political leanings.  Hence the phrase issues of importance to Catholics.

Three points:

(a) No, I took that to be one of his possible meanings. The problem is, under contra preferentiam, I'm holding the ambiguity in Kos's little exposition on "Catholic issues" against him. One cannot move from speaking of Catholics broadly, tossing in Vatican press releases, while not differentiating among Catholic groups, to speaking of issues Catholics care about, without sounding sillier than heck. If he meant to say, "People who self-identify as Catholic, and who may or may not line up with the essential teachings of the Church, have certain issues of importance to them, and they fit better in the Democrat party for the following reasons," I wouldn't have had quite as much striking room. But of course...

(b) That would be utterly nonsensical. Catholics who attend Mass regularly (practicing Catholics, so to speak) vote differently than Catholics who merely self-identify, and attend mass rarely if at all (CEO Catholics, for those in the know). If you'd clicked on the link above (which I've generously reproduced here), you'd get a better idea on that.

(c) I even tried to take account of that (see the paragraphs right below that link in the original post). But one guesses that you simply skimmed through and went to town.

You might be attempting to use this article to declare who is and is not a faithful Catholic - awfully presumptuous of you, that - but it doesn't change the fact that the real-life Catholic vote is divided and that, given Kos's broad range of issues important to real-life people who self-identify as Catholic, there is an alignment with the Democratic Party on many of them.

This just cements my conviction that you didn't actually read what I wrote:

Don't misunderstand: One Pope at a time, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not casting anyone into outer darkness here. (I'm not Andrew Sullivan.)

This lack of reading comprehension sems to be endemic to Kos commenters, too.

And like I've now said way too many times, plenty of self-identified Catholics believe all sorts of things. (I've known a Wiccan "Catholic" in my time.) More power to them. But that's a much narrower brush than "Catholics."

That's Democratic Party, incidentally.  Surely you could get the name of my party right.

Actually, I did get it right. Yours is the party of Democrats. Mine is the party of Republicans. Your party is the one engaged in the two-hundred year spelling error.

Now, it's perfectly fair, as a Catholic, for you to take other Catholics to task for considering other issues to be just as important - if not more so - than abortion, and to vote accordingly.  But it's disingenous to pretend that Kos was discussing the infallibile teachings of the Catholic Church and then to mock him for it, when he clearly was doing no such thing.

Reread what he wrote, then reread what I wrote, and try this again.

Of the laundry list of issues where Catholics allegedly have this affinity with the Democrat party none are teachings on faith and morals.

Abortion, on the other hand, is explicitly forbidden in the Catechism. In other words, if you don't adhere to this doctrine you cannot be Catholic.

The teaching on the death penalty acknowledges the right of the state to execute some prisoners even though it disapproves strongly in principle.

Catholic "social" teaching has long since become Catholic "socialist" teaching, IMHO, and much of what comes out of parish "Social Concerns" committees is just socialist rot and clearly contradictory to Pius XI's description of socialism being incompatible with Catholicism.

...was unrelated to the topic at hand (why should we care about Kos, after all?).  Sorry about that.  As to my beliefs... I recognize the truth of the Nicene Creed; everything else we'll talk about.  God made sure we evolved these nice big brains for a reason, after all.  :)

Try reading what I wrote. Try. I know that for liberal Catholics, actually following along with the text is tricky, but try.

Kos, for example, is a self-identified "recovering Catholic." And he didn't differentiate between doctrinal issues and prudential ones when weaving Vatican press releases in and out. I can't help it that he's a sloppy writer.

Then, after considering all that, explain how the Church's teachings on social justice are somehow more important -- and defined as such -- than the teaching that abortion constitutes an excommunicable offense by nature of the crime itself. Please. I look forward to it.

A long segue, and an examplary segue, but a segue nonetheless. I was mostly aiming my gun at Kerry.

I suppose if I were speaking French the "rudimentary literacy" crack would be occasionally on target, depending on how tired I was feeling.  First, I get the distinct impression that your sense of humor is provoked by those you deem less intelligent or well-informed than yourself.  Second, I doubt you're really laughing; your "high comedy" and "long laugh" are just rhetorical ornamentation and kind of cliche, at that.

I read what you wrote before responding.  You can take my word for it, or not.

