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Post by Young Ireland on Feb 9, 2013 20:18:12 GMT
Thanks for the update, Alaisdair. At least something is going right for us. I do have some criticisms of the pro-life pledge though: 1. I think its scope should be expanded to include the whole Dail and not just Fine Gael. 2. We should be targeting individual TDs rather than whole parties. I think threatening FG that pro-lifers will never vote for them again is counter-productive, as many FG TDs are pro-life and to deny them a vote because of the leadership will only weaken the influence of the pro-life movement, not strengthen it. 3. If FG is out of the equation completely, who do we vote for? FF are supposedly pro-life, however we cannot guarantee that this will continue to be the case. Labour and ULA are even more hard-line on abortion than FG. SF are pro-choice and even if they weren't, too many pro-lifers (including myself) would not vote for them for reasons that everybody needs no reminding of. The dissidents are in the same boat. The Greens are also iffy on the abortion issue, more so than FG. The CSP are an obvious alternative, and hopefully Cathal Loftus will turn things around, but they seriously need to get their act together. If there is no credible pro-life alternative, we will have no choice to turn to pro-life FG TDs with our tails in between our legs.
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Post by Young Ireland on Jan 10, 2013 22:53:26 GMT
I always knew that the ACP were liberal, but I never thought they would stoop THAT low at all. Any Catholic who supports abortion is seriously misguided and should not be using a Catholic label of any kind.
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Post by Young Ireland on Dec 12, 2012 22:53:34 GMT
I see. I'm not sure though what you mean. Everyone has political views of some shape, even if they aren't necessarily articulate in expressing them.
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Post by Young Ireland on Dec 5, 2012 21:28:54 GMT
My mistake. With it being Advent, I assumed that it was.
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Post by Young Ireland on Dec 3, 2012 22:09:09 GMT
Hibernicus, would you be able to scale down the picture Our Lady and St.Joseph? It looks rather cumbersome as it is.
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Post by Young Ireland on Nov 29, 2012 19:51:02 GMT
Well done for exposing this. If we are living in the Divine Will, we don't need Divine Mercy. St. Faustina's apparitions are approved. One doesn't even have to guess what that means for Luisa.
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Post by Young Ireland on Nov 29, 2012 18:15:43 GMT
Very true. The fact that she declares that rejecting the appraition is a mortal sin is also very suspect indeed.
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EVENTS
Nov 29, 2012 18:14:21 GMT
Post by Young Ireland on Nov 29, 2012 18:14:21 GMT
Well said, Anabel. Welcome to the Forum.
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Post by Young Ireland on Nov 26, 2012 17:47:07 GMT
But it seems as though Pope Benedict, for one, is not hostile to the notion of religion as heritage-- he has repeatedly reminded European society that it cannot forget its Christian roots. I, for one, always feel impatient when people appeal to national heritage as an argument for Christianity-- my instinct is to think, "Better honest infidelity than a Burkean religion". But then I see the Pope taking quite the opposite view and I decide I should not be so bullish. I see the point that you are trying to make, Maolsheachlann, however, I would point out that the Holy Father may not necessarily be referring to patriotism, but rather to the fact that it was only for Christianity that Europe became the beacon of civilisation. (btw, if anyone else is interested, me and Maolsheachlann are currently having a discussion about faith and nationalism over on his blog). I agree, Maolseachlainn - it is quite correct that faith and patriotism are not opposed, and that the attempts we see - by some of the "New Atheists" like AC Grayling for example - to maintain that the era of Christian faith contributed nothing to civilisation and that the period between Constantine and the Renaissance (or Descartes, or Kant, depending on taste) can simply be passed over as a dark age of barbarism and religion is bad history (and bad in many other ways as well) and can be recognised as such even by someone who does not believe in God. Athens and Jerusalem can't be separated in such a facile manner. Similarly, part of being an ecclesial Christian is recognising that the Church is shaped by its history and can't be understood without reference to it (in the manner of the Pentecostalist who thinks s/he can ignore everything which took place in the church between the Acts of the Apostles and the foundation of their local congregation, while at the same time holding to doctrines which cannot be unambiguously defined from the Bible alone and which were hammered out over centuries by the first Church Councils). The sort of angelism which believes your expression of the faith to be outside of history is always riding for a fall. That being said, however, my concern is that by focussing too much on religion as heritage we may (a) blur the central point about wishing to teach religion as true to such an extent that we ourselves become confused about the distinction (b) play into the hands of the Anders Behring Breivik types who want to turn it into a form of tribal idolatry. (I mentioned the German Christians as an example of this, but Hilaire Belloc's Latinophilia and Germanophobia is just as bad. His denial that the Anglo-Saxons had any worthwhile influence on British history was flat-out falsification in the interests of a pet theory, and his suggestions in private conversation that a German Catholic was a contradiction in terms are right down there with his pronouncements on the Jews.) Seconded. In fact I would point out that combining faith and fatherland partially contributed to the mess we are in at the moment and that many Catholic activists have yet to realise this, but ANYWAY back to the OP. It is indeed unnerving to look at the way things are in Britain, knowing that we will soon be going down the same road. I think the main road to go down in the present scenario is parish-based catechesis using specially-trained apologists, but only when it become impossible to do any meaningful faith-formation in the schools.
