Catholics for Faithful Citizenship Says Santorum Must Apologize

[DemBones DemBones]

to Catholics.


Senator Rick Santorum’s assertion in “Fishers of Men”, published 7/12/02 in “Catholic Online” that “liberalism” is the root of the evil in the Church’s sex scandal is beyond reproach. His accusation that “liberalism” in seminaries led to these scandals is a slap in the face to all good Catholic Priests and Religious that have attended these seminaries and graduated from them. Furthermore, his wild assumption that somehow because the scandal in Boston gained more media attention than other locations, the “liberalism” of the area must be the cause is an affront to all the good Catholics in Boston, not to mention the
victims of abuse.

<snip>

“I am for proper formation, something I would challenge Sen. Kennedy to be for. Proper orthodox formation within the teachings of the Vatican. I don't think Sen. Kennedy would follow that very closely.” - Rick Santorum 7-14-05



As Catholics for Faithful Citizenship we find this statement very suspect. Senator Santorum’s voting record on issues of importance to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is a dismal 40%. During the same 108th Congress, Senator Kennedy scored a 60% on the same Catholic issues, placing him in the top 5 of Catholic Senators. Senator Santorum’s record on Catholic issues thus far in the 109th Congress appears to be equally as dismal as evident by his recent vote in favor of CAFTA, a trade agreement that clearly is against the culture of life. He has also taken a pro death penalty position that is clearly in opposition to the Bishops Conference Campaign against the Death Penalty.



While there is no perfect voting record on Catholic issues, we feel Senator Santorum can surely do better than 40%. If Senator Santorum wants to claim to be orthodox, then he needs to start demonstrating it with his vote on Catholic issues in the Senate.




http://www.catholicsforfaithfulcitizenship.org/PR071705.htm

I am glad to see a Catholic group standing up for ALL Catholic teaching.

[Matilda]

1. I see Senator Santorum mentioned quite a lot in DU,

and usually not to his credit.

Can you tell me a bit about him?

[DemBones DemBones]

2. He's from Pennsylvania, he's Catholic, he and

his wife have six or seven children and she homeschools the kids. They're very conservative Catholics so, as you might expect, Sen. Santorum is strongly opposed to abortion and same sex marriage, making him anathema to the rank and file at DU. But he'd be unpopular here just for being Catholic and having so many kids, I fear. If you're Catholic, you're only tolerated if you have a small family and oppose the Church on issues like abortion.

An incident often retold here is that the Santorums had a stillborn child years ago and took the baby's body home to allow their other three children, who were very young, to see and touch him and tell him goodbye. Many people think it's gruesome but I think it's the sort of thing grief counselors advise to help children deal with a death. Posters always ask why they didn't take the older kids to the hospital but I think it was better for them to be in their own home and see their mother and baby brother come home, even though the baby was dead. It's one thing I LIKE about Rick Santorum! It suggests that he and his wife are caring and informed parents. Having lost my second child and seen the impact on my daughter, and having also gone through the loss of a stillborn brother when I was three, I know something about how difficult these situations are for children and how important the parents' handling of the situation is.

Santorum sometimes comes across as smarmy and self-righteous but other times he's quite reasonable, IMO, even if you disagree with him. I'd never vote for him, of course, because he's a Republican and a Bush loyalist, but he may be a better person and better senator than one of my senators, Saxby Chambliss, or his predecessor, Zell Miller.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Wow. That was... revealing. (nt)

[DemBones DemBones]

10. No more than your post. nt

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

21. "I know you are but what am I?" yadda yadda yadda. (nt)

[DemBones DemBones]

28. If you don't really have anything to say, why post

here? Some of us are having a discussion while you're posting snarky one-liners trying to get a reaction from me.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

29. Sometimes the only appropriate response has just one line. (nt)

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

4. Are you serious?

He's the craziest of them all. The dead baby thing is just unbelievable horrific to me.

[JohnKleeb]

6. Me too

Creeped me out in so many ways than not.

[Matilda]

8. Hello, Chavez, I haven't seen you here for a long time.

I wondered where you'd got to.

[MrSlayer]

5. Sleeping with a dead baby makes him an informed parent?

Well that's new.