But as for Kos.  Of course he can move from broadly discussing the issues to citing press releases to talking of Catholic voters.  He was, after all, posting it to spark a dialogue on his own website in the informal style generally used by the community there, and so he has communicated quite effectively with his readers.  As one of them, what I understood was that Kos wrote some general observations on a very broad spectrum of Catholics, from the very devout to those who are.. rather lapsed, followed by some general observations on issues that might affect their votes.  You might think some of these folks ought not to count as real Catholics, but they still are showing up that way to pollsters, and they still vote.

If you want to have a debate with someone and throw out such strict legalistic guidelines by which to measure the effectiveness of the opponent's argument, it seems that it would be proper to tell your opponent that s/he will be involved in a formal debate before the debate has begun. Instead, it seems your choice was to take a piece written in an informal style, pounce on it, and hold it up to criteria that are quite inappropriate.  

My point stands: Kos was not writing about infallible teachings, and you have misread.

It's still the Democratic Party.  I would say I'm having a long laugh over your hostility on this one, but I am actually just kind of rolling my eyes right now over the pettiness of it all.  

OK, so what impact is an accurate understanding of the relation of politics to the Roman church's teachings likely to have in this election?  What I'm looking for specifically is any polling data that would contradict my intuitive assumption that the debate over this subject will raise passions but change few minds.

I'd suggest also that what influence Catholic clerics might have on political discussions has been badly undermined over the last several years by the Church's toleration of child abuse and the most disgusting sexual practices amongst its clergy.  My guess is that if Pope John Paul II were not in an advanced stage of decrepitude this appalling scandal might have been handled much better; be that as it may, Americans other than the most zealous Catholics are likely to be even less disposed to value the moral insights of an institution that allowed itself to be stained with so grievous a mark of disrepute.

Why are you so rude?  

Seriously.  I'm really interested to know.  This is your turf, after all.  

You see, the impression I get from Dickens, and not just Dickens, is that the standard of living of the poor was much lower with private charity in his day than it is with government welfare programs today. Obviously there are many other factors in play. But to take one egregious example, you aren't going to pretend that scholarships for impoverished students provided by charities, foundations, private colleges, and wealthy individuals so that they might attend institutions of higher education benefited nearly as many students as government-subsidized public colleges and universities, are you?

#1:

I find your tone to be unnecessarily contemptuous.  (Maybe one day, the phrase "high comedy" will be uttered by someone who actually shows a sense of humor, but I doubt that it will be Thomas..)

#2:

You might be attempting to use this article to declare who is and is not a faithful Catholic - awfully presumptuous of you, that[...]

#3:

I would say I'm having a long laugh over your hostility on this one, but I am actually just kind of rolling my eyes right now over the pettiness of it all.

Oh, and for reference: I really did laugh.

And forcing them to profess Catholicism. But if they do, there are ground rules by which they should play. Break the rules, don't come to the playground.

Yes, there was some private giving -- from the point of view of those who gave, it was a lot. Yes, the government used its church to do something, but it was clear that the efforts through the Victorian Era were inadequate.

America doesn't have an established church that it can use to administer its government social programs. It doesn't have any use for debtors prisons. The experiments in relying on voluntary welfare programs show that they are inadequate. Can public welfare programs be improved? Certainly. I support reforms, but not as an excuse to further cut services. America already has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world, much of which is a result of our failure to help people when they need it, before they become criminals. As a society, we are becoming Scrooge.

The traditions of the Catholic Church are opposed to that. Protestantism, particularly those strains most heavily influenced by Calvin, was not as committed to the idea that we, as a society, owe even the least among us, a level of dignity consistent with what our society could afford, even though personal efforts were encouraged and commended.

On separate points. Yes, it will be very important to see what the teachers and priests do in coming months - and while the Pope's pronouncements are important, I tend to think they have less of an effect on the Catholic population itself as time goes by.

But that also leads to where I think you've missed it - the scandal and the stain from it on the Church. While in the aggregate people have some serious (and deserved) trust issues with the leadership of the Church, you also see a phenomenon not dissimilar to what we see with Congress: the institution of Congress gets approval ratings in the 40's, but everone rates their Congressman QUITE a bit higher than that. I think it's the same way in Church. I can hold a lot of disdain for bishops I've never met, Cardinals I've seen on TV (and who have shown to be pretty pathetic) but my priest? Well, of course I like my priest.

Most of the Catholics I know are concerned that the clergy is out of step. Unfortunately, the authoritarian model of governance in Catholicism makes it nearly impossible to reform it, as the response to the recent scandles attests.

