As reported earlier today in
The New York Times article by Michael Paulson:
Jeb Bush, 20 Years After Conversion, Is Guided by His Catholic Faith, Jeb Bush would be the 2nd Roman Catholic President of the U.S. if elected in 2016.
More correctly, given what happened to the first one, John F. Kennedy in 1963, who was born into a Roman Catholic family, Bush would be the first such one devotedly loyal to Rome,
having made the choice as an adult to convert to Roman Catholicism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/us/politics/jeb-bush-20-years-after-conversion-is-guided-by-his-catholic-faith.html?_r=0
Twenty years after Mr. Bush converted to Catholicism, the religion of
his wife, following a difficult and unsuccessful political campaign that
had put a strain on his marriage, his faith has become a central
element of the way he shapes his life and frames his views on public
policy. And now, as he explores a bid for the presidency, his religion
has become a focal point of early appeals to evangelical activists, who
are particularly important in a Republican primary that is often
dominated by religious voters.
The son and brother of Protestant presidents, Mr. Bush, if elected,
would be the nation’s second Catholic president. Sometimes, he carries a rosary in his pocket and fingers its beads at moments of crisis. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus and has retweeted Pope Francis. He was part of the American delegation
to the installation of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, and during his
travels in the United States he sometimes attends Mass in local
churches.
Mr. Bush is not the first Catholic in his family. His great-grandfather George Herbert Walker
was a Jesuit-educated Roman Catholic who married a Presbyterian.
Jeb
Bush, who was baptized in the Episcopal Church, began his journey to
Catholicism inadvertently when, as a high school exchange student in
Mexico, he met and fell in love with Columba Garnica Gallo. She is a
committed Catholic, despite
having felt poorly treated by other Catholics
when her parents divorced. When the Bushes married, in 1974 (he was 21,
and she was 20), it was at the Catholic student center at the
University of Texas.
Jeb Bush credits his participation in the Roman Catholic church witchcraft rituals as affecting his thinking:
A
bit of a murmur, and the occasional “Morning, Governor,” passed through
the Spanish Renaissance-style church, with its manicured grounds and
towering palms, as worshipers recognized their most famous neighbor,
Jeb Bush.
He held hands with the other worshipers during the Lord’s Prayer, sang
along to “I Am the Bread of Life” and knelt after receiving communion.
“It
gives me a serenity, and allows me to think clearer,” Mr. Bush said as
he exited the tile-roof church here on a recent Sunday, exchanging
greetings and, with the ease of a longtime politician, acquiescing to
the occasional photo. “It’s made me a better person.”
He married his Catholic wife in 1974, but it was not until 1995 that he openly converted.
According to the the New York Times article, his conversion came after his failed 1994 election bid to become Governor of Florida, owing to a perception of him as uncompassionate.
In
1994, Mr. Bush ran unsuccessfully for governor, employing language that
some viewed as mean-spirited, in part because of a comment suggesting
that he did not see a role for government in helping African-Americans,
and in part because of
an ad he ran criticizing the incumbent governor for what he said was slow action on executing the murderer of a 10-year-old.
After
his defeat, he acknowledged that his marriage was experiencing some
stress and said he was going to take some time to regroup. During that
period, he began the formal process of becoming a Catholic, taking
classes at Epiphany Parish in South Miami. ...
Mr.
Bush was officially received into the Catholic Church at the Easter
vigil of 1995, making a profession of faith and being anointed with oil
before receiving communion for the first time as a Catholic.
“I
had decided to convert after my campaign for governor, win or lose,” he
wrote in a 2003 email to a second grader in Texas who was working on a
school project about famous American Catholics. “My wife is Catholic and
we always went to Mass, so she was my principal motivation.”
He
has also suggested that concerns about the Episcopal Church, which has
moved steadily to the left on social issues and liturgical matters,
played a role in his decision.
The issue of compassion, or rather perceived compassion, served to re-brand him for his next bid for the Governor of Florida, which was successful.
“His campaign was still very conservative, but much more moderate in
tone — clearly, he had a different perspective,” said Matthew T.
Corrigan, a political scientist at the University of North Florida and
the author of a biography of Mr. Bush. “If you look at his policy
positions, you can see a strong connection to his new faith.”
The issue of perceived 'compassion' would rest upon whatever position that he took on the death penalty.
The bishops who led Florida’s seven Catholic dioceses met annually with
Mr. Bush, often opening their gatherings with prayer. Each year, the
bishops would try to convince Mr. Bush that the death penalty should be
ended in Florida, and each year they failed.
As well as education and immigration:
“I like Jeb Bush a lot,” Cardinal Dolan said in the television
appearance. “I especially appreciate the priority he gives to education
and immigration.”
The article places an overall positive spin upon Jeb Bush and the Roman Catholic Church
“I
love the sacraments of the Catholic Church, the timeless nature of the
message of the Catholic Church, the fact that the Catholic Church
believes in, and acts on, absolute truth as its foundational principle
and doesn’t move with the tides of modern times, as my former religion
did,” he said in the speech in Italy in 2009. (Asked by email recently
what his concerns were, he said only: “I loved the absolute nature of
the Catholic Church. It resonated with me.”)