[Matilda]

7. So the dislike of Santorum is mainly because he's conservative Catholic,

not because he's conservative Republican? I've read some pretty
inflamed posts about him, so I thought he must be a real sell-out
in some way.

I'm not sure about the dead baby thing - thank God, I haven't had to
face that issue, but I've read about people who have acted in the
same way the Santorums did. I'm not at all sure about small children
viewing dead bodies, baby or adult - I wonder if it doesn't appear
rather grisly to them and remain as an horrific memory later. I
don't know what I would have done in the same circumstances, I really
don't.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. I'd say it's because he's Catholic and supports Catholic teaching

about abortion. Only Catholics who vote against the Church teaching, like John Kerry and Teddy Kenneday, are acceptable to most DUers.

Dennis Kucinich was pro-life, and voted pro-life, until his run for president, and many refuse to trust his conversion to pro-choice. I find it very sad that to be a viable Democratic candidate for president that one must be vetted and approved by NARAL. It's OK to be anti-war and anti-death penalty but to be anti-abortion or anti-euthanasia is found unacceptable among too many who call themselves liberals. It's quite illogical.

As for the issue of whether or not children should view a dead baby (or adult), I'll send you a PM, as I sense we have been invaded by people who are both inexperienced and insensitive about an issue parents often must face.

[Matilda]

12. I'm glad that's sorted - I had got the impression that Santorum

was one of the bad guys.

I don't like the mix of politics and religion - it really shouldn't
matter what a candidate's personal beliefs are as long as he's a
good and honest legislator.

We've been pretty free from all that in Australia until recently -
a number of our prime ministers have been declared atheists and it
hasn't mattered, but with the rise of John Howard we're seeing a
change, with the fundamentalists driving the agenda. It bothers
me a lot, because rather than having a broadly moral viewpoint,
they tend to be very sectarian.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. Oh, he is a Republican and a Bush backer so

I probably disagree with him most of the time. But, presumably, we believe many of the same things, both being Catholic. I agree with him about abortion in general but I don't think making it illegal is the answer. I oppose the war and he doesn't but Catholic senators like John Kerry and Ted Kennedy (both Democrats) voted for the war, too, and I think they were wrong to do so. They should have seen through Bush like the rest of us did.

I guess I would say Rick Santorum is more often annoying, but not as evil, as many Republicans. Very faint praise!

We didn't have this mix of religion and politics until Bush. Previous presidents at least paid lip service to Christianity but several did not attend church regularly and their 'religion' seems to have been purely politically motivated. Bush doesn't go to church, either, or, IMO, show real signs of having been affected by faith, but he talks it well enough to have right-wing Christian support. (Really, it seems that others have convinced people on Bush's behalf that Bush is this great, faithful Christian, and they so much want such a leader that they embrace Bush and block out what he does so they can continue following him blindly.) Karl Rove, his Machiavellian adviser, has had him courting Catholic voters for years and many Catholics have moved to the GOP over the abortion issue. The GOP has been pushing their conservative Christian/ fundamentalist supporters to become more political and aggressive. It's ugly and likely to get uglier. This rightward tilt is happening in many countries and it will be a relief when the pendulum starts swinging lieft again.

[JohnKleeb]

14. Uhh Kennedy voted against the war

I get your point though. I agree though about Kucinich. And you are probably aware that Bob Casey is getting a bad rap too, I disagree with the guy on abortion but I think he'll make a good senator and people dont realize how ironic as it may seem his anti abortion position may get him more Democratic votes as some democrats in western Pa have been drifting towards the republican because of the abortion issue.

[tigereye]

32. Casey isn't a wouldbe fascist, like Santorum is, John

unfortunately, all these contradictions are part and parcel of living in PA.

[JohnKleeb]

39. I like Casey, I agree

I was praising him btw, I think he gets a bad deal because of some of his more conservative social views.

[Midlodemocrat]

27. Personally, I think Santorum is the most dangerous

repuke in the Senate. And, I am a lifelong practicing Catholic, almost 1/2 a century as a matter of fact.

His Catholicism repulses me. He uses his faith the same way the fundies use their 'faith', as a wedge. He is Catholic, but not Christian. He is a despicable human being who belongs in the garbage heap with the rest of the BFEE.