Why should people who consider themselves to be Catholics have to leave the Church just because the hierarchy is drifting away from them?

Yes, it's resistant to reform. It's also resistant to collapse, as the oldest insitution on the planet. For me - I can't leave, no matter how much the heirarchy kicks me around. Cause it ain't about the heirarchy, that's not why I'm a Catholic. True, some days I think I am despite some of the schmucks in power - but only because I believe, as a matter of faith - that it really is the Church that Christ started. That said, until they contradict their own doctrine, I'm not going anywhere.

I wonder what these folks would say in response?

Of all the responses to Kerry's hilarious statement referencing "Pope Pius XXIII," I enjoyed Fr. Neuhaus's the best of all:

"We had better tread lightly here. We're dealing with the inner sanctum of the conscience. This is a man who apparently has taken a private oath under the tutelage of a pope of whom most of us have never heard.

"Rumor has it that members of the very secretive Society of Pius XXIII are taught to be so careful about not imposing their religion that, just to be safe, they do not impose it upon themselves. It has also been said that "Pius XXIII" is a pseudonym used by Father Robert Drinan, a Jesuit who has contrived a moral rationale widely employed by Catholic politicians inconvenienced by Catholic teaching.

"I have no idea whether such rumors are true, but I have a strong hunch that during the course of this campaign we may be learning a great deal about Catholicism that nobody knew before."

I think the trouble here is some miscommunication about the framing of the debate.  I will say that a person who was raised Catholic and then was no longer in communion with the Church, but still goes to Mass sometimes.. is not a Protestant, whatever they might be.

Anyway, I'm using the phrase "self-identified Catholic" to talk about voters, and it's from that particular perspective - of a political strategist trying to appeal to a broad spectrum of people - that the debate over whether or not a person adheres to all professions of the faith is not so relevant.  I know that there have been some polls measuring church attendance among voters, and by that measure you can try to figure out how to appeal to voters who attend the most frequently, for instance.  But a political strategist trying to analyze the patterns of Catholic voters - from "catholic" (to put it your way) to Roman Catholic - is obviously looking at a number of issues and trying to reach the broadest number of people.  From this perspective using binary divisions to declare that a good chunk of these voters aren't really Catholic and therefore not worth addressing is just plain bad strategy.

In other words, Karl Rove isn't going have Bush only try to get "real" Catholics to vote for him, he'll want to get votes from the lapsed Catholics too.

As you know perfectly well, the phrase "Democrat Party" has a relatively recent and odious history, not some 200-year long contention over an obscure point of grammar.

I am not, incidentally, convinced on your point of grammar, irrelevant as it is. Supposing that the two chambers of Congress were in dispute for some reason: could you not speak of the Senatorial Party, or only the Senator Party? Likewise "right-wing party" but "right-wingers". Why exactly is it wrong to use the adjectival form? (References, please.)

and tithing is involuntary, in just what sense is this not a coercive government program?

while the Pope's pronouncements are important, I tend to think they have less of an effect on the Catholic population itself as time goes by.

While I'm not a Catholic myself, I've always seen this as being true, particularly of American Catholics. Americans in general don't like being told what to do. Of course, there are some who will take the 'orders' on their own merits, and some who will reject them regardless of merit, and some who will accept them regardless of merit. But Americans in general tend to start with caution (at least) when someone else is trying to change or 'dictate' our habits.

John

You see, the impression I get from Dickens, and not just Dickens, is that the standard of living of the poor was much lower with private charity in his day than it is with government welfare programs today.

I would agree. I would also agree that there were a lot fewer aircraft in Dickens' time than there are today. I just don't see how this premise translates into an observation other than things sucked mightily for everyone in the mid-19th Century.

Obviously there are many other factors in play. But to take one egregious example, you aren't going to pretend that scholarships for impoverished students provided by charities, foundations, private colleges, and wealthy individuals so that they might attend institutions of higher education benefited nearly as many students as government-subsidized public colleges and universities, are you?

Your question is a non-sequitur. There is no relationship between private scholarships and the existence of public universities.

believed that your position on this subject was George Bush's position, it would drive him to vote for a Democrat for the first time in his life.

Historians tell us that the difference between wealthy people in 19th Century England and the poor was greater than it is now. Did it suck to be rich in England in 1850? No. Have there been some improvements since then? Sure, more toys, better health care. Which would you rather be, though, rich in 1850 or poor today?

