Clarity and common sense from my friend Fr. Murray on the Al Smith Dinner…
Fr. Z’s Podcasts RSS Feed
About this blog…
“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
YOUR RECENT COMMENTS
- on Daily Rome Shot 1207 – Buon Natale!: “I wonder if you meant that Black can mate in two moves. I can’t see white doing so. …, Kh3…”
- on ASK FATHER: Book about Mary in the Old Testament: “I was once gifted a book called “Crushing satan’s head” by Father Mawdsley. It is solely about Our Lady in…”
- on 26 Dec: St. Stephen the Protomartyr, his Archconfraternity, and the Octave: ““St. Stephen reminds us of the consequences of discipleship. He is usually depicted surrounded by people who are beating him…”
- on Daily Rome Shot 1207 – Buon Natale!: “I understand the Vatican itself being aggressively down on TLM: its current temporal lord and master hates it (and dislikes…”
- on 25 Dec 2020: Fr. Reginald Foster, OCD – RIP: “He sounds like he was a wonderful man. The world and the Church could use a few more Reginald Fosters.…”
- on CHRISTMASCAzT 2024 – 25 – Christmas Day – “Ah, how much it has cost thee to love us!”: “An outstanding ChristmasCaZt, Fr. Thank you for your Priesthood, your devotion, your commitment and instruction. In Domino”
- on CHRISTMASCAzT 2024 – 25 – Christmas Day – “Ah, how much it has cost thee to love us!”: “Once again, many thanks, Fr. Z, to you and our other guides Parsh, Schuster, and Troadec, who have led us…”
- on Daily Rome Shot 1206 – Fishwrap’s spittle-flecked nutty: “That we didn’t get the whole Third Secret, and that we continue to be lied to about Fatima, is shown…”
- on The Burning Babe – A Christmas Day Poem by a English Martyr Saint: “I was just listening to Floriani’s version of the Christmas carol written by J. R. R. Tolkien. That music fits…”
- on Daily Rome Shot 1207 – Buon Natale!: “Christmas Day Mass at our NO Parish was about 30%-40% Latin thankfully, and as the Vatican II Council Fathers intended.”
- on The Burning Babe – A Christmas Day Poem by a English Martyr Saint: “I’m asking Fr. Southewll to speak to his fellow Englishmen Cardinal Roche. Perhaps a warming of his heart can come…”
- on Daily Rome Shot 1207 – Buon Natale!: “The hostility is rife. I have words for them but I shall keep it to myself. I’d love to meet…”
- on PRAYERCAzT: Singing the 2024 Christmas Proclamation or Kalendas in Latin (audio), – and a hard ASK FATHER question: “Sadly no Kalendas preceding the otherwise beautiful and edifying Midnight Mass (TLM, Solemn High Mass) I attended. I’m grateful that…”
- on Daily Rome Shot 1207 – Buon Natale!: “White to move and mate in 2. How fast did you find it? [NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till…”
ABORTION PILL RESCUE NETWORK
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
Federated Computer… your safe and private alternative to big biz corporations that hate us while taking our money and mining our data. Have an online presence large or small? Catholic DIOCESE? Cottage industry? See what Federated has to offer. Save money and gain peace of mind.
I am an affiliate. Click and join or at least explore! If you join, I’ll get credit.
Polls
Loading ...Donate using VENMO
GREAT BEER from Traditional Benedictine Monks in Italy
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
NEW OPPORTUNITY – 10% off with code: FATHERZ10
Fr. Z’s VOICEMAIL
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265
Good coffee and tea. Help monks.
I use this when I travel both in these USA and abroad. Very useful. Fast enough for Zoom. I connect my DMR (ham radio) through it. If you use my link, they give me more data. A GREAT back up.
Help support Fr. Z’s Gospel of Life work at no cost to you. Do you need a Real Estate Agent? Calling these people is the FIRST thing you should do!
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful. Zelle and Wise are better, but PayPal is convenient.
A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT comPLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?
Loading ...WDTPRS POLL
Loading ...Great WINE USE COUPON CODE: fatherz10
Use my code for a discount
Loading ...
