Hello, I am back after a busy day away from my computer.
During the presidential campaign I did read somewhere that Paul Ryan was a devoutly religious Catholic, and had extreme views on abortion and social services, and there was a comment somewhere that he was a creationist and biblical literalist, but then I couldn't find it again.
Many Catholics still do believe the Bible literally, even tho the Vatican now accepts that "God used evolution" during the creation of the "heavens and the earth."
My impression of Ryan is that he is a young earth creationist, but now that I am looking up information about him, I can't find it anywhere.
Rorschach, you wrote,
I have trouble with the terms Evangelical and Catholic being linked. I imagine a Catholic service being totally different to an Evangelical one.
You are right that the Catholic is a liturgical apostolic church and not an evangelical one.
There has been a "charismatic" trend in some Catholic churches here in the USA in the past several decades, where members meditate together in communion with the Holy Spirit; they have become more evangelical and their services are very different from the traditional Catholic mass.
However, this is not to say that Paul Ryan is a charismatic Catholic.
Now as I am looking for more information on Ryan's religious beliefs, I cannot find anywhere that he is a young earth creationist. Here is an article I have been reading,
Paul Ryan and Creationism
(excerpt)
Naturally, we’ve been interested in Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his Vice President. Of all the names that had been mentioned which Romney might have chosen, the most prominent (Jindal, Pawlenty, and Rubio) have severe problems with science and with church-state relationships — but not Ryan. Unlike some of the others, Ryan has never (at least that we can find) uttered a single word favorable to creationism. And he’s not one of those theocrats attempting to blur the separation of church and state.
We’ve done a lot of searching on Ryan. He’s Catholic — staunchly so. He’s opposed to abortion and he favors only the traditional family. Personally, we could support someone less doctrinaire on those issues, but they shouldn’t be matters of federal concern. Besides, there are other issues of far greater importance — national security and the economy. So although Ryan isn’t our intellectual and political ideal (no one ever is) we can overlook those other issues — at least for now. These are precarious times, and one must have his priorities in order.
What’s more interesting to us is that Ryan has often expressed his admiration for the writings of Ayn Rand. See "What did Ayn Rand teach Paul Ryan about monetary policy?" which says:
In 2005, Paul Ryan explained that he often looks to Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” as inspiration for his views on monetary policy. “I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech, at Bill Taggart’s wedding, on money when I think about monetary policy,” he said in a speech to the Atlas Society.
http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com ... eationism/
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