I'm glad to know there is no relationship between private scholarships and public universities. I'll let those who scream about their taxes being too high know that.

The OED definition of "fundamentalist" as of the printing of the Compact edition of 1971 (but compiled much earlier) refers only the the post-WWI Protestant movement.

Nevertheless, I don't think it's a good word to use under the circumstances, because by the time we get to the online American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company, this is definition 2, while definition 1 is

A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

Did the Protestants take out a trademark on the word (which AFAICT began with their movement), or is it permissible for Catholics, Jews, and Muslims to use it to describe movements in their own traditions that resemble the Protestants' in these respects?

My wife, who works in this field professionally, tries not to use the word at all, except when necessary as a proper noun to describe that one Protestant movement, not because that is the only correct use of the word, but because the claim of people like Osama bin Laden that they represent a more fundamental, and therefore authentic, version is self-serving and often not historically accurate.

I heartily agree, with a few caveats:

This year I married a Catholic in a Catholic church. In some countries, the Catholic church still does not allow that. 20 or 30 years ago, it would not have been allowed even in America - we could have been married by a Catholic priest, and maybe inside the church, but some parts of the ceremony would have been off-limits to us.

But the Catholic church has been, since around the 1970s, been re-organizing its structure to allow for more differentiation in certain areas where there's no dogmatic reason not to.

The Catholic church still encourages Catholics to marry Catholics, but the actual rules for marrying non-Catholics are now allowed to be set by the Catholic churches of each country. Hence, my situation.

The Catholic church has a lot of mass (har har). It's very hard to change. It's very durable and tough. But it is changing. And the progress it's making has done a very good job of being the kind of progress that most of its members support, and avoids stepping on more toes than it has to.

John

By definition a Protestant is a Christian who is not in communion with the Catholic Church because they "protest" some teaching of the Church.

Again, you, of course, have the right to say anything you wish. The fact that you say it doesn't make it even vaguely coherent.

It makes even less sense from a strategic point of view. You direct a campaign at a market segment by indentifying the beliefs and values that segment holds in common. If "self-identified" (or more appropriately self-appointed) "Catholics" believe in abortion (as a for instance) then how do you campaign? By being for and against it? Well, maybe you do. That is Kerry's strategy.

You also have to address how do you reach this market segment. Well, if you are trying to reach Catholics, the obvious place to start is with those who attend Mass. Are you saying it's a good political move to campaign to Mass attending Catholics on the basis of being in favor of abortion?

Indeed, outside Mass attendance how would you even identify this chimerical "self-appointed" Catholic vote?

Hands down.

Which is it? There is no relationship between private scholarships and the existence of public universities.

Or that government welfare programs somehow displace better private charities?

You don't think free or cheap public universities are a government welfare program? What criteria on Earth are you using? Incidentally, I don't see why the establishment of public schools wouldn't cause some people to stop supporting charities that provided education to the poor.

Your initial diary did throw out quite a lot of insults!  To me that set the tone from the start, although I didn't mean to seem excessively grim in my first reply.  I do find it strange to be so adamant about who is and is not Catholic, it's very rare that I run into such an approach.

But let's be real.  I don't agree with you; it's not an issue of my reading comprehension skills or my general literacy.  

so I agree with your wife.

Let's look at the facts.

Traditionalist Catholics do not even vaguely fit the definition. Their issue are the forms of worship not the principles of worship. Even our strangest permutatation, the group that believes the current Papal succession was corrupted after Vatican I still adheres the tenets of the faith and has no noted intolerance to secularism.

Orthodox Jews, especially Hassids or Lubavitchers, are merely more conscientious in their adherence to Mosaic law than the more secular strains of Judaism. They own cars. They work in secular society. The hold public office.

The Amish and Mennonites? While they may be a bit exotic in their lifestyle I don't see any evidence of their opposition to the secular world or their rampant intolerance.

Where the word really breaks down is when it is transferred to Islam. While not an Islamic scholar by any stretch of the imagination, those who are scholars do not find Osama bin Ladin's brand to be that far outside the normative belief of Salafism. (Not his methods necessarily, but his beliefs). Bin Ladin's brand of Islam has a long history that runs back until at least the 18th Century in a straight line and farther if one judges general beliefs.

