Let’s see what the story is, from Hot Air:
I know I’ve said this before on the site, and I know many devout Catholics’ experiences are different, but having grown up in the Church, there’s nothing here that surprises me. Most Catholics I kn…

The best you can hope for is an alliance that preserves human freedom and opportunity allowing all of us to live as we choose. The thought of maintaining traditional conserviteive social norms through legislation is only going to drive more and more voters to the party of statism which ultimetly aims to make it impossible for you to live and raise your children outside the new secular ‘norm’.

H

If the culture wars can’t even deter supermajority approval among Catholics, what’s the point?

How about abolishing these so called culture wars once and for all?

Do it for the GOP, please. You want to fight culture or whatever – join the damn Constitution Party and call it a day already.

Do it for The Party.

That was one of the best posts I have ever read on this website.

I agree with every word of it, with all my heart, soul and mind.

God calls us to search for His fullest truth and once found, cling to it, no matter what. It’s not people or their politics or hypocrisy that matter. It’s Christ and his truth, His holy Word.

Like the old saying goes, His Church isn’t a museum for saints, it’s a hospital for sinners. And it is our home, where anyone is always welcome back.

God bless you and Jay and everyone here.

pannw on May 3, 2009 at 8:54 PM

I stand with Jesus, along with you.

The Catholic Church is dead to me now. I am tired of you apologists. The Mormons don’t need apologists.

jay12 on May 3, 2009 at 11:06 AM

Even if 99.9% of those who claimed to be catholic in some poll voted Democrat, it would not affect my faith. I am not Catholic because of the people in my parish. I’m not Catholic because of the priests, or bishop in my diocese. I am Catholic because of this:

17 And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

I am Catholic because I know that the fullness of God’s Truth is found within His Church. Just because individual imperfect human beings who claim membership in His Church fail to live up to that Truth (and none of us could, though some fail more spectacularly than others), including some of the men who are charged with guiding His flock, I will not leave, because the Truth is found on the altar, in the Holy Eucharist. I can not get that anywhere else.

The fullness of Truth is found in the teachings of Christ’s Church, *for example see Humanae Vitae* regardless of the large percentage of American and European catholics who ignore those teachings. Their failures do not condemn the Church’s teaching. I would never bail on Jesus and His Church because of that, just as I would never bail on the Constitution of the United States of America because Thomas Jefferson was a confused hypocrite who owned slaves.

You may use your frustration with people to excuse leaving the Church, but you are not leaving them. You are leaving Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. I pray you reconsider.

If you are swayed by Allahpundit’s digs at your faith, then you weren’t very devout, and certainly not stalwart.

unclesmrgol on May 2, 2009 at 5:28 PM

Who said it has anything to do with Allahpundit? It doesn’t. You serve your faith poorly by jumping to such conclusions.

It has everything to do with the American Catholic Church’s support of Democrats.

The Catholic Church is dead to me now. I am tired of you apologists. The Mormons don’t need apologists.

The Catholic Church has been thoroughly corrupted by the novelties of Vatican II. The “Liberal Catholic” is first and foremost an oxymoron, but since he dons the cloak of reason and naturalism his is in a comfortable alliance with the serpent.

Charles Martel on May 2, 2009 at 7:28 PM

Please explain more about this corruption by the novelties of Vatican II. I guess I must have been corrupted too if I didn’t notice it, so of course I would like to know more about the corrosion resting upon my soul.

Politics, faith, and family are not inextricably linked, either pro-or-con. My faith and family are very separate from my politics, and I think this is how most Catholics are.

lansing quaker on May 2, 2009 at 5:32 PM

I beg to differ; your faith is lived, and I’ve seen my parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents living it in their daily acts — including those toward strangers. I think many Catholics are Democrats for historical reasons (the Irish viewed freedmen as competitive threats to their own livlihoods at the bottom of the WASP pecking order, and therefore were easily swayed by Civil War Democratic arguments that blacks were subhuman), while others are Democratic because they view the Democrats as being the party which would institute a Government closer to Jesus’s teachings (give alms to the poor, turn the other cheek many times, while forgetting that these charges were individual, and the acts are not acts of charity when made via confiscatory taxes on others).

