From Rorate-Caeli
Other matters may be relevant, but a present-day Catholic citizen should never place issues of lesser importance at the same level of “the three non-negotiables”:
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:
[FIRST NON-NEGOTIABLE]– protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death;
[SECOND NON-NEGOTIABLE]– recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family – as a union between a man and a woman based on marriage – and its defense 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;
[THIRD NON-NEGOTIABLE]– 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.
The Church’s action in promoting them is therefore not confessional in character, but is addressed to all people, prescinding from any religious affiliation they may have. On the contrary, such action is all the more necessary the more these principles are denied or misunderstood, because this constitutes an offence against the truth of the human person, a grave wound inflicted onto justice itself.
Benedict XVI
Address to the Members of the European People’s Party
Given these guidelines it will be hard to vote for any of the candidates in the upcoming presidential election. None come close to meeting these standards.
In a certain sense the third non-negotiable is the most vital. If our hope is to begin to transform our culture into one of life and family, then we must first begin by taking our parental obligations seriously by educating our children – instead of handing them off to be raised by organized day care (otherwise affectionately labeled as “school”.) We’re absolutely kidding ourselves if we think that a culture of life will emerge where 95% of our children are being indoctrinated daily into the culture of death.
“The protection of the right of parents to educate their children.???
There is little to no protection provided by our socio-economic, society which deems that parents are mistaken, if not neglecting their children by home schooling. The sad state of affairs is that our culture is so far off from the ideal of “Family???, that it buys into the fabrication of truth that it takes a village to raise a child. You are looked down upon when you state that you want to home school, or you are home schooling. People treat you as if they think that your kids are too good for their educational brainwashing of “tolerance???. Or they argue that teachers are paid good money to receive a piece of paper that deems them socially tolerant, and acceptable to mold the minds of the youth of today.
It is sad when I deliver to a school, and see the loss of innocence in the children’s eyes, completely ripped away from their soul, all under the guise of public (and private)
“Education???. If we want to rebuild society we must start at the home, in order to do this we must teach from the home.