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Post by Young Ireland on Nov 22, 2012 19:23:54 GMT
Thanks, hibernicus. I should have made it clearer about her lack of sin.
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Post by Young Ireland on Nov 22, 2012 19:00:05 GMT
If you mean young-earth creationism, no the Church doesn't teach that, though I think that one is allowed hold that view. What it does say is that God created the world and that Adam and Eve did exist.
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Post by Young Ireland on Nov 22, 2012 18:56:38 GMT
No and it's debateable. It's a dogma that she was assumed into heaven but it doesn't say if she died before being taken up.
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Post by Young Ireland on Nov 18, 2012 22:06:46 GMT
While I'm not 'anti-Semitic', per se, I don't trust the Jewish people, and believe they've perpetrated a lot of deadly mischief among their neighbors, wherever they've lived. For example, they pretty much control American public information, and they do so in a blatantly self-interested way. Obama, in large measure, is a product of such mischief. Christian Fundamentalists are the biggest stooges of all, in that their misguided interpretations of the Bible have seduced them into an idolatrous relationship with Israel and the Jews. Catholicism saves one from that, thank God. Read this: Let me make a couple of suggestions to get started about what anti-semitism is or is not. (1) Criticism of individual Jews for their ideas and actions is not anti-semitic. It is anti-semitic to suggest that all Jews are collectively responsible for these individuals, or that they somehow speak for a hidden Jewish conspiracy. (2) It is not anti-semitic to criticise the behaviour of the Israeli government or its treatment of the Palestinians (which is frequently appalling). It is anti-semitic to apply a double standard whereby Israeli actions are denounced in isolation from those of Palestinian militants or the Arab/Islamic/other adversaries of Israel, as if Israel were somehow uniquely evil. (3) In my opinion it is not anti-semitic to say the state of Israel should never have been established in the first place (a view held by many Jews) provided the person who argues this is prepared to acknowledge the right of Jews to equal citizenship in other states, a right which they were so often and shamefully denied at the time of the Holocaust - and, though it pains me to say it, with large and influential sections of Catholic opinion amongst those who denied it to them. On the other hand, I believe it is anti-semitic to call for the destruction of Israel because this would involve massive loss of life and ethnic cleansing. If anyone is prepared to argue that the destruction of Israel would not have these consequences, let him argue it and we will see how convincing his views are. (4) I repudiate the view that to attempt to convert Jews to Christianity - to offer them the Good News proclaimed by fellow Jews to them as well as to us Gentiles, the branches of wild olive grafted onto the olive stem of Israel - is inherently antisemitic. At the same time we Catholics and Christains should realise that the belief of many Jews that this is indeed antisemitic dervies from a long and shameful record of persecution, misrepresentation and forced conversion which we should all repudiate and for which we are called upon to offer repentance. It was wrong that under the Papal States the Jews of Rome were shut up in a ghetto, wrong that they were taxed to pay for preachers to attempt their conversion, wrong that they were ritually humiliated at Papal coronation processions, wrong that when one parent converted they were allowed to have the children baptised unilaterally and face their spouse with the prospect of forced conversion or permanent separation from their children, wrong that children who had been clandestinely baptised could be forcibly taken from their parents to be brought up as Catholics. These things were violations of natural law concerning the rights of parents over their children and the freedom of conscience. The record of Jewish-Christian relations is not all black, but we must first acknowledge these black spots as recent Popes have done before we can continue this discussion. According to Hibernicus, the mod here, your views qualify as anti-Semitism. You'll be kicked off before you can say "Jew". You are just lucky that he is currently taking a break from the board, otherwise you'll be banned. So what are you going to do, Clovis? (btw I hope you renounce your views and join us. It would be great to have another poster here.)
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Post by Young Ireland on Nov 15, 2012 21:02:27 GMT
Amen.
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Post by Young Ireland on Oct 30, 2012 15:46:40 GMT
Anybody see the documentary on BBC1 last nght?
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