It is also applied rather indiscriminately to the BJP in India. Hindu chauvinism doesn't mean a return to "fundamental" beliefs as it is a relatively new phenomenon.

It also breaks down when applied to nominally Christian sects such as the Branch Davidians.

If we aren't going to use the word to describe something then it shouldn't be used.

Which would you rather be, though, rich in 1850 or poor today?

Absolutely nonsensical proposition logically and factually. Logically because it is impossible to make the choice. Factually because it doesn't reflect the standard of living in the mid-18th Century. How many poor people today die of gout? How many rich people in 1850 died of gout? How many poor people die of gangrene? Of cholera?

I'm glad to know there is no relationship between private scholarships and public universities. I'll let those who scream about their taxes being too high know that.

What is the relationship? Please enlighten me.

Which is it? There is no relationship between private scholarships and the existence of public universities.

Or that government welfare programs somehow displace better private charities?

False choice. I don't see how either proposition is provable. In fact, I'll state that both propositions are not provable.

You don't think free or cheap public universities are a government welfare program? What criteria on Earth are you using? Incidentally, I don't see why the establishment of public schools wouldn't cause some people to stop supporting charities that provided education to the poor.

All that may be true, but it is not a case that I made, agreed with, or was even talking about.

Catholic orthodoxy would force him into the Democrats' camp?  That's interesting.

As you know perfectly well, the phrase "Democrat Party" has a relatively recent and odious history....

I sure didn't know.  What's the deal with it?

John Kennedy fell back on Church morality?

Talk about your self-discrediting statement, Petey.

That the OED is considered by every authority on the English language that I know of to be the final arbiter of such things -- expanded definitions, altered meanings, etc. So much so that when they introduce new words into the dictionary it usually makes the evening news. It's the Rolls Royce of dictionaries.

So, no offense, but your above definition doesn't mean that much to me. Now, admittedly, I'm more of a purist about these kind of things than many, but I'll bet you $20 that if you could track down the writer of that definition and confront him with the OED definition, he or she'd defer. To the extent there's a consensus about any of these things, there's a consensus about the OED.

Do words change meanings? Sure. Is it "permissable" to use the word incorrectly? Sure, though you run the risk of being misunderstood. But more importantly,  I do strongly believe that incorrect usage blurs thought, and this is a good case of it. There's an essential difference between orthodox Jews, Osama Bin Laden, Jerry Falwell and Mel Gibson. Calling them all "fundamentalist" obscures this.

A lapsed Catholic, and this seems to have been the experience of a lot of people I know, might not be actively protesting anything specific - they might just be disinterested, or disengaged, or plain lazy.  

how do you campaign? By being for and against it?

By, perhaps, maintaining one's personal beliefs on the matter and separating them from public policy.  And then by discussing other issues of importance to this market segment, because many of them are really not single issue voters.  Bush is unambiguously against abortion.  Kerry has already lost the strict single-issue voters here and there is really no point in going any further.  So yes, of course he is going to campaign on other issues of importance to Catholics, and here's where we get into social justice, the war in Iraq, the death penalty, the economy, etc.  And it's still the case that there will be Catholic voters who are against abortion but are not single issue voters; so every one of them will be open to Kerry's message.  Or Bush's message, for that matter - I am guessing his campaign speech to the K of C addressed a lot more things than just abortion, because Bush's own people don't believe that strict Catholics will get out the vote for him only on this single issue.

The post was not saying who is and is not Catholic. Although I have my suspicions, and well-grounded reason that suggests that failing to follow the inviolable laws of the faith puts you outside of the faith, I'm neither an (ordinary) bishop nor a Pope. Call yourself what you want.

To that extent, it is a reading comprehension problem. Note that I said faithful Catholics, rather than Catholics in general. And, for reference, if I say something is funny or delightful, it means I probably gained pleasure from it.

The experiments in relying on voluntary welfare programs show that they are inadequate.

Huh? Where? When? What were the results? You might be right but we haven't tried voluntary welfare progams in this country since before the Depression.

America already has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world, much of which is a result of our failure to help people when they need it, before they become criminals.

I just can't believe anyone can make this statement with a straight face. We have a high incarceration rate because we lock up a lot of criminals. People commit crimes for a variety of reasons but they don't commit them, like Jean Valjean, because they are merely poor trying to feed their families.

The traditions of the Catholic Church are opposed to that.

