WaPo reports:
Speaking in deeply spiritual terms, Karen Santorum said she had been reluctant to throw her support behind the idea because her husband’s failed 2006 Senate re-election campaign had been so brutal. Also, she said, her husband had become more involved with the family after leaving the Senate, and was even coaching Little League...
Karen Santorum has been largely behind the scenes during the campaign, busy in part taking care of the couple’s youngest child, Bella, who suffers from a terminal disorder.
But God must want the children's father out on the road, pouring his life's energy into a quest for power. Just when he was getting more involved with the family, coaching Little League, faced with the terribly ill baby, he got called away. But through prayer, you can ground yourself in faith that these things all happen for a reason. There are other men offering their services to the country, men with grown children, but God wants Rick out there too, vying for the top spot.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 224 of 224chickenlittle detests seeing any written criticism about Palin. And he'll let you know!
"Supposing that Santorum became President, when would he be having sex-ed classes with other people's children?"
I think I laid it out pretty clearly, by quoting his own words. You got me: Santorum will not in fact literally be meeting with your children at 2:30 pm in Room 37 of the local middle school. Snap, you got me.
But if you insist, I'll needlessly repeat myself-- repeat Santorum's words.
Santorum promises to "talk about things no president has talked about": topics normally covered in sex ed classes, like contraception (and topics sex ed classes don't presume to cover, like "what in a sexual realm is contrary to how things are supposed to be").
When a President speaks in his role *as President*, he speaks to all of the American people. Chances are children will not be listening to boring President guy on TV (though they might be). But any President who speaks to the American people tacitly speaks to all of them, even children. If not, Santorum would be the first President I can think of whose statements as President you'd have to actively censor from children because of their "adult" content-- a pretty strange thing in itself.
A young child might well be curious to know what their President-- a figure invested with august authority-- is conveying to America (an America of which that child is a part).
Santorum promises that he will be expressing to America his deeply held convictions concerning e.g. contraception and sexual morality. If you as a parent happen to hold different, possibly dramatically different views and values than Santorum re sexuality (you might even think Santorum's views on sexuality would be psychologically damaging and confusing to your child), you might be placed in the position of explaining to your child how and why the POTUS has it wrong (re contraception or homosexuality or whatever).
That's an awkward enough conversation to have to have when it's your child's teacher. You might have to have another such awkward conversation concerning your child's (and our) effing *POTUS*.
You don't think that's strange? I do.
yashu said...
Yes please, give me a POTUS who *wants* and *intends* his faith to become a public nuisance. That's what Santorum is explicitly promising us, isn't it?
Bender said...
Even saying the word "God" or "prayer" is nuisance enough for some to trigger spasms of disgust and hate.
The vast majority of Americans, right or left, want their president to be in a zone somewhere between these two extremes.
Man, this software is buggy. You'd think Google could afford better.
Meade, I agree. But Santorum is the only candidate who IMO actually occupies one of the extremes-- all the others (including Obama) fall in between.
OK Obama is arguable, of course, because his religion and faith is-- well, I won't go into that labyrinth, but whatever the truth of it is (behind all the masks, if there is any end to them) is… complicated.
Yes. This is why, even if Santorum were to get the nomination - highly doubtful - he could not defeat Obama in the general. Romney and Obama might be at different ends of that zone but they both clearly know where the zone is and that they have to be in it.
Who is this Rick that I should be mindful of him? He is a grown, competent, and well-fed man. He can take care of himself and hardly needs my help or encouragement or even notice.
But I care about Karen, at home caring for Bella while her husband is out doing whatever it is he does. She has practiced humility by the tool of prayer. She loves and is truly dedicated to her husband, stands by him, and tries to keep her feet on the ground. She tries to do the right thing. I haven't paid much attention to her husband, so I don't know if he does. Do you think he practices humility? Do you think he loves and is truly dedicated to his wife? Do you think he tries to keep his feet on the ground and do the right thing?
In a meta-sense, God intends, right now, for Obama to be President. To believe otherwise is to believe that God is not sovereign.
That is fundamentally flawed. That Obama is president means only that God is not a puppet-master. He respects our free will. He allows us to make our own choices, whether those choices be good or whether they be bad.
To say that God's sovereignty demands that whatever happens is His intention is to say that He intends for all the evil in the world that happens, e.g. war, genocide, rape, murder, etc. For further example, to say that God's sovereignty demands that because Hitler was chancellor of Germany that that was God's intention. Which is to say that He is the cause of evil, such that He Himself is evil.
But, evil being the privation of good, the distortion and absence of good, and God being, by definition, all-good, that would mean that God is both God and Not-God.
That, of course, is a logical absurdity, and has been fundamentally understood since the time of Augustine 1600 years ago and before then even. Rather, the origin and cause of evil is the free choice of the will. Evil exists because we choose to do it, not because God intends for it to happen.
That human creatures are possessed of free will, including the autonomous will to act even contrary to God's will and design (as happened soon after the beginning in the Garden), does not deprive God of sovereignty or omnipotence at all. To the contrary, it is evidence of it.
As stated earlier, His supreme and omnipotent essence and nature is Love. And love by its very nature, to be truly love, must be freely expressed. Were God to force us to love Him, to force us to obey Him would not be an act of love, but an act of divine rape, the antithesis of love.
But God loves enough to let man decide for himself whether to love in return. He also loves man enough to allow man to reject Him, to separate himself from God, which, again as was stated earlier, is the essence of the state of Hell.
Don't put it on God that Obama was elected (whether you think Obama is good as president or whether you think him bad), that is all man's doing.