I completely agree with what Father said about abortion, a wholly indefensible sin. What I contest, however, is Father’s assertion that Mrs. Clinton can’t quote as true other teachings of the Holy Father that are, in fact, true. There is no copyright, as it were, on truth. Truth is not a campaign platform. If an atheist says, “Adultery is immoral,” he speaks the truth, even if his third marriage belies the sincerity of his conviction. And if an anti-life candidate says that human greed is destroying God’s creation, she’s right, even if she doesn’t honor the image of God incarnate in the womb.
To put it another way, the Pope doesn’t own the truth: he merely proclaims it; or better yet, he witnesses to Him.
If Trump proclaims the truth, despite his errors and failings, I support him, but only insofar as it is the truth he proclaims, and not mere campaign rhetoric. Likewise, if Clinton proclaims the truth, despite her errors and failings, I support her, but only insofar as it is the truth she proclaims, and not mere campaign rhetoric.
Why, dear Catholics, are we selling our birthright for a bowl of soup? If Trump offers us mere soup, reject him! If Clinton offers us mere soup, reject her!
Aren’t there enough of us to demand someone better? There are, of course, but our bishops and pastors are too busy attending fundraising dinners to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Has the time come for fasting, prayer, and penance?
[You may have missed Fr. Murray’s point.]
SenexCalvus: I agree that there is no monopoly on truth. But what Hillary is doing here is more insidious. She is appealing to Catholics to elect her based on the areas where we agree. Then she plans to use that platform to enact many, many more policies where we disagree. You frame it as a spectrum, agreeing with her on some issues and disagreeing with her on some issues. But the election is a binary choice. She is elected – and can enact her whole anti-life agenda – or she is not elected.
I don’t like Trump. I think he is personally morally repugnant. And while I support his supposed policies, I suspect they are not actually his real policies, and that he will enact a raft of problematic laws were he elected. I am inclined to vote for neither. But there can be no question at all what Hillary will do.
And yes, the time has come again (as it has so many times in the past) for fasting, prayer, and penance.
Actually, complete clarity at this point would require the end of this absurd event being tied to Catholic clergy at all. No cardinal, bishop, or priest should be attending an event where he is supposed to publicly be seen being pleasant to a woman who the night before advocated vociferously for partial birth abortion.
The scandal of her bigotry pales in comparison to the scandal of her vocal, public passionate support for murdering the unborn.
And Obama was no better, of course, and neither are the rest of the pro-abortion Catholics. This event needs to stop being associated with Church hierarchy at all.
I hope the Church can be ashamed of this event enough to cancel it in the future even if it is not ashamed of itself enough to know the age of glad-handing must end.
To pretend that the Left and conservatives are all friends with the same vision for America with just slightly different methods of getting there, rather than admit that one party is wholly anti-catholic and anti-Christ, (and the other party is too venal to be courageous) is to scandalize the faithful.
Not voting, or a vote for a third party, or write in, is the same as voting for Hillary. Hillary is a Marxist, Hillary is evil.
Father Murray’s comments are right on point. As a life-long Catholic, I am happy to see that the evildoers of the world – and a partial-birth-abortion supporter is, of course, an evildoer, for whose very imperiled soul we must sincerely pray – single out Catholic Christians (and other pro-life Christians). “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you” is not only a nice thing God says to his friends in the context of his compassion for their suffering – it is also a prophecy. If the leftist and rightist and anarchist abortionistas weren’t singling out Catholics as people they would very much like to hurt, I would be worried.
SenexCalvus: The time to work for a better roster of candidates is during the primaries. Now is the time to choose from among the options we have been given. The Hierarchy of Needs has to come into play. Keep your powder dry for 2018 and 2020, but let’s make sure we still have a country first.
Trump also spoke boldly and truthfully at the Al Smith dinner when he said in no uncertain terms that Hillary Clinton hates Catholics. (Or at least real Catholics; not so much her running-mate.) It needed to be said, and it’s too bad it had to come from a non-Catholic.
I’ll take the candidate who spoke against the horrors of abortion with more clarity than any presidential candidate ever before.
