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How do left-leaning—or not even left-leaning, but pro-choice, pro-life people who don’t care about fornication—who are also Catholics and Christians justify their religion? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 14 hours ago by PixelNomad@sopuli.xyz to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This is a genuine question, because one of the reasons I left Christianity (I was raised Christian) was that I didn’t like how they hate gay people, are pro-life, etc., and overall are pretty hypocritical. But as I got older, I realized there are Catholics who are pro-choice, aren’t homophobic, and don’t have an issue with having sex before marriage, etc., and basically are not stereotypical religious people at all. But I have to ask—how do they justify this? I mean, it must be very confusing, because if the Bible does say being gay is a sin and you are not homophobic and are pro-LGBTQ+, then you are basically saying sinning is okay, which goes against their very religion. How about Catholics who swear? Basically, how do liberal Christians/Catholics justify their religion? Why be religious if you aren’t going to go all in?

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[–] disregardable@lemmy.zip 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

The Catholic doctrine is that all people are born with a soul, and your soul is made in the image of God. In other words, your body has no importance, it is your soul that makes you god-like. In this vein, every person on earth is a child of God. It's not an exclusive church. It's a universal church. As a church, it does not claim to have all of the answers. If someone truly believes that God made them gay, that's between them and God. It is not for us to judge other peoples' sins but to love and support them as God's children. I don't think you can square abortion with the literal Catholic doctrine of souls though. You'd have to just not believe that. You can be pro-choice in the sense of "Women should be able to receive life-saving healthcare" but elective abortions does not square.

[–] artifex@piefed.social 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

With regard to abortion the hard no stance is relatively new - prior to 1869 (which is recent in the eyes of the ~2000 year old church) abortions were permissible before the quickening, or when the mother could first feel the fetus moving. I still think it’s a somewhat elegant compromise to a difficult situation but understandably both the “life starts at conception” people and the “my body is sacrosanct” people hate it.

[–] disregardable@lemmy.zip 3 points 13 hours ago

The reason for the focus on the quickening was that it was how they determined whether the baby was alive. They didn't have ultrasounds, so, until the baby kicked, they had no idea whether it was in fact a healthy baby. I know this because we studied it in crim. That's what got California to update its murder statute from the common law definition.