I’m delighted to see that Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama for President. His interview with Tom Brokaw is eloquent. General Powell has the respect of most Americans and his endorsement is important. There can be no doubt of the integrity of a man who served his country both on the battlefield and in highest levels of government even as Secretary of State in the first term of George W. Bush.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efv3Vr8T9MA]
No surprise. About 98% of black people will be voting for Barack Obama. Yet, ironically they are the ones who are complaining about racism.
Obama is no Bill Clinton. Clinton is a de-regualtor just like John McCain. Clinton was the one who introduced NAFTA, which McCain supports.
Obama is more of a extreme leftist. $1 trillion in new spending, more government programs and interventions, sending welfare checks to 45% of the 95% of the people in his tax plan because 45% of those people don’t even get taxed.
Politicians like Obama are such pimps. They promise to spend a trillion dollars on you, but they don’t tell you that they are using YOUR MONEY!
Obama’s Black Liberation Theology is based on Marxism for black people, the foundations of Communism. Even Bill Ayers was an extreme leftist.
Our economy is very important, McCain is better for our economy. I hope people get educated before they vote.
In today’s America Jesus Christ and St. Francis of Assisi would be viewed as leftists.
We are called to live justly and to walk tenderly with our God, not to make money for its own sake.
I don’t thank that Jesus and St. Francis would be viewed as leftists, nor would they be viewed as right-wingers.
True, they both loved the poor, and St. Francis had a special contempt for wealth. But both also promoted chastity. Both also were very unambiguous about the inviolability of traditional marriage.
The modern left in America betrays the gospel as much, if not more than the right. The blood of 40,000,000 innocents who were murdered by abortion is a lot to answer for.
Our politics is broken, both parties hate Jesus.
I don’t know what Francis said about marriage nor what Jesus said about what is called traditional marriage by politicians. If you can find these definitions in the Gospel I’m all ears. Jesus ate and drank with prostitutes and tax collectors. He was at home with those whom our society and many of our religious folks would be scandalized by. Jesus never once mentions homosexuality in the Gospel. You’d think he would have since gay people have been around since the beginning of time.
Francis believed all life was sacred. Francis would have been right at home with what General Powell said about Muslims. When the church officially blessed killing Muslims, St. Francis sought their conversion and sought to make peace with them. My favorite story from the Gospel of John where Jesus forgives the woman caught in adultery is one of the most powerful in all the New Testament. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not about morality or definition of anyone’s life style. It is about radical mercy and forgiveness. There is where both political parties depart and most Americans too.
How about when Our Lord said
“I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”
or
“I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”
or
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.
These are what defile a man”
or
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female,
and said, `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”
They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery.”
The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.”
But he said to them, “Not all men can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.
For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.”
and from St. Francis we hear
“We ought not to be “wise according to the flesh” 5 and prudent, but we ought rather to be simple, humble, and pure.”
and
“Holy wisdom confounds Satan and all his wickednesses. Pure holy simplicity confounds all the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of the flesh. Holy poverty confounds cupidity and avarice and the cares of this world. Holy humility confounds pride and all the men of this world and all things that are in the world. Holy charity confounds all diabolical and fleshly temptations and all fleshly fears. Holy obedience confounds all bodily and fleshly desires and keeps the body mortified to the obedience of the spirit and to the obedience of one’s brother and makes a man subject to all the men of this world and not to men alone, but also to all beasts and wild animals, so that they may do with him whatsoever they will, in so far as it may be granted to them from above by the Lord.”
Both Our Lord and St Francis are clear that we have BOTH the obligation to love the poor AND to live in chastity.
The Gospel is about mercy. When Jesus extended mecry to the woman caught in adultry, he also told her not to sin anymore.
Engaging in sin makes us merciless. I don’t think that anybody can deny that there is a connection between our sexual licentiouness and the abortion rate can they? Sexual sin is clearly in the background of abortion isn’t it? And how much more mericless can you get than killing a defensless child?
Jesus and St. Francis desire that we be merciful to one another. That begins when we stop killing.