I, apparently, cannot and probably should not endorse a candidate on this blog, since I am related to the Church, even if I am only employed by it.Nevertheless, I have to admit that I personally, NOT officially in my capacity as an employee of St. Jude, am interested in Ron Paul. It is said that so many in the mainstream media do not consider this guy as a plausible candidate and thus either ignore him or deride him as a "nutjob" or "fringe candidate." Yet so much of what he says makes sense. I must admit I am not totally on board with everything he says. But there are things which I find very interesting which he states that no one else is saying.
The least of which is his support of Pope John Paul II... yes, you read that right. Check out this document apparently written by Dr. Ron Paul, MD.
Reading that document alone makes me more sympathetic to Dr. Paul. However, the fact that, as a doctor, he actually is honest enough to know and admit that human life begins at conception really makes me sympathetic.
Before you all start jumping on the bandwagon, there are a few things I am concerned with too, however (as if I have that much sway with anyone!). 1) That Dr. Paul is ostensibly in favor of legalizing prostitution and 2) he is also in favor of legalizing marijuana and, in fact, all illegal drugs (as I understand it).
Nevertheless, when one considers his political philosophy one can appreciate his position. That is to say, as I understand him to hold, that Government should not have a hold or impinge on our private lives and we should have the liberty to do as we please. Oddly enough, that idea, as such, appears to be in line with Catholic Social Teaching, which encourages us to live the virtuous life. As Dr. Paul himself asserts in various places, the government cannot legislate virtue. Nevertheless, the Church rightly proclaims that government's role is to guide people to virtue, and thus legalizing such things seems problematic at best. Moreover, what one worries about is whether our fellow countrymen and women have not been constricted so much that they wouldn't act as teenagers who just got left home alone for the first time without mom and dad? Nevertheless, one wonders...
Perhaps a few links are in order here:
You decide for yourself. I still haven't made up my mind except to say that as Catholics we cannot vote for a pro-abortion candidate no matter who that might be. If you would like some explanation on this you might check out: http://www.catholictradition.org/Christ/christ-king1.htm , which except for the focus on only the Traditional Latin Mass, every Catholic should appreciate if we take our faith in Christ the King seriously. The Traditional Latin Mass alone WILL NOT take away all of our woes in today's Church (before "Anonymous" accuses me again of this), but respect for both the Sacred Tradition of our Church and our country's founding political philosophy certainly are a step in the right direction.
What are your thoughts, St. Jude Parishioners?
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2 comments:
I agree that Ron Paul is the best candidates out there, but I too have a few concerns. If Ron Paul gets elected, I think that he would have a very difficult time doing many of the things he would like to see happen, because they require such a change in the way people think about government. I think that he would be fighting congress on everything.
Dr. Paul is definitely an extreme candidate, but that is only because everybody else is so not extreme. President Paul is not nearly as scary a President Guliani.
I agree with Aaron here, He seems like the best we have to pick from in some time. However that being said he is still only human and we can't expect him to be perfect, if we want a perfect leader we have to elect Jesus president(which I'm sure is already done in heaven ;-) ). Now I know what your thinking,"your letting him off the hook!" and in some sense maybe that is true, however what I really am trying to do is get people to recognize that you can fault with anyone if you look hard enough, so look for what is most important to you and make sure he(or she) has it!
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