"Absolute" separation of church and state can sound to some as if the president is suppose to put his religious faith in a lock box. I think the idea of that is what made Rick Santorum sick.
Then Santorum isn't intelligent enough to be President, because that's not what Kennedy said.
"A reasonable alternate view is that God doesn't care who is President, or who is running. That is, that God is not a micromanager."
That, too.
My personal feeling is that being *interested* in the will of God for your life means that a person keeps the look-out for opportunities, lessons, strength or comfort, and so is more likely to find them. Believing in a personal God who is personally concerned with you, still doesn't have to mean believing that God is a micromanager.
if rick were leaving his family to enter the priesthood (or campaigning for pope) his wife's comment would be appropriate... running for the american presidency, not so much.
Evil exists because we choose to do it, not because God intends for it to happen.
Although you will find those atheists who will actually start trying to argue against this, oblivious to how absurd such an argument is, so great is their antipathy for God.
Nope! You are incorrect! I intended for Obama to be President.
Otherwise there would have been more war, more killing, and more suffering.
For all the distain that, sadly, too many here are exhibiting towards those who have the audacity to express their Christian faith in public (which thankfully this time have mostly not included the usual lies that the Church is violent, etc.), given some of the more recent comments, you should all be grateful that we are in fact Christian, and not Muslim.
(Although, go try posting those comments in Mecca and see what happens.)
Evil exists in the world only so far as it exists in you, Bender. The world is a mirror of your soul. Please don't consider this a general principle; rather, consider that it applies specifically to you, not to anyone else. You will find less evil in the world if you permit less evil in yourself. And vice versa... quite literally! Ha! Ha! That was a joke about good and evil, which can indeed be a laughing matter, although a better joke is probably required.
@Yashu: You are not the target of my wrath and ire.
@garage mahal: Actually, I only detest the made-up shit.
The rabid, mindless religious hysteria on this thread is disgusting. How can people believe this ridiculous stuff. You must all be insane.
I'm referring to the knee-jerk atheists of course. What dullards.
For those who have a sincere and good faith desire to know just how "extreme" the Catholic faith regarding those who hold government office, here is the authoritative teaching on the matter. It is, in short, to seek the good and to promote and protect the fundamental and inalienable dignity of the human person, as endowed by his Creator (and not merely given to him by men) (c.f. Declaration of Independence) --
Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life
3. It is not the Church’s task to set forth specific political solutions – and even less to propose a single solution as the acceptable one – to temporal questions that God has left to the free and responsible judgment of each person. . . .
The Church recognizes that while democracy is the best expression of the direct participation of citizens in political choices, it succeeds only to the extent that it is based on a correct understanding of the human person. Catholic involvement in political life cannot compromise on this principle . . . The democratic structures on which the modern state is based would be quite fragile were its foundation not the centrality of the human person. It is respect for the person that makes democratic participation possible. . . .
5. While a plurality of methodologies reflective of different sensibilities and cultures can be legitimate in approaching such questions, no Catholic can appeal to the principle of pluralism or to the autonomy of lay involvement in political life to support policies affecting the common good which compromise or undermine fundamental ethical requirements. This is not a question of “confessional values” per se, because such ethical precepts are rooted in human nature itself and belong to the natural moral law. . . . Moreover, it cannot be denied that politics must refer to principles of absolute value precisely because these are at the service of the dignity of the human person and of true human progress. . . .
6. John Paul II has warned many times of the dangers which follow from confusion between the religious and political spheres. “Extremely sensitive situations arise when a specifically religious norm becomes or tends to become the law of a state without due consideration for the distinction between the domains proper to religion and to political society. In practice, the identification of religious law with civil law can stifle religious freedom, even going so far as to restrict or deny other inalienable human rights” . . .
7. Christian faith has never presumed to impose a rigid framework on social and political questions, conscious that the historical dimension requires men and women to live in imperfect situations, which are also susceptible to rapid change. . . . At the same time, the Church teaches that authentic freedom does not exist without the truth. “Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery.” In a society in which truth is neither mentioned nor sought, every form of authentic exercise of freedom will be weakened . . .
8. In this regard, it is helpful to recall a truth which today is often not perceived or formulated correctly in public opinion: the right to freedom of conscience and, in a special way, to religious freedom, taught in the Declaration Dignitatis humanae of the Second Vatican Council, is based on the ontological dignity of the human person . . . “it is based rather on the dignity of the human person, which demands that he not be subjected to external limitations which tend to constrain the conscience in its search for the true religion or in adhering to it.”
--Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (2002)
The Church is the defender of the dignity of the human person. To be an "extremist" in that is not a bad thing.
I didn't suspect it, but the usual suspects appear to have usual suspects of their own. We do seem to be entering a time of tribal identifications. A universal God better hang on to his hat.
Paraphrasing Barry Goldwater:
"I'm frankly sick and tired of the [preaching politicians] across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?"
Hmm ... I read that comment about God making the universe and having it logically follow that he doesn't care about our corner of it with bemusement. Someone mentioned that before, I think.
Psalm 8:
"3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?"
This is a more logical response. If God's capable of creating the universe yet also decided to become one of us, then we must be important, and as individuals as well. Anyone capable of a massive universe and of establishing things at the atomic level would have no trouble with individuals.
Where are the aliens?
@ Meade 10:14
Kind of the problem Meade is that the post is not related to your comment except to say that anytime anybody mentions the word God in terms of their experience or means of coming to a decision it it is or might be offensive to you. So if that is how they experienced it they better STFU or be criticized.
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