It’s a bit out of topic but don’t you think you restrict yourself too much by specifying it? What’s so special about Catholicism? Why not Christianity? Or Buddhism? Or religious teachings?
Because Catholicism is faith + philosophy = a rather fixed and well-developed worldview that has been perfected by very often the brightest minds of any given era over 2000 years and gives a very solid and well-reasoned philosophical and argumentational founding regarding many things, morality included.
(Orthodoxy also, to a degree, but the marriage with philosophy hasn't been as profound there and there isn't the unity of the Churches, so that for example the Russian Patriarch who is and has been Putin's bitch (the Russian O.C. has had this problem repeatedly, historically) proclaims the war against Ukraine a holy war and that every Russian soldier that dies there goes immediately to Heaven... well, it shows why I do think it leaves something to be desired).
So, it's not just about some general
morals, but a
system of morals, which can be deduced, discerned and determined ... and predicted, despite the primacy of the conscience. Nothing as vague as "religious teachings".
For example, "
Christian ethics/morals" may mean many things, from taking care of the poor and downtrodden to "abstaining from pre-marital sex" to "my God-given right to open carry" or even "never drink alchohol, coffee and tea" (if you count Mormons as Christians - technically they aren't), but "Catholic morals" have a rather stricter system.
Like, being Catholic you can't be consequentialist/utilitarianist, but you
have to be a deontologist. The aim, the means and the circumstances ALL must be good for the deed to be good itself - meaning, there is no "end justifies the means", the means must be in unity with the end, otherwise the deed is morally wrong. This is basic moral theology, basic Catechism, a principle that you can't really argue away.
To name one popular example - yes, a Catholic cannot agree with the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings because doesn't matter how many "lives you saved elsewhere by shortening the war" (which makes it moral in the eyes of many even religious people - as if they count lives like jellybeans and here's the bigger pile) - it is still an undiscriminating and horrific action against the civil populace. The means are monstrous and may never be redeemed by the end result. Which may be unpopular - many actual moral tenets are - but are a result of this system, which - to me personally - is the only system I can really get behind, not just in the moral sphere, but overall.
Like, we have an actual
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which puts together Catholic social teaching, including what is the moral approach towards inequalities, systemic sin and so on. And like I said, it's not a random list of some authority's sayings, but an entire philosophic system.
It is exactly the "general Christianity" in the US that makes me want to specify, because Christianity has been hijacked by the political Right to mean Young-Earth creationism, obsession with guns, racism and the general "laissez-faire/to each his own/by the bootstaps" asocial sociopathy that has nothing in common with Christianity
- although, as far as anything is concerned, believing Earth to be fake old and actually created 7000 years ago or so is certainly a lesser evil than some others, so I wonder why it's the Y-E creationists who get the most ire - probably because they're the silliest.
To put it simply, yes, I expect more from any believer, usually (although the US type of Christianity in particular shows that I shouldn't always), but I expect Catholicism from a Catholic. Well-founded, well-reasoned search for the Good which isn't swayed by the US
milieu or the popular appeal or some primitive, primal, pseudo-pagan ideas of might, vengeance, tribalism or whatever.
It is true that you never stop to be a Catholic, but both the abortion thirstiness of the supposed Catholic Biden (which probably made him excommunicated
latae sententiae, but I'm not the authority to say that) and Vance's
"I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other"/"Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians" statements, him getting cozy and comfy with a despicable person like Trump and ... again, from what I heard, support for the abortion to boot shows both are opportunists first and I can't rely on their reasoning and Catholic moral code. Which is something they theoretically proclaim.
Therefore can't trust them in this and therefore can't trust them in general.
Anyway, enough hijacking of this thread, 'nuff said, Judas out.
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