Indeed it even presents Bush and Rome as being pro Bible:
“His knowledge of the Bible was better than mine, and I was a cradle
Catholic,” said Dolores D. Holler, who at the time was an active
Epiphany parishioner and was assigned to help Mr. Bush as a sponsor
during the conversion process. “On Sunday afternoons he rode a bike to
church to go to Mass, and when it got really hot, he’d say, ‘Dee, could
you take me home?’ and I’d say, ‘Yeah, throw the bike in the trunk.’ ”
Yet such a spin does not fit with Governor Jeb Bush's lack of respect for such Biblical passages as 'use the herbs of the earth as meat' nor perhaps admonishments against drunkenness and the perversion of such into concentrated drugs of abuse.
Jeb Bush has long been a loyal supporter of Rome's criminal and socially destructive Pharmacratic Inquisition, protecting synthetic drugs and Tobacco from herbal competition, while perverting such useful herbs as Opium and Coca into concentrated poisons of abuse, thus propping up a bloated drug treatment and prosecutorial-prison industry.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/02/01/3617867/jeb-bush-admits-smoked-marijuana-wants-keep-pot-illegal/
Bush did not make statements this summer about other drug policy
positions, including on decriminalizing or legalizing recreational
marijuana. But during his term as Florida governor, Bush also opposed treatment instead of jail for nonviolent drug users, and backed mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession offenses, even as his daughter faced jail time over a drug rehabilitation relapse.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) jumped on the Boston Globe report this week to
call Bush a hypocrite. “This is a guy who now admits he smoked marijuana
but he wants to put people in jail who do,” Paul told the Hill. “You would think he’d have a little more understanding, then.”
If one is to be "compassionate" are they to then support the number one cause of criminal prosecutions by the State against people in the Courts?
http://abcdriveronline.com/marijuana-will-become-federally-legal-this-month/
The
scary part is, of the more than 2 million prisoners in the United
States Justice System (which make up 25% of the world’s prison
population, despite America’s 5% share of the global population) 1
million offenders are in for drug related crimes, with the vast majority
as non violent crimes.
US marshals hold over $2.4 billion dollars of property seized under asset forfeiture law,
which is split between the DEA and local governments. Introduced as a
law in the 70′s under the guise of stopping Miamis’s cocaine cowboys
from affording bail and lawyers, it has now become a commonplace tool
for the government to seize every asset of someone who’s caught with a
pound of weed. Every car, every bank account, your house and any
valuable possession you own is forfeited to the government if your
indicted with distribution or trafficking charges.
Police brutality is rampant in America, with a citizen 30,000% more likely to die by police shootings than in England,
a SWAT raid in Montana is makes me sick to my stomach when they open
fire on a dog in the house, the owner’s horrified disbelief as he
repeated asks “you shot my dog?” with its pain stricken whining in the
background.
In 2014, Florida voters had the opportunity to decide upon Amendment 2 to legalize medicinal Cannabis use in Florida:
That medical use of marijuana by a qualifying patient or personal
caregiver would not be subject to criminal or civil liability or
sanctions under state law.
That a licensed physician would not be subject to criminal or civil
liability or sanctions for issuing medical marijuana to a person
diagnosed with a “debilitating medical condition” under state law.
That registered medical marijuana treatment centers would not be subject
to criminal or civil liability or sanctions under state law.
The amendment would not “affect laws relating to non-medical use, possession, production or sale of marijuana.”
The amendment would not authorize “the use of medical marijuana by anyone other than a qualifying patient.”
The amendment would not allow for the “operation of a motor vehicle, boat, or aircraft while under the influence of marijuana.”
The amendment would not require accommodations for medical marijuana use
“in any place of education or employment, or of smoking medical
marijuana in any public place.”
The amendment would not require “any health insurance provider or any
government agency or authority to reimburse any person for expenses
related to the medical use of marijuana.”
The amendment would not require “the violation of federal law or purports to give immunity under federal law.”
The "compassionate" Jeb Bush publicly spoke out against it:
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/08/17/jeb-bush-resorts-scare-tactics-floridas-medical-marijuana-debate.html
"Florida leaders and citizens have worked for years to make the Sunshine
State a world-class location to start or run a business, a
family-friendly destination for tourism and a desirable place to raise a
family or retire. Allowing large-scale, marijuana operations to take
root across Florida, under the guise of using it for medicinal purposes,
runs counter to all of these efforts.”
[Jeb] Bush’s implication that the state of Florida could be diminished by the
legalization of medical marijuana is massively insulting to Floridians.
It is a shame that Jeb Bush, the man many Republicans call an
“intellectual,” falls back on tired stereotypes about pot that appeal to
fear and negative association rather than reason. He does not explain
why the moral judgments and preferences of a shrinking slice of the
population should dictate the legal status of a drug. Absent any
evidence, his alleged adverse effects on families and businesses are
just emotional appeals.
But such is the position of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly that of the so-called 'reformist' Pope Francis S.J.:
Mafia thug Pope Francis S.J. with drug police
Countless lives lost to prohibition and perverted drugs/petrochemical pharma quackery
and perverted markets aka 100 million deaths from cigarettes
Expect Jeb Bush to be a loyal Papist who would not hesitate to impose and enforce its Inquisition.