I disagree with this. There are philosophical positions within the Church and on the periphery of the Church that may hold this position, like the Dorothy Day/Catholic Worker folks.  The Catechism is clear about our obligations to the poor. It is equally clear that that responsibility is NOT met through taxation and secular programs.

How is a "lapsed" Catholic different from a "non-Catholic" or a "self-identified" Catholic?

As far as Kerry goes: War in Iraq--- he's for it, or at least he was earlier in the week. Death penalty--- he's for it. The economy--- we don't know, he says the plan won't be revealed until after he's elected. Socialism--- he's probably in favor of that given his past but he hasn't advocated any new social programs.

So what is the take of the "lapsed Catholic" demographic on those positions.

I haven't found the precise point of origin, but I understand it was revived by Reagan's people and has been popularized by Rush Limbaugh.  At this point, the use of the phrase "Democrat Party" is a dead giveaway that it is a conservative going on the attack.  It does make trolls on liberal sites a little easier to detect!

I just got an interesting glimpse of this phenomenon from Google.  Search for "Democrat Party" (in quotes) and your hits will be a bunch of websites for Dem parties around the world - it's been spread so widely that even state and national Democratic groups have to put it in the meta tags for search engines.  

But if you search the conversational phrase "the Democratic Party," after the DNC's site (more meta tags) you'll get nothing but GOP and conservative sites, because Dems never use this phrase.

Hence.. I find stuff like this on Google:

*The Democrat Party's Long and Shameful History of Bigotry and Racism

*THE DEMOCRAT PARTY IS BEYOND CORRUPT, IT'S ALSO EVIL

*The Democrat Party is the new face of communism.

*The Democrat Party Will Die In 2004

*The Coming Death of the Democrat Party.

*This blog will contain my examples, thoughts and opinions on why the Democrat Party and/or liberalism is truly America's cancer.

I'm at a loss as to what's pejorative about "Democrat Party," but thanks for the background.

My father has no love for organized religion.  None.  He generally believes that Republicans are about smaller government, lower taxes and strong defense.  He thinks that Republican politicians don't make policy based on their religious beliefs.

As you can see, he chooses to believe some things about Republicans that are open to dispute.  And I choose not to discuss it with him.  But in all seriousness, if he believed that Catholic orthodoxy (or any other religous orthodoxy) was a prime driver of Republican policies, as opposed to his current belief that it's just cynical window-dressing to get votes, he wouldn't vote for another Republican.

I don't think he's alone in that view.  Most self-identified Republicans I speak to also choose not to believe that devout religious conservatives really have that much influence over the Republican party.  Further, when I speak to self-identified Republicans, in the world outside the blogosphere, they aren't aware of the growth of government under the Republicans these last 4 years.  

The uninformed voter serves both parties well.  They can pretend to be things they are not.  Bush and Cheney can make stump speeches saying that Kerry plans to rollback the tax cuts for all Americans, even though Kerry has been saying for months that he only plans to rollback the tax cuts for those making over $200,000.  Because people are ignorant of how our progressive tax system works, they fail to understand that even those making over $200,000 will still enjoy the tax breaks on all of the first $200,000 they earn.  It goes on and on.  And as I said voter ignorance serves both parties, not just Republicans.  So, my dad will vote Republican because he believes that the Republican religious talk is for the rubes out there.  Not something fundamental about the party itself.

Was that faithful Catholics should not vote Democrat, not that the Republican Party should obey faithful Catholics. There is a rather significant difference.

But your post did prompt Moe Lane to write

you guys do still want my vote, right?

I think my father might have a similar but different reaction if he heard something similar to your post coming out of Bush's mouth.  I believe my dad would say, 'You guys don't want my vote, do you?'

So, I appreciate your clarification.  I wouldn't purposely try to mis-state your post.  I do think a significant number of Republican voters believe what I stated my dad believes about the party.  And I am basing this only on anecdotal, personal experience, not survey data.  Heck, until the last couple of years, I believed the same things my dad believes about the Republican party.  However, I now only believe two of the items I listed previously.  One, Republicans will lower taxes, although in the absence of spending cuts, I don't consider that a universally good thing.  Two, Republicans are strong on defense, in the sense that I don't believe that a Democrat president would have taken us to war with Iraq in the same manner as Bush, if at all.  BTW, I support the war in Iraq, but I think the entire process of handling the buildup to the war and the aftermath of the war was handled extremely poorly.  It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly where Bush lost my support, but when we had Garner running the post-war aftermath, and then did a total aboutface with Bremer, I began thinking, 'Do we know what we are doing here?'  It didn't get any better after that.

