Abortion a bigger problem than joblessness, says Catholic Church

[cleanhippie]

Cardinal Archbishop Antonio Rouco Varela used an open-air gathering in Madrid's Plaza Colón on Friday to attack the policies of the previous Socialist Party government, calling for a repeal of legislation that provides for abortion on demand, as well as same-sex marriage.

"Life is a sacred right that humans have been given by God," Rouco told the faithful gathered in bright winter sunshine from a stage dominated by a 68-meter-long altar and backed by a 12-meter-high cross.

Rouco railed against the current situation in Spain and Europe, declaring that Christ had lived in times of historic blindness, and that we were now in one of those times.

"The family is under attack in Spain," said the archbishop, who is also the chairman of the Spanish Bishops Conference, insisting that abortion and euthanasia in Europe was a deeper crisis than the economy or politics.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/Abortion/bigger/problem/than/joblessness/says/Catholic/Church/elpepueng/20120101elpeng_3/Ten

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[Lost-in-FL]

1. Yes

Because a single-male with a very safe job... that speaks from a pulpit wearing gold plated clothes knows very well the needs of the jobless family.

[MarkCharles]

2. Spain has a 22% unemployment rate!

Talk about out-of-touch.

[skepticscott]

3. And all of those millions of miscarriages

are cases where that "sacred right" has been taken away? By.....same-sex marriage? Abortion? Masturbation? Pornography? Uh...no...that would be...god, yes? And why? Cosmic coin flipping? Punishment? Display of godly power? Of course....all part of "god's plan".

What's that, you say? We poor insignificant humans can't possibly understand god's mind or his purposes? Of course not...except when we can.

[Angry Dragon]

4. catholic church, they name is hypocrisy

[TygrBright]

10. Not in this particular instance. This stand, while morally repulsive, is theologically consistent.

The Catholic Church sees bringing an end to the "slaughter of the innocents" as critical and primary for theological as well as pragmatic reasons.

Souls are the thing, you see. Souls for Christ. And if you "kill" a person before they are born, their soul remains transcendent and is unable to become part of the metaphysical Church that represents humanity in relation to God. This is, theologically, far worse than the suffering borne by immanent souls-- which they also have an obligation to relieve, but a lesser one.

From a pragmatic standpoint, of course, this fight takes precedence because allowing women control of their own bodies and moral well-being threatens the control and primacy of the (all-male) Catholic shamans in the Church hierarchy.

So while there are many valid and cogent arguments to be made against the Church's obsessive focus on this issue, hypocrisy is not one of them.

helpfully,
Bright

[LeftishBrit]

5. Argh

The absolute obsessiveness of some political and religious pro-lifers scares me. It's one thing to be against abortion; it's another to prioritize that above all other considerations. The Bible itself contains a lot more about poverty than about abortion.

Why are abortion and homosexuality *the* issues for the hardliners?

[cbayer]

6. That's a really good question. I thought about it and can't come up with

an easy answer. The first thought I had was that these are the things that most frighten or threaten them. If one assumes that the hardliners are sexually repressed, then it would make sense that they would rail against the two issues that are rooted in sexuality.

Heard a very interesting discussion on the radio the other day about the roots of celibacy in the Catholic Church. It also included statistics on how many priests acknowledge (anonymously) that they are not celibate. If you include masturbation, the number is up around 80%.

[rexcat]

8. And the other 20% are lying n/t

[dmallind]

7. Different reasons I think

The priority of abortion makes sense if you take as true the initial premises:

a) Fetuses are living humans
b) Human life is sacred to God, and not mankind's to take

Given those are generally seen as axiomatic by the hierarchy (not by me obviously) then there is no other conclusion than that abortion is systematic state-approved mass murder on a scale not seen since the totalitarian regimes during and just after WW2, and never seen in the US. If you start from those premises of course abortion would be a much bigger problem than joblessness - or anything else. It would be like the army being sent in to depopulate a medium sized city every year. Wouldn't you call that a bigger problem than a high U3?

Reminder - this is NOT what *I* think - I accept neither premise.

Gays? No idea. The Bible is pretty clear in its few references that gay sex os a big no-no (arsenkoitoi does not refer only to temple prostitutes no matter how much Christians who want to be accepting of gays try to make it so), but as you say it says the same about other things much more often, directly from JC too - who never mentioned homosexuality it appears. Part of it may be the natural defensiveness and overcompensation of men living the lifestyle enjoined by the church to understandable innuendo about themselves. Part of it may be a reaction to their very real loss of influence after the great waves of sexual "permissiveness" in the latter half of the last century. Part of it could simply be the prudish revulsion of generally conservative and somewhat cloistered - pun intended - men.

[PassingFair]

9. Women, especially, must be biologically trapped.

And the men must be stuck onto the web as well.

It is too hard to control people if they are not worried
about the well-being of their offspring.

People with nothing to lose often ACT like they have
nothing to lose.

It's all about CONTROL.