It’s not that I missed Father Murray’s point, it’s that I didn’t agree with it. Mrs. Clinton’s refusal to embrace the fullness of Christian truth doesn’t in any way negate the validity of her espousal of any particular Christian truth. To put it in the simplest possible terms, she may deny that an unborn baby is a person, and she therefore espouses as pernicious a lie as a human being can utter. No one should criticize her, however, for asserting in the very next breath that 2+2=4, or that human beings should no longer continue to deprive their unborn children of the right to live a fully human life by destroying the environment for the gratification of their carnal and luciferian desires. (On this last point, my own opinion is that the almost complete foresaking of Holy Poverty and mortification of the flesh by religious and even monastics has left not only the laity, but also the secular clergy rudderless in a sea of sumptuary self-indulgence upon which Satan prowels with ease.)
I reject any claim to a “right” to end the life of an unborn child, and I reject any claim to a personal or corporate “right” to destroy the environment in the pursuit of wealth, to adduce only the most obvious issues defining the partisan divide.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is exemplified in such states of life as ordained ministry, consecrated virginity, the religious life, and Christian marriage — in other words, in those forms of life that subordinate infantile desire for self-gratification to love of God and neighbor. Western liberalism, however, in either its libertine and relativistic or capitalistic and exploitative forms, is born of Satan, not Our Lord. If the Father of Lies has lulled us into thinking that
we are choosing Christ by voting for one candidate as opposed to the other, it may be proof that it’s time for us to foresake the world and head back out into the desert.
No, that would be crass, I admit. American Catholics have come too far in the world to resort to such primitive tactics. It has taken us a good fifty years to shake our neighbors free of the mistaken notion that our lives are shaped by a faith that is somehow different from theirs. How much easier it is, how much safer and more comfortable, just to side with a Trump or Clinton and accuse our opponents of faithlessness, secure in the knowledge that our half of the Goapel is the better of the two.
The night before the Al Smith dinner one of the candidates reiterated enshrinement of partial birth abortion–infanticide. The next night that candidate is in the limelight with a considerable percentage of the populace fawning over the candidate’s every quip and gesture. That a Cardinal of the Catholic Church is a ringmaster of this grotesque spectacle is scandalously evil. Short of saying this, I believe Father Murray was remiss.
Akita – of course you are correct. Cardinal Dolan knows, in his heart of hearts, that what you have said is true. But there are many many characters in this drama – Cardinal Dolan, who has given up so much to help the church but who is likely to go down in history as a man who was not brave enough to stand up for the innocents; Father Murray, who would no doubt agree with you: the Holy Innocents themselves, not just the ones who were terminated at a late point in their pregnancy, but those who were terminated earlier than that, and, God help us all, the millions and millions of persons who were prevented from being born because of the idolatry of contraception that the majority of Catholic priests have gone along with, or , God help their souls, encouraged (without ever once being called, in most cases, ‘scandalously evil’). Then there are, among the countless other characters in this drama, you and me. I know I have not done enough; I hope the Holy Innocents will pray for me.
stephen c,
I just read that it is estimated “that by 2013 6.5 million had been born using the technique since the first IVF birth in 1978” – and that it is projected that “the 10 millionth IVF baby would be born by the end of 2020.” The way IVF is usually practiced, for every baby born a considerable number of embryonic children have be brought into existence, most of whom do not get a chance to develop in the womb, being killed or left to die outright or frozen for possible future further development – which very often never occurs. And this is a terrible ‘growth market’ in all sorts of ways.
“what Hillary is doing here is more insidious. She is appealing to Catholics to elect her based on the areas where we agree. Then she plans to use that platform to enact many, many more policies where we disagree. You frame it as a spectrum, agreeing with her on some issues and disagreeing with her on some issues. But the election is a binary choice. She is elected – and can enact her whole anti-life agenda – or she is not elected.”
Exactly.