[tigereye]

31. check his statements and voting record

he is disliked on both counts.

[DemBones DemBones]

35. Others have voting records like his, say

goofily RW things like he does, though. A lot of the heat he gets at DU is directly related to his being a Catholic who supports the Catholic Church's position on abortion. He wouldn't earn the same disain if he were a Protestant pro-life Republican. I don't like Santorum but I see what's going on here. Most at DU can't stand Catholics unless they go against the Church on abortion.

[tigereye]

38. I do not agree that he gets heat mostly since he is a

Catholic. Many people here did not even know that he was a Catholic. He gets heat because he is a hypocritical fake who pretends to be a populist and is nothing of the sort. He is anti-choice, but there is plenty more to dislike, including his dislike of govt. programs that help middle class ( like he was) and the poor, whom he purports to support. I think it is his "smarminess" and sanctimony that earn him disdain, and I do think that many Prot. pro-life Reps. would get the same treatment, and do, if their presentation is as reprehensible!

There are many pro-like Dems in PA, and those of us who live here accept that as part of the way these politicians think as Catholics. However, there are also plenty of pro-choice Catholics and a few Rep. pro-choice politicians here, to boot.

[tigereye]

30. "sometimes" comes across as smarmy and self-righteous?

try most of the time. He is a giant hypocrite on most issues. He was raised as a Catholic not far from where I grew up, and while I agree that he likes to sound reasonable, as if he cares about women and kids, mostly this is lip-service. His votes primarily do not reflect this. I am embarrassed that he is seen by some as the face of Catholicism. He is an embarrassment to our state, as well.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

33. Believe it or not, I learned in THIS thread that he was a Catholic!

I always kind of assumed he was a Jack-Chick-Fred-Phelps-like talibornagain. Live and learn.

[tigereye]

34. he is not the type of Catholic I was raised to be:

he is intolerant, smug, arrogant, cruel, cares little for people's real problems and is full of crap. Christ would turf him out of the temple.

[DemBones DemBones]

37. Interesting. nt

[DemBones DemBones]

36. I'm not from PA so I have less exposure to the

man than you do. I can only judge what I've seen and in my experience, he sometimes comes across as reasonable, sometimes comes across as smarmy and self-righteous. I certainly don't see him as the face of Catholicism; maybe the face of very conservative PA Catholicism. . .

[DemBones DemBones]

11. It's interesting that all these posts arose about the

incident of the Santorums showing their children the body of their stillborn brother, when there was only one response to my original post about Catholics for Faithful Citzenship calling on Santorum to follow all Catholic teaching.

To our visitors in the Catholic group and to our young Catholics, I must say that if you ever plan to be a parent, you will have to explain death to your children and will eventually have to decide how involved they should be in the death of a family member. It's best to have some plans in advance of a death occurring. Not every family goes without a death until the kids are in their late teens or twenties. Many children and teenagers also have to face the death of one or more friends of their own age. No one likes this but eventually we have to learn to accept it.

[CBHagman]

15. It's the self-rightenousness and insensitivity that revolt me.

As much as I hate the DU phenomenon of knee-jerk attacks on and/or contempt for Roman Catholics, evangelicals, and sometimes Mormons, I don't find Santorum a particularly easy politician to defend, and it doesn't have to do with his Catholicism. It has everything to do with the smug, self-righteous, and often openly hypocritical attitude he has towards anyone who differs from him politically.

His positions appear to be, more often than not, simply boilerplate rhetoric of the current incarnation of Republican leadership. There's a knee-jerk tendency to oversimplify societal problems, ignore actual history, and blame virtually all ills, from divorce to sexually transmitted disease to the abuse of children and young adults by certain priests, on liberals. That's not proof of his being a faithful Catholic. It's proof of his willingness to exploit tragedy to score points against his opponents. Not a mark of a man of solid character.

Santorum is also given to a degree of hypocrisy regarding his position in the federal government. He originally made some cheap shots at the AmeriCorps program, dismissing its participants as unworthy of something akin to the GI Bill, yet he has had no problem, as James Carville pointed out, accepting a salary in government for most of his adult life. Then there's the issue of the reimbursement for educating his children. Again, it would appear he has one standard for himself and another for the rest of the country.