Moe and I like tweaking each other's nose.

Just FYI.

He's both -- against it in general, for it where people are mad enough about it to want it -- terrorists, that is.

From OnTheRecord.org

Q: You are against capital punishment, except in the case of terrorism.

KERRY: Correct.

Q: Do you support the death penalty?

KERRY: I oppose the death penalty other than in cases of real international and domestic terrorism.

Kerry said of Dean's bin Laden remark: "The question asked [to Dean] was, do you believe Osama bin Laden should be tried in the United States and given the death penalty? The answer to both questions is a simple yes. Yes and Yes."

Maybe I'm just the victim of a Southern public school education but this does not mean "against the death penalty" where I come from.

No offense, but while the OED is a magnificent work, there is not the slightest reason to object to well-established definition drift because the editors formerly managed to update it every other human generation. I don't own the four-volume supplement that was published beginning in 1972, and I don't pay for an online subscription. Maybe someone who does can see if the more expansive definition is now included, which I find very likely.

"Fundamentalist" appears, referring only to the Protestant movement, in the 1933 addenda to the original.

I can't be sure that it originated with him, or one of his associates, but he started to use it to distinguish in some way the Democrats' perception of themselves as American patriots, and his description of them as weak, corrupt, pinko, etc.

Google yields this, and more interestingly here, where it's reported that Wm. F. Buckley (then an aide to McCarthy) told him not to use it for grammatical reasons. Leaving the grammar aside, I find the insistence on calling the Democratic Party by a name it doesn't use for itself quite weird: more of a power play than anything else.

I do apologize for overestimating how well known this etymology is. I'm older than I think.

This is what 10 minutes of Googling turned up.  The original poster's assertion that "Democrat Party" is a right-wing meme was generally upheld by the other results - references to "Democrat Party" and "Democrat Convention" were liberally strewn (no pun intended) over places like FreeRepublic, NewsMax, GOPUSA, etc.

Political Winds blog post

"Word Court" response from the Atlantic Monthly

Rockford Register-Star Editorial

Apparently, it began in the McCarthy era, and became a major right-wing talking point during the Gingrich reign, helped in its spread by the rise of conservative talk radio.

Any more history that people can find would be appreciated; I find this sort of political linguistic/semantic manipulation fascinating.    

..on his definition of fundamentalist. And calling Muslim "fundamentalists" by that term is wholly incorrect.  Salafists, yes, but Salafists do not rely wholly on the Qu'ran and therefore could not be "fundamentalists" even by an expanded definition of the term.  Fundamentalist does not equal extremist; again, in the most general terms taken out of its original Protestant context it applies to those who believe in literal interpretation of the Bible or Qu'ran or any other holy book.  Muslim Salafists also rely on the hadith (collection of the Prophet's sayings) and previous rulings by jurists.

Fundamentalist, in my view, should not be applied as a derogatory term. I know a lot of fundamentalists; my best friend is a Southern Baptist who literally believes that heaven is guarded by pearly gates. That does not make her an extremist by any shape or form.

but it's pretty well ingrained, apparently.

And it's hard to overstate the importance of semantics as a political tool.  Human language and human thought are quite deeply linked, and thus the words used to frame an argument are often as important as the merits of the argument itself.  The Democratic Party's recent attempts to "reclaim" the words "values" and "strength" stand as evidence that political strategists know this quite well.

..I'm not as well versed in Catholicism, but even an expanded definition in my opinion would not apply. There is enough of a mystical quality to Catholicism, plus the veneration of saints, that there is no way that the religion/sect follows only a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Fundamentalist does not mean Orthodox or "original", no matter how much you expand the definition.

There is nothing wrong with the change in a word's meaning over time. It is only when the word becomes meaningless that it is a problem.

Fundamentalism describes a very specific set of principles. Fundamentalism as defined above describes absolutely no one and is only a pejorative.

Not that I have anything against good pejoratives but we shouldn't pretend they are anything else.

With the addition that I don't have any objection to somebody putting up a later OED definition and looking at that -- I did say originally "that would be interesting to read". We could then see how well any possible expanded meanings apply.