“I don’t like Trump. I think he is personally morally repugnant.” I think the exact opposite.He is a flawed man with a past but he never said otherwise. i’m also convinced that he loves his country and wants to do what’s right. Said it a number of times here but will repeat. Saint Augustine was a Manichean, fathered a child out of wedlock, treated his own mother like dirt. I am NOT comparing St Augustine to Trump;only making a point. Trump will do just fine. I think he’s going to suprise a lot of people if elected. Consider the people who have endorsed him. God rest her soul,Phyllis Schaffly strongly endorsed him. As is Jerry Falwell Jr, Franklin Graham,Father Frank Pavone made it clear he’s voting for him and last but not least Mike Pence and Pat Buchanan.Good ppl. Definitely pro life and certainly conservative. I know this with certainty; as morally repugnant as you think Trump is-he doesn’t hold a candle to Hillary Clinton and her ilk.She must NOT get elected and we cannot sit home or vote 3rd party.Either choice could throw it to her.You get her and you get George Soros along with her.
WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING EWTN.A MUST SEE. Keep in mind that Saul Alinsky was Hillary Clinton’s mentor.The documentary will give a lot of insight into Podesta’s comment in Wikileaks and Hillary’s view of the Catholic Church.It’s an eye opener.Dates and Times: 10/27 at 3:00 AM ET; 10/28 at 10:30 PM ET; 10/29 at 5:00 PM ET; 11/04 at 1:00 PM ET; 11/06 at 2:30 PM ET
Watch the entire video of Trump at the Al Smith dinner. The protocol is to pretend to be nice, and make humorous jabs at one another. Listen for Trump saying, “And here’s Hilary, pretending she doesn’t hate Catholics”. Listen for what he says about protecting life, and note how carefully he eases from the teasing into spot on comments about the current ‘unpleasantness’. He was booed for telling the truth. Wise as the other serpents in the room, harmless as a dove…
Trump is an imposter who, solely out of political calculus, has struck a “pro life” stance during the campaign. It seems doubtful at best that he will keep his promises. Trump is an opportunist and a grenade lobber. He does not understand geopolitics. At all. He has never laid out a real economic policy, his economic plan is just hot populist rhetoric. His business savvy is entirely fictionalized, consisting mainly of a cleverly crafted media persona. His personal morality is a scandalous morass. His lifestyle reflects the sex-crazed, superficial hedonistic divorce culture. He is not transparent; his refusal to release his tax returns is unprecedented. He constantly lies. He is insulting and disrespectful; he cynically plays with fire and is willing to foment social division to attract attention to himself. His willingness to game the system, from tax loopholes to bankruptcy law, is contemptuous. Oh, one last thing: he will lose the election badly, and will leave us having to explain why the conservative movement was hijacked by a con artist who may revert to his former antics after all it’s said and done. But other than that, yeah, he is a great Christian choice if all you want to do is be able to say you didn’t vote for Hillary (or a reasonable third party option).
Polycarpio, you have written as succinct and accurate a characterization of Mr. Trump as I’ve read. Thank you!
Our desire to protect the lives of unborn babies, I regret, can blind us to the otherwise obvious truth that self-serving, opportunistic campaign rhetoric is neither conviction nor the promise of change. I can still vividly remember reading the revelation by an aide in the Bush campaign that the President had never had any intention of “squandering his political capital” on furthering the pro-llfe cause — and that in the spring of 2000, less than six months after I had voted for him. Did my pro-life vote contribute to saving the life of a single baby? No. Rather, it contributed to the invasion of Iraq, contrary to the pleas of St. John Paul II, and all the subsequent suffering and destruction of human life.
Polycarpio: Entirely speculation. Trump is saying he will do the right thing, and the awesome prospect of becoming president has changed him.
We have a choice between someone who says he will do the right thing but may not, and someone who says she will do the wrong thing and definitely will. It’s not a great choice but it is clear. St. Constantine was a bad man in many ways, but God used him to save the Church.
To the purists, I hope your unattainable vision of purity (at least in this cycle) soothes you when the Supreme Court ushers in open persecution of the Church.
Those leaked Podesta emails where they talk of a “Catholic spring” to overthrow Church teachings?
Already happening, quite successfully, by the roar of applause for Hillary Clinton. Isn’t this a Catholic event? Shouldn’t this be filled with faithful involved Catholics?
And yet, the ONLY PERSON WHO CORRECTS HILLARY is booed. The ONLY PERSON DEFENDED THE UNBORN on national tv is booed. The ONLY PERSON WHO HAS PROMISED TO PROTECT THE CHURCH FROM GOVERNMENT is booed.