As to thuja’s “insane package”, I think that ranks as the best anti-Catholic bigotry I’ve seen on this thread. I certainly don’t view the whole package as insane, and am quite proud of my Catholicism. I’m sure he’s just as proud of his practice of Judaism, but I’d love to see him try to claim the Law of Return in Israel; he’ll quickly see that “Judaism-lite” doesn’t count for much amongst the bearded rabbis. Ditto for Cafeteria Catholicism and the Pope, and rightly so.

Too many people are unduly harsh about the majority of Catholics. Most Catholics are born Catholics. They never consented to the whole insane package. My religion, Reformed Judaism, is spiritually similar to where most of these born Catholics are. People are born as Jews, don’t wish to lose their Judaism, but never consented to every insanity in the mitzvot (commandments). So they become Reformed Jews and eat their pork with cheese sauce.

Admittedly, it is somewhat puzzling that the bulk of American Catholics don’t join mainline Protestant Churches. People aren’t very rational about religion.

thuja on May 1, 2009 at 9:48 PM

Excellent post; I’m kind of bummed no one else replied to it.

I was raised Catholic, and always identified “Catholic” as family tradition more than faith. All of us kids growing up in the 90s did at Catholic school. “My family this, my family that.” Our family (maternal side) has a stained glass window in my home parish, because my grandparents helped found it. A cultural pride has emerged and taken precedence over faith.

This is where I think the “Cafeteria Catholic” comes from. My aunts and uncles would always tell stories about their 60s Catholic upbringing, and it was always very social. The grueling tasks of reciting rosaries, singing in choir — the gamut.

Some of them are pretty funny: my mom told me a story about how my aunt always said “sepresize” during the Hail Holy Queen on the rosary. She did this until she was about 20, when my mom went “sepresize?! What’s SEPRESIZE? Don’t you mean SEND UP HER SIGHS?” “OOoOOohhhHhh…!” LOL.

But we were always blue collar Dem kids. Families where parents were in arenas like nursing, teaching, labor (unions). Even my own grandmother gets in hot water in her church circle when she steps out of the abortion debate. She had 7 kids, is anti-abortion, and is very pro-family, but fervently believes committing sin — even murder — is between the woman and God and does not lose sleep over Roe v. Wade.

But she was raised an FDR Democrat. She fervently believes the New Deal saved one of her family’s farms, after the other had been lost during the Depression. And this is where you’re seeing a lot of the “Catholic Democrats” emerging from. Never mind Kennedy was our only Catholic President, and is often looked upon very fondly.

Politics, faith, and family are not inextricably linked, either pro-or-con. My faith and family are very separate from my politics, and I think this is how most Catholics are. Most parochial schools do not emphasize faith in education; even when I was receiving the sacraments (Eucharist/Penance/Confirmation) I had to go to separate night classes, which irritated the Hell out of my working mom, always crowing “I pay for this education, and they can’t even have you go through any of the sacrament rights during school? I did when I was a kid!” We didn’t even learn the Nicene Creed in school, because we never recited it during Friday (school) Masses.

It’s created a culture where identifying as “Catholic” has become more about these stories of fellowship in family rather than a strict adherence to faith. Catholics and Jews are among the first to poke fun at their faiths while recounting the stories of “growing up as ______.” Not that the faith is not important, but there’s a different level of self-awareness to it all.

It’s fairly telling when out of my Grandmother’s 12 “of age” grandchildren (as in, out of their parents’ houses), her out gay one is the only one that attends Mass weekly (me). She gets quite a kick out of it; whether it’s irony masking as a bit of disappointment, I’ll never know.

And I’ve rambled way, way too much. ;D

I WAS Catholic….until now.

How do you become a Mormon?

jay12 on May 2, 2009 at 8:28 AM

If you are swayed by Allahpundit’s digs at your faith, then you weren’t very devout, and certainly not stalwart.

For me, I’ll take the faith of my fathers, living still.

As for becoming a Mormon, you don’t — you become a Latter Day Saint, and you can join up by going to http://maps.lds.org/ and entering your address in the search form; it will display the nearest stake (yes, that’s spelled correctly) houses or temples, along with worship times and congregation names. There’s also a link as to what to expect should you do this.