I am not in a position to judge his personal life, nor can I evaluate whether his behavior with the stillborn son. While some people, including young children, require a formal good-bye at the deathbed or coffin of a deceased relative, others may be traumatized by it. Intuitively I found the descriptions of Santorum's behavior regarding Gabriel disturbing rather than emotionally healthy.

Finally, as Catholics, don't we want the best for the community, especially its neediest members? How on Earth can we view Santorum as a desirable member of the Senate? Frankly, an atheist with a modicum of humility and a heart for the people would be better than someone who is more enamored of his own supposed righteeous than concerned as to how he can best serve his constituency.

[JohnKleeb]

16. Santorum is also a republican who compares the left to the nazis a lot

I hate it when all sides do that frankly, I get poed when our side does it, when theirs does it, main reason is that it lessens the evil Adolf Hitler did and yeah I admit it, I am a little sensitive about it since I had relatives kileld by the nazis because of their ethnic background.

[DemBones DemBones]

18. Thanks for correcting me about Kennedy's

vote on the war. I'm sure you're better informed about him than I am.

As for Bob Casey, isn't it weird that Democrats are opposing a Democrat who has a chance to unseat Santorum because he's pro-life? I know very little about Casey but he surely is better than Santorum; I read he's very good on labor issues and we need that. Badly!

[JohnKleeb]

19. Sure no problem

Casey is superb on labor/economic issues, hes also against the death penalty which is a plus. The guy opposing him in the primaries, Pennachino is more socially liberal but Casey is still a fine candidate. He's pretty liberal on gay issues too. I saw a post that said Casey and his father were republicans because of their more conservative views on guns and choice but a lot of democrats from that part of the state are like that, my grandparents, their siblings.

[DemBones DemBones]

22. That's right -- I had read he's against capital punishment,

which is a real plus for progressives while his support for the right to bear arms helps him with all the hunters in PA. Pennachino is a relative unknown, too; Casey is known and his father was known, too, and apparently a good governor, which will help his son.

Howard Dean isn't my favorite Dem but I applaud his efforts to stop the exclusion of pro-life liberals and moderates from the Democratic Party.

[DemBones DemBones]

17. I should have been a defense lawyer

since I'll defend anyone who's being picked on. :-D

You're right that Santorum is not a good public example of a Catholic. I know many Baptists view Jerry Falwell the same way.

I hope more Catholic groups tell Santorum to apologize.

[JohnKleeb]

20. All good

Though I think whether Santorum was Catholic or not, he would still be disliked on the boards, I would still dislike him. I think Santorums a jerk personally since he likes to compare the dems to the nazis, and I hate it when people here do it to the republicans too, as I said.

[DemBones DemBones]

23. That is news to me, about

him comparing Dems to Nazis. Points against Santorum on that.

Yesterday people were telling me Opus Dei is "fascist," another word thrown around too often. Opus Dei is certainly old-fashioned and conservative but that does not make it fascist. . . I had a second cousin who was probably killed by Mussolini's Fascisti, come to think of it, just as you had relatives killed by the Nazis. I'd always thought of him being killed by Nazis but I think it may have been too early in the war, i.e., had Germany invaded Italy at the time? Must investigate that. . . Not that it'll do him any good, but I'd like to know. He was a medic, decorated twice for heroism in saving others' lives, including the time that cost him his own life. What a waste.

[JohnKleeb]

24. I really dislike Opus Dei but I would say theyre more really

conservative and traditionalist rather than Fascist. I believe fascism has a lot to do with corporations and Opus Dei isnt funded by a corporation. Was your cousin a medic? I meant that I actually had relatives who were civillians in the occupied areas. Yeah Santorum has used it twice, I am critical of all them who do it.

[CBHagman]

25. Santorum is getting more personal.

Now he appears to be blaming the senators from Massachusetts.


http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/08/01/santorum_blasts_mass_senators_over_church_scandal/

Santorum's naught but a demagogue in my book. I will do everything I can to work against politicians like him.

[JohnKleeb]

26. Its like he wants to lose hahahah