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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Catholics are now the new Protestants in American presidential politics -- Paul Ryan and Joe Biden symbolize a new era for Catholic politicians

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Catholics are now the new Protestants in American presidential politics -- Paul Ryan and Joe Biden symbolize a new era for Catholic politicians

Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 08:16 AM

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lsfdjgljg | Aug 15, 2012, 05:14 PM EDT

forget Cuomo, he and his father have been fighting the Church for decades now......... they're both for the little guy, unless the little guy is in his mother's womb.

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MichaelMcGrath | Aug 15, 2012, 04:30 PM EDT

Mass immigration is changing the face of Ireland more than any religion ever did. Luckily it's not changing the actual faces of the Irish as mass miscegenation didn't take hold to wipe the Irish nation out , not yet. We have our fingers crossed and our prayers said that we will survive depite haveing Irish governments far more tyrannical than the English and much more damnable in what they have set out to do, to mix the Irish race out of existence in their campaign with the EU to wipe the irish people out - but the liberal elite are careful not to mix race themslves - none of the Irish politicians will allow their kids to mix with Blacks:-) But even worse this ccampaign to destroy the irish is costing us 4 billions a year in health, education and welfare because not a single Black immigrant has a cent.

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aloistmartin | Aug 15, 2012, 04:25 PM EDT

Oh, The Double Devon Cream, Laddy`s; Oh, The Double Devon Cream !

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JoeRoan | Aug 15, 2012, 04:11 PM EDT

The lessons on Irish history, as twisted as some of them are, are fascinating. But getting back to "laws" which Romney and Ryan are supporting or suppressing... there are no anti-contraception laws, just people who don't want to have to pay for providing contraceptives to others. There are no anti-marriage laws. If a man and a woman want to marry, they can do so in any of the 50 states (or any of Obama's 57 states). These United States were much better off when the government played a smaller role and didn't exist to redistribute hard working people's money to those who could stand to try a little hard work.

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slainte9 | Aug 15, 2012, 03:11 PM EDT

Where in the world did Irishphotograph come up with this drivel. King Billy invaded England with the aid of Churchill's ancestor to oust a King who was getting too cozy with the Catholics as in backing off on the Penal Laws. This was all about Dutch and English power, however. Nobody cared what the Pope thought or really cared about Ireland. The Pope might have liked the idea that the French got beat in the process, but later thought the outcome wasn't so hot, not that it mattered what the Pope thought. Under good King Billy the anti-Cathoic Penal Laws stayed in place. What Pope would have liked that.

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Irishphotograph | Aug 15, 2012, 02:55 PM EDT

King Billy was supported by Rome to come to Ireland King Billy's 1690 victory was a minor military triumph, but a landmark in British affairs, says Derek Brown.......The papal alliance, which many Protestants prefer to gloss over, must also be seen in the context of the times, in which dynastic ambition often outweighed religious allegiance or scruple. King William III was the Protestant head of the Dutch royal house of Orange. He was married to Mary, the Protestant-raised daughter of King James II of Britain, a convert to Catholicism. James's naked ambition to lead Britain back into the old church alienated the court and many of his subjects. In 1688, powerful establishment figures invited William and Mary to take the throne. But when they landed in England, the royal army, led by John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough, defected and James fled to France. But he had friends among his mostly Catholic subjects in Ireland and a redoubtable ally in Louis XIV of France, then at the height of a ruthless drive to make himself Europe's overlord. William was rabidly anti-French, and was an eager recruit to the alliance of powers which opposed Louis. Other leaders of the League of Augsburg - later the Grand Alliance - included the Austrian emperor, Leopold, and Pope Alexander VIII. Thus, when James landed in Ireland in a doomed attempt to win back his throne and promote the Catholic faith, he was indirectly fighting the Pope. And William, defending the Protestant ascendancy in both of John Bull's islands, was at the same time advancing the cause of the Vatican.

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Irishphotograph | Aug 15, 2012, 02:52 PM EDT

HOW THE ROMAN POPES GAVE IRELAND TO THE ENGLISH TO RULE OVER US ROME WANTED TO SUPPRESS THE CHURCH SAINT PATRICK HELP ESTABLISH. THE CELTIC CHRISTIAN CHURCH. This was indeed what King Henry did and one of his first acts was to call the Council of Cashel in 1172 at which the ancient Celtic Church of Ireland was brought into submission to the yoke of Roman bondage. As for the Papal insults that the Irish were a rude, ignorant, uncivilized people, had not the missionaries of Patrick's Celtic Church brought the uncorrupted Gospel not only to the rest of the British Isles but to Europe? Was it a savage people who produced such beautifully illuminated Christian manuscripts as the Book of Kells, and who preserved the primitive Christian faith in their communities even under Viking attack, whilst Papal Rome was sunk in, the depths of vice and superstitions? The Roman Catholic writer O'Driscoll admits: "The Christian Church of Ireland was founded by St. Patrick, existed for many centuries free and unshackled ... and differed on many points from Rome. From the days of Patrick to the Council of Cashel was a bright and glorious career for Ireland. From the sitting of that Council to our own times the lot of Ireland has been unmixed evil and all her history a tale of woe." Views of Ireland, Vol. 2, Page 84.

