Christian Democracy

It is encouraging to see a group that does something about the needs of the increasing number of people in poverty in this country. It is even more exciting if that group is Catholic. There are a lot of socialist groups around that complain about the situation and they also bash the church but they don't do anything to help the poor workers. I would like to see some open doors where whatever meager gifts I have to offer would be used.

Hi all, I'm new to the group but was glad to hear there is a Christian Democratic group on this site. We're actually working (mostly on Facebook right now but hoping that will change soon) to build a CD party and social movement in the U.S. The christiandemocracymagazine.com is one of our efforts too.

The party is called American Solidarity Party. If you're interested in a group that will support Catholic Social Teaching in the public sphere come look for our page on FB. We'd be glad to get to know you all.

@ Swiss Guy: Nice to see some renewed interest in this group. We finally have enough to create a group forum, so I've created one. Hopefully we can get something going here!

Hi, I just joined the group. I joined it because my politics are similar to Christian Democratic parties in Europe even though I'm in America, and I feel isolated in the social justice section because it seems like so many people there are extremely conservative economically (i.e libertarian-ish) and so politically correct while not being as concerned about actual social justice (which Christian Democracy emphasizes).

I will second JaMc's thoughts. I'd also like to say that I'm not a fan of the terms progressive or conservative. To me it's more a matter of being in accordance with Catholic Social teaching. Progressive and conservative are terms which mean little outside the nations they're used.

I suppose it would depend on what you mean by "progessive Catholics," which is quite a broad term. Do you mean social justice and economic equality, or female and married priests, same sex unions, etc.?

Christian Democracy, as set forth by the Social Encyclicals, would embrace the former (but, not so far as socialism or liberation theology), but not the latter.

Hi I'm a new member who is interested in finding progressive
Catholics, who are interested in seeing our Church grow in equality for all people, especially for those within the Church, and who see the imbalance our world is because of inequality. Anyone like that here or interested in talking about it?

If anyone has Facebook, there is a Christrian Democratic Group on there, that is somewhat semi-dormant, but it might be a good starting point to getting a CD movement going:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2212310536&ref=mf

Definately an uphill battle. I just saw in the Washington Post newsletter, or e-letter that I get that, abortion-"rights" Democrats are vowing to vote against the health care bill because of a compromise that was made to include a provision that no public funds would go towards abortions.
Set to the side any feeling you may have on the acutal health care bill, because i am sure we could talk a lot about that, but just focus on these radicals within the party who would block the very bill they were all supporting, just for public funding of abortions. I have a big problem with this type of thing. Even if your view was that abortion should be legal, which I do not agree with, but even if that was your view, why would these people then take that next step to demand that everyone pay for it? We know this has been part of these peoples agenda for a long time.... But, these are the elements within the party that are so destructive. I just wrote a essay on juvenile justice for my class, and one of the points that I made in it was that more funds have to be directed towards eductaion of FAMILIES to break these cycles of abuse and neglect that are common when we talk about juvenile offenders. Many have no family or there mothers are never home because they have to work all the time, or their mothers are just out partying. Then there are the absent fathers. The break down of the family in our world is not a new revelation but my point was that our nation has done very little to combat this. There is so much that we can do to help break this cycle, yet these people would rather spend that money on giving out free abortion?? It really gets me in a crazy way when i read this type of stuff. I would love to see what you guys think.