HIllary’s organization is working to LEAD SOULS WITHIN THE CHURCH ASTRAY. Hillary’s organization is working TOHAVE US ALL PAY FOR ABORTION. Hillary’s organization SPREADS VIOLENT DISCORD THROUGH PROFESSIONAL AGITATORS, VIOLATES OUR VOTiNG LAWS, WANTS TO SHUT DOWN OUR BUSINESSES WHO DESIRE TO FOLLOW THEIR CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCES. For the lure of some shiny bobbles of money, the Cardinal and others in the room look the other way and aid and abet her campaign and it’s success.
Trump? HE is the persecuted Christian at the Catholic dinner. He said it so plainly, that when he held liberal views, he was toasted and fretted. BUT, WHEN HE JOINS OUR FIGHT FOR TRUTH AND LIFE AND OUR CHRISTIAN FREEDOM, their heads all turn away.
I a deeply ashamed to have had this go this way, and my not Catholic husband who is quite troubled by the Internet shut down (he believes is government sourced to silence OKeefe and Wikileaks) cannot understand the disparate treatment of the candidates he believes are good and really, really evil.
Thank you Fr Murray for clarity for us Catholics, if only the Cardinal had done as much in her company. How can anyone expect changes in her if no one will correct her to her face?
[Please, don’t shout.]
This seems pertinent. From The Merchant of Venice,
Antonio: “Mark you this, Bassanio,
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
Polycarpio, Modernists are willing to throw away the Holy Gospel for a little comfort. Everything that you have said is true. There have always been very few who will follow the Gospel without counting the cost.
Shame on Cardinal Dolan for not disinviting Crooked Hillary in the first place, after the vitriolic anti-Catholic emails from the DNC came to light! Since he did let her attend, he was derelict in his duty as a shepherd of souls not to remind Hillary that she and her proabortionist supporters are headed to hell. Of course what do you expect from a guy who willingly served as grand marshall when the local politicos in the Big Apple turned their St. Patrick’s Day parade in to a gay pride march?
Can’t we just vote for Trump without canonizing him? I’m deeply disturbed that many faithful Catholics keep insisting that Trump is a fundamentally good person. It seems we’ve really sold out to the demons of greed, lust, and hate. Unborn lives matter. Born lives matter too! This seems to be forgotten sometimes.
We can vote for a sinner. If we stop calling a spade a spade, however, we will loose our mental integrity. Trump is an evil man, a greedy, lustful, malicious, thoughtless boor. He can not control his urge to bash others, even when he may loose the presidency by so doing. Just think, if he had been a decent man, Hillary would be sunk. His flawed character may land Hillary in the White House.
So, perhaps the time has come when we should vote for a greedy, lustful, malicious, thoughtless boor. But we should admit that, painful as the admission is.
For those who point out St. Augustine’s flaws; well, I’m not sure Trump has had an Augustine moment yet. And even when Augustine was a sinner, he could run intellectual circles around Trump! Not that I don’t hope and pray Trump has such a moment; and Hillary too, for that matter.
Yes, Gilbert. Good post. I will vote for him even though he would hate and abuse me if he knew me. I have dealt with men like him many times.
Dear SenexCalvus,
You wrote:
“I reject any claim to a “right” to end the life of an unborn child, and I reject any claim to a personal or corporate “right” to destroy the environment in the pursuit of wealth, to adduce only the most obvious issues defining the partisan divide.”
The two sins are are not equivalent. You can recover a destroyed environment; you can’t bring back the dead baby to life.
I don’t understand your point. Hillary is both pro-environment and pro-abortion. There is no partisan divide.
The Chicken
Dear SenexCalvus,
Never mind my last sentence. I was reading your comment in a local instead of global context. You are simply saying that abortion and the environment are two divisive issues in the election. That is true, but, again, they are not of equal evil because one is more easily reparable than the other.
The Chicken
Well said Fr. Murray.
boxerpaws63’s comments about Saul Alinsky, Hillary Clinton, and John Podesta remind me that Alinsky was, in 1969, the seventh recipient of (in the words of Wikipedia) “The Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award [,…] a Catholic peace award which has been given annually since 1964” – his preached and successfully practiced use of Catholics (in Orders) as what Lenin called ‘useful idiots’ – or, preferably, worse – seems to grow and prosper beyond his death.