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Lucia826 | Aug 15, 2012, 02:34 PM EDT

First of all, by definition, Biden is not a Catholic. He may CALL himself a Catholic, and wear his Rosary around his neck if he'd like...but ignoring the doctine of the Roman Catholic Church is NOT an option. He is a "cafeteria-faith" guy. Pick one from here and another from there..but that is not how it works. Thrown into the mix is Pelosi, the late Ted Kennedy, et al. THOSE WHO VOTE IN FAVOR OF ABORTION are self-ex-communicated. There are misguided priests and bishops who will still allow them Holy Communion. God help them, as they are accountable for what they are doing. Do not please put BIDEN in the same Holy Barque as Ryan! But I see Ireland as really having gone down the tubes. You Europeans just love socialism and BIG gov't. In America, we reject that! Yet, many of you across the pond want to be HERE. Why on earth is that?

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Nicomax | Aug 15, 2012, 02:31 PM EDT

Some guidance needed here- What are Mormons if not 'Protestants'? Maybe they did not specifically protest the Church of Rome, but they seem to be an irritant to other recognized 'Protestants'. So are there two 'Protestants' of the four running for President and VP, or just one, BHO?

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slainte9 | Aug 15, 2012, 02:18 PM EDT

This is an interesting question. Too bad Niall isn't a theologian. Is the Catholic Church still Catholic. I'd argue no, if it's added the word "elect" to its vocabulary. Joining the "elect" and believing in salvation through faith alone make you a Protestant. You might be a Catholic if you believe that your salvation depends not simply on your personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but also your relationship to the world and the people who live in it. A church that puts up roadblocks to baptism and marriage should not call itself Catholic.

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eiriamach | Aug 15, 2012, 01:39 PM EDT

BrianO, I believe in a Christianity that helps individuals imitate Christ but also to reach beyond the confines of the self and, together with other Christians ("church"), to work for progress toward God's reign on earth. Or, in JFK's words, to make progress in areas like these: "the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms [their homes]--an America with too many slums, with too few schools." These are also on the agenda of Obama and Biden, and banished from Romney's and Ryan's.

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BrianO | Aug 15, 2012, 01:31 PM EDT

Eiria, you don't believe in the individual. you don't believe in Christianity, you seem to be against most. What do you believe in.

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eiriamach | Aug 15, 2012, 01:25 PM EDT

I think Niall is over-confident that "anti-Catholicism seems truly dead and buried." Foolishly, Catholics themselves have been resurrecting it, through the USCCB's anti-HHS lobbying and Santorum's and Ryan's catering to the religious right. Ryan is eroding the trust in Catholics that the electorate had in 1960, when, in the same words Al Smith used in 1928, JFK told the Protestant Ministers, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." Ryan is the opposite breed of Catholic, the kind that Protestants and Jews rightly feared in 1960. He's a Catholic who mixes religion and social issues to win the votes of the Religious Right. Jefferson once called it "the lowest grade of ignorance" to think that writing a church agenda into law can keep us free. Smith and JFK also understood: we keep our freedoms by supporting full freedom of conscience on social issues and a role for gov't on problems that are our shared responsibility. Ryan votes against freedom of conscience and for federal anti-choice and anti-contraception laws, anti-marriage equality, and restoring DADT. And he wants government to abandon the shared responsibility issues that were JFK's 1960 agenda: "the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms [their homes]--an America with too many slums, with too few schools." Ryan could raise anti-Catholicism to pre-1960 levels. Oh, right, that's his favorite era, isn't it?

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jflanagan | Aug 15, 2012, 01:11 PM EDT

If Biden keeps opening his mouth and sounding worse than Sarah Palin, he will set us back quite a bit. Thankfully, Ryan is well spoken, knows substantive facts and has a sense of Geography.

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GregShox | Aug 15, 2012, 01:07 PM EDT

Wake me when Americans tolerate an atheist in the White House. Until then, all you're talking about is different flavours of mumbo jumbo.

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