New York Times Article on Catholics and Voting- Where is the Pope?

I know I have been on a political rampage today. I will try to have at least two non political post for every political post tomorrow. I must say I am ready for this election to get here. Though because of the Hurricane postponing elections we shall have a very highly contested Congressional race in my backyard. However I will prob be too burned out to comment on that.

Anyway there was a article in the New York Times on Catholics and Voting that created quite a discussion. See “Catholic Church Is Riven by Internal Debate.”

Get Religion is one of my favorite sites because they analyze "Religious" reporting and point out the good and the bad. As I often point out on here so much of it is very very bad.

They took a look at this article and ask a good question. Where is the Pope!!! Good Question. See Hey Times: Is the pope Catholic? As they pointed out "The only reference to anyone named “Benedict” in this article is to Benedict Arnold." In fact beside voices of competing Catholics in the US what the Pope or the Vatican or basically what the world wide Church is a tad missing. Get Religion for instance points out it is not for a lack of material or the Pope has not been commenting. For instance they cite Pope Benedict's March 30, 2006, address to members of the European People’s Party. He stated:


As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable. Among these the following emerge clearly today:

* protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death;

* recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family — as a union between a man and a woman based on marriage — and its defence from attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union which in reality harm it and contribute to its destabilization, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceable social role;

* the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.

These principles are not truths of faith, even though they receive further light and confirmation from faith; they are inscribed in human nature itself and therefore they are common to all humanity. . . .

I have sort of mention this when people are complaining of "partisan Catholic" voting guides and generally I don't get much of a response. Perhaps people are under the misconception that this just applies to like Europeans or something. Many people who are supporting "You know who" don't like this list because to say the least it is problematic.

Still this is not the only thing the Pope has said. Also needless to say Pope Benedict didn't sort of make this up all by his little lonesome. This had been pretty consistent through the years.

It is really a shame that what Benedict is talking about , that as I have mentioned, has not been explored more. For instance what does the "protection of the right of parents to educate their children" mean? Looking at the Pope very recent statements Catholic schools is big on that list. Does this include vouchers? What about Homeschooling? Anyway I thought the article made a good point that for all the opinions that were gathered some pretty big voices were missing