Rick Santorum – Part I

Posted by Censor Librorum on Aug 15, 2006 | Categories: Lesbian in a Catholic Sort of Way

Rick Santorum, the junior Republican senator from Pennsylvania, is in a desperate re-election campaign. He is trailing another Catholic, Bob Casey, in the polls. Once a robust political career, even a presidential mention, is now faded glory; a victim of Iraq, President Bush, rising gas prices, and his extremist ideology.

What does Rick Santorum the Catholic believe?

– Liberalism is totally to blame for the sex abuse scandal.
– Bishops must fight “cultural liberalism” both in and outside the Church because it does not represent the authentic teaching of Jesus.
– Fake Catholics and backsliders vote Democratic. Real Catholics vote Republican.

Rick Santorum stated Liberalism is to blame for the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandals. He elaborated on this belief in a July 12, 2002 article, “Fishers of Men,” in www.catholic.org, a traditionalist Catholic site. Here is an excerpt:

“It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning “private” moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.

The cultural change needed cannot end with our seminaries. Most of the American Cardinals, while strong defenders of the faith, are from a different era with only a few responding to the new demands our decaying culture has placed on them. With God’s grace, a new hierarchy must emerge that will be both faithful in thought and courageous in confronting all infidelity within the Church. Such Church leaders have a great example in Pope John Paul II’s battle with communism’s attempt to destroy the Church and human dignity. A new hierarchy must similarly fight against an array of “isms”-moral relativism, cultural liberalism–inside and outside the Church.

Most importantly, I hope this crisis in the clergy will remind the laity of the call of Vatican II, a call the Pope has re-echoed throughout his incredible papacy. This is not just the hierarchy’s church’ it belongs to all the baptized. Pope John Paul II reminds us time and again of Luke’s Gospel: “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” We are all called to be “fishers of men.”

Personally, considering the subject matter, I thought the choice of the title, “Fishers of Men,” well, unfortunate…but a very interesting double-entendre! I’m also wondering how the bishops, who can be pretty prickly about criticism, must have felt about Santorum’s statement they were old and decrepit and not up to the job.

More tomorrow in Rick Santorum – Part II.

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One Response to “Rick Santorum – Part I”

  1. Franny Says:

    All this labeling of “liberal” and “conservative” is nonesense. A better way to speak of people within the church is ‘orthodox’ or ‘heterodox’. A person’s catholicity, or rather make that Catholicity, should be judged based on their fidelity to the magisterium and the teaching of the one holy and apostolic church. The defining criteria then is not whether one votes a Democratic ticket or a Republican ticket.

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