...could not apply to Catholics or to [Salfist] Muslims; that is, if we are thinking of fundamentalism in theological terms. Back when I was Muslim, I was more a "fundamentalist" than the crazy al-Qaida types, because if something wasn't written in the Qur'an, I didn't follow it. That includes stuff on women..the Qur'an for example never states that women should wear headscarves or be subservient to men.

 And, to expand the definition of fundamentalist to include intolerance or extremism in my opinion would just contradict much of the original definition and therefore could not be valid.  It could be a usage annotation in the dictionary but not enshrine it as necessarily correct.

both are reliant on human dignity and for Catholics human dignity begins at conception.

"John Kennedy fell back on Church morality?  Talk about your self-discrediting statement, Petey."

Touche

...if Thomas' post were to be repeated by Bush.  Bush isn't a Catholic; and Thomas' point was mostly inside baseball where Catholics are concerned.  Protestants (and non-Christians), as a general rule don't follow the Catechism, so the structure of this specific argument isn't terribly relevant to Bush or other non-Catholics.

Incidentally, I think the Republican Party tent is quite big enough to include those who are not religious.  I do NOT think it is big enough to include the anti-religious.  Their votes are still welcome, but they aren't getting anywhere near the party apparatus (i.e. platform, etc.).

"Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."

"Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment, and social assistance."

"The arms race is one of the greatest curses on the human race and the harm it inflicts on the poor is more than can be endured...Spending enormous sums to produce ever new types of weapons impedes efforts to aid needy populations; it thwarts the development of peoples. "

a special for the disciples of LGF:

"To desire vengeance in order to do evil to someone who should be punished is illicit"

"Respect for and development of human life require peace."

"Deliberate hatred is contrary to charity."

Sen. Inhofe & Abu Ghraib/Gitmo apologists:

"Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely."

lastly, a special for the President:

"Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others' safety on the road"

:)

(1) Yet it's still discretionary. Go figure!

(2) The wording is precise: Society has the obligation. I know, you probably think that's synonymous with government; it's not.

(3) You mean building weapons over helping men is bad?! Wow! I bet puppies are good, too!

(4) "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

(5) And they are so being. But the folks to whom you refer are combatants who are not soldiers, prisoners only because they went to war without following the rules. Bzzz. Game over.

(6) Way to beat that already repentant Protestant with Catholic doctrine!

    ....but let's get back to the original question, which had to do with the political impact of Catholic clergy taking hard line positions about giving communion to politicians who support abortion rights and things of that kind.  It would take an awful lot of commitment from a large number of priests to make an impression on their parishoners big enough for the political world to notice.  On the other hand for nominal Catholics and non-Catholics taking a strong stand on church doctrine in the wake of the church sex scandal is bound to look like rank hypocrisy at best.  It may not hurt Republican candidates, but it won't do the Church any good.

Sin to be forgiven must first be confessed.  The Roman church as an institution has never quite gotten around to that with respect to its problem with child abuse and clerical misconduct.  For the most dedicated Catholics -- those who would be dedicated Catholics regardless of clerical conduct -- this may not compromise the Church's moral authority.  For everyone else it has, more profoundly than I think most Church leaders have yet recognized.

Okay, so this is a pointless comment... but we hit 100 on a story.  Redstate Milestone.

I'll let my folks know they should resign from their church boards and stop running Marriage Encounters, since the fact that they expect to vote for Kerry means they aren't real Catholics.  I'm sure they'll find the information fascinating.

Quote me where I say that. Go for it.

While they're doing Marriage Encounters, they can keep track of the children being killed because of the legal "right" their candidate fights tooth and nail to preserve. Fifty seven (more, really, but I'm rounding down) die every minute in this country because their parents exercise their "right to choose." They should probably bring this up in the minutes of their next Parish council meeting, so that everyone remembers how very good a couple of Catholics they are.

But social programs may see a net budgetary increase!

Catholics are more or less split along party lines; this isn't surprising, given a dark little secret Catholics have known for decades now: A lot of self-identified Catholics really aren't.

...

But those Catholics who actually take their faith seriously should think very, very carefully before pulling the lever for John Kerry.

It's not there in a cute little soundbite, but you said what you said.  

You have the magic Read-Between-The-Lines Glasses. Dang. Shoulda known some clever liberal would buy a pair. Well, foiled again. Off to join Opus Dei in a plot to put a true archconservative Pope on the Throne of Saint Peter and launch a second Inquisition.