robin1234

kimilseung

Why go to the huge effort of walking away, when you don't have any skin in the game of actual religious beliefs?
For most Catholics it is a cultural trait, who walks away from a culture?
Most people get culture and religion from family, core values can change with life experience, but our core cultural identity usually stays with us for life. Most Catholics don't care what the Pope says, they form their own values, whilst still retaining a cultural respect for the Pope.
I am an Atheist, but I still see that culturally I still have Catholic traits.

dc koop

I walked away long ago. Some would call me a lapsed Catholic. Never went once to confession, attended a Catholic church probably half a dozen times. A Certificate of Baptism says I'm a Catholic but I'm not a Catholic. To pretend to be one would be sheer hypocrisy. To be accurate I am an Agnostic in my way of belief and thought although if the urge to pray to a deity who may or may not exist ever occurred I would have no problem walking into any church of any denomination even a Synagogue for it's all a matter of seeking the same deity who again may or may not exist

scrubbedexpat099

Biden looked a bit wobbly, maybe because he has just found out he has a grandchild?

morpeth

I think you might be surprised how liberal the American Catholic church is these days compared to Evangelicals, one of reasons the Bishops more supportive of the current Pope than the immediate predecessors.

zargof

I really wish the media would stop trying to make Klobuchar a thing. Klobuchar is never going to be a thing. Her ultimate "No we can't!" message just isn't going to win many supporters regardless of how much the media try and help her.

Joe Biden is slightly different with his "This is America, we can do anything! Except pass any meaningful progressive legislation. Also did he forget that Kamala Harris was Black, female or a Senator? Either way it wasn't a good look. He would get destroyed by Trump, but he still some how keeps his high ratings in the polls.

Mayo Pete was his usual weaselly self of sounding very erudite and above the fray, but not actually saying anything of substance. I did notice that Tulsi Gabbard got under his skin a little at the end when directly quoting something he said about sending troops to Mexico and he tried to spin it as something different.

Kamala finally got in her attack on Tulsi Gabbard only about three months after Tulsi attacked her.

Liz was rather anonymous.

Booker was good again, but again it won't make a difference in the polls.

Yang was an interesting contrast to some of the other candidates, with a different perspective on some issues, and he also had some good humour.

Bernie was good, talked about changing foreign policy in a good way and humanizing Palestinians which no-one else did. Strong on climate change and the urgency required. He even talked about himself and his life, which I think will help him with a certain section of the voters.

Steyer was there.

The moderators and their questions were terrible as usual.

Steerpike

My g/f is nominally Catholic (I'm Agnostic). She likes to go to church on occasion ... I can see it gives her comfort, and is a cultural thing. She thinks the church hierarchy is totally hopeless and is very much supportive of her gay nephew. I would have said, she thinks the pope is hopeless but she does like the latest one more than the others.

caretaker

My late friend said he didn't like Pope Benedict because "I get nervous every time I see a German on a balcony."

Steerpike

Based on past experience, this may just translate to 'Warren did the best' !

Ingles

Trump looks even wobblier , because He& The GOP just found out he's a cheating , lying , money & pussy grabbing ,avoiding paying due tax's , racist pig.
Oh by the way , all the above is Fake News & a conspiracy made up be the Democrats.

scrubbedexpat099

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/tv-...es-1203411983/

​​​​​​​So that explains the lack of comments, hardly anybody watched it.

Anian

I think people are a bit tired of politics right now with the Trump bribery case on tv every week day for the last few weeks.
Plus Fox News has been telling people not to watch it because they have realised that people actually like the things that the Democrats have been saying and don't want to give them ideas. Harder to control the narrative if the audience is actually informed and engaged. For the same reason they have been telling their audience not to watch the bribery witnesses, claiming it is boring and about nothing, when really they don't want people to see how every witness is confirming that Trump was committing bribery.

scrubbedexpat099

Interesting, I do not watch Fox and was unaware of this,

Never occurred to me that so many who would be interested in watching the Dem debates do watch Fox and would be so influenced by them.

Steerpike

I would think the intersection of Fox News watchers and Democratic Debate watchers is practically zero.

Leslie

Yeah but sometimes people aren't complete assholes but they live with an asshole who has FOX news blaring all day.