Polycarpio asserts that Mr. Trump’s “refusal to release his tax returns is unprecedented” – I don’t think that is so, but in any case rather more astonishing refusals to release things generally publicly available in the past has been a striking feature of Democratic candidates and prominents – especially in the course of the past 9 years or so, but even Wikipedia (still) notes “Years later when she [Hillary Rodham] became First Lady, based upon a White House request, the school [Wellesley College] did not make the thesis [“on Alinsky’s work, with Alinsky himself contributing his own time to help her”] publicly available”, citing a 2007 NBC News post, “How the Clinton’s wrapped up Hillary’s thesis”: I read something recently saying it is finally available and providing a link, but have not yet followed up!).
Fr. Z requests, “Please, don’t shout” – perhaps if we thought of it as a Roman Monumental Style, a sort of lapidary exercise in Neo-Classicism…
Polycarpio further asserts of Mr. Trump, “He does not understand geopolitics. At all.” Someone whose geopolitical comments I always find worthwhile, J.E. Dyer (“a retired Naval Intelligence officer” according to her byline bio), wrote of the latest ‘debate’, “Trump had his own moments of, er, inadequate briefing, but he surprised me by knocking it out of the park on the actual situation in Aleppo.
“Even among the better commentators on Fox, no one but the ex-military contributors gets it right. Aleppo isn’t ‘about’ atrocities and suffering now, in the sense that that’s the primary, driving dynamic there. Aleppo is about Russia, Iran, and Assad retaking territory. They don’t care who they have to kill, and there is nothing we’re in a position to do about it.
“Trump got that. On that topic, he clearly was adequately briefed – unlike almost everyone else we hear from in Washington, D.C.”
Dr. Sebastian Gorka had something comparable to say: “Gorka was pleased that national security has been such an important theme in the 2016 presidential debates, pausing to issue a disclaimer that he has provided national security advice to Donald Trump in the past, ‘long before anybody took him seriously.’
“‘I’m not part of his campaign, but I’ve spoken to this man on more than one occasion about the big issues, such as ISIS, North Korea, Russia, and Iran,’ he clarified.
“With that disclosure made, Gorka faulted Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and their advisers for clumsy handling of major foreign policy issues, agreeing with Donald Trump’s criticism that Clinton and Obama constantly telegraph their moves to the enemy. […]
” ‘Mr. Trump’s point that he understands we are at war – I can assure your listeners, he knows we are at war, and he wants to win this war, but he’s not going to tell the enemy what we’re going to do. It’s a very, very, valid point,’ he said.”
“Can’t we just vote for Trump without canonizing him? I’m deeply disturbed that many faithful Catholics keep insisting that Trump is a fundamentally good person. It seems we’ve really sold out to the demons of greed, lust, and hate. Unborn lives matter. Born lives matter too! This seems to be forgotten sometimes.”
Who canonized him? Yes,Mr Trump is a fundamentally good person. That’s all i said. Now you’re saying we’ve sold out to demons? I’ve done my homework on both candidates.I discovered that in his past he committed any number of sins.I also discovered he’s not the person the Clinton’s,the media and all his opponents painted him to be.HATE? I found a man moved by charity and concern many times in his life.I also found a man who truly loves his country and raised 4 well adjusted children.Our pastor gave a terrific homily on our gospel today that made me truly reflect on myself;which i’m sure he intended for all his parishoners. A good homily does that; brings about self reflection. Will be sharing it in the appropriate blog.
The Pharisee goes to the front and thanks God he’s not like the sinners around him.
“We can vote for a sinner. If we stop calling a spade a spade, however, we will loose our mental integrity. Trump is an evil man, a greedy, lustful, malicious, thoughtless boor. He can not control his urge to bash others, even when he may loose the presidency by so doing. Just think, if he had been a decent man, Hillary would be sunk. His flawed character may land Hillary in the White House.” Thank you for letting us know we can vote for a sinner.I kind of figured that.No,if he had been like anyone else the Clinton’s would have chewed him up and spit him out by now. They made mild accusations against Romney and he vanished. Mr Trump is up against the media(ALL of them),the establishment in Washington(BOTH parties),the Clinton Cartel and George Soros. The polls are bogus.Who’s putting these polls out? The media. I rest my case.
“So, perhaps the time has come when we should vote for a greedy, lustful, malicious, thoughtless boor. But we should admit that, painful as the admission is.” Not a word about Hillary? Seriously?
“For those who point out St. Augustine’s flaws; well, I’m not sure Trump has had an Augustine moment yet. And even when Augustine was a sinner, he could run intellectual circles around Trump! Not that I don’t hope and pray Trump has such a moment; and Hillary too, for that matter.:
Here we agree. He has not had his Augustine moment. It took 30 yrs of St Monica’s prayers and tears.St Augustine was brilliant. St Thomas More was brilliant.I don’t see the need to insult Mr Trump’s intellectual capabilities by pointing out the brilliance of St Augustine.Hillary and her organization are SYSTEMICALLY evil.Big difference. I’m praying she does not get elected and tearing down Mr Trump only lends her a hand. I refuse to do it.It doesn’t mean i am overlooking his past or his flaws or that he’s a sinner;but to beat those points home when people already know, only helps the Clinton’s.
there were many brilliant saints.Augustine,Moore( a favorite),Aquinas,John Paul II – plenty others There were many saints who were not so brilliant as well.I have no clue who our most brilliant Presidents were but i doubt Trump’s IQ is any lower than many of them. My father didn’t make it past the 8th grade and he was an incredible man.
POST SCRIPT:neither is NOT on the ballot.ONE of these 2 people are going to become President.
I apologize for shouting.
I am also not trying to canonize Trump, but he is doing the correcting that our own shepherds are responsible for, but largely shirking. Does he get the support of the Church, even for his policies which are for our good? Precious little or none…instead let’s talk about his personal flaws, which are real, but I have some too. Many of us would never be so arrogant, but are we willing to lose most of our friends? Put our businesses on the line? Any credit? Has he had his Augustine moment? Who knows? Do you figure he doesn’t see how his flaws are costing him the election? But habits are hard to break, as we know, right?
He is paying a price for it already, as he pointed out, and his children. What size must the conservative social class be in NYC? Even at a major Catholic dinner, it seems quite small…
Catholics shouldn’t even consider voting for politicians who are going to actively wage war against Catholic teaching, MANY do largely due to training over time that it doesn’t seem to matter to those at the top. My godfather has become spiritually lazy, putting far more time into his politics than his Faith, and is caught up in this, Hillary bumper sticker on his car. It should never have happened.
I have been appalled for the past year at the number of Catholics who collect and treasure every little grievance, misquote, fictional smear, etc., about Donald Trump, and then vomit them all out in comboxes.
I’m talking about Polycarpio, primarily.
When faced with a literal, actual baby-killing National Socialist like Hillary, one has a duty to come up with something more substantive against her opponent than: “I just don’t feel he’s really pro-life.”
“…or a reasonable third party option.”
There is no reasonable third party option. That’s why reasonable Catholics are opting for Trump because the reality is we are facing down an, “…actual baby-killing National Socialist like Hillary.”
Well said, Father. Would that we could tease “feelings” out of much of what we do, considering they come and go like the wind. Those who don’t do what needs must to oppose HRC will likely “feel” pretty awful when she carries out her very clear agenda. But then the cry will be that there is nothing we can do.
Well, if a man can’t keep his marriage vow, how can he keep his vow of office?
Of course Hillary is awful! I didn’t think I’d have to point that out here.
It is amazing that Trump would rather carry on a past feud with Miss Universe rather then become president of these United States. He can’t seem to learn that his petty feuds harm his cause. If he really cared about the country, he’d shut up on nonessential points. Just think, if he put as much energy into productive areas as he puts into nonproductive stuff, he’d be much better off.
And of course, we should’t judge; we can’t see a person’s soul. But we sometimes have to make a decision based on the outside. Let’s say somebody acting like Trump wanted to marry your daughter; would you be thrilled?
Not saying we shouldn’t vote for him regardless.
There is nothing petty or fictional about what polycarpio has said here. A priest especially should realize that.