While
I want very much for my postings here – when I can make them – to reflect for
now on Advent and Christmas, I need for a moment to step back to some earlier
postings on the idea of Catholics' single-issue voting:
I'd
intended to write this posting not to follow up – you folks can research and
read up via avenues I've put up here, and through your own searches. But my
readings of late in recent Catholic media caught my eye with a very familiar
name; see my next posting… and I find I do need to follow up, and close this
issue as far as my blog is concerned.
As
a bit of a point/counterpoint is, first, a reader's letter from The Catholic
Review (or CR), the same Baltimore-archdiocesan newspaper referenced
in my October 31 posting; this comes from the newspaper's November 27 issue.
[Disclaimer: ©
2008 The Cathedral Foundation, Inc., 880 Park Avenue, Baltimore MD 21201 (correspondence to: PO Box 777, Baltimore MD 21203), 888-768-9555,
Mail [at] CatholicReview.org) ]
Don't
be fooled by venomous writers
I
can't ever recall reading letters (CR, Nov. 20) filled with such venom.
President-elect Obama was accused of being a Marxist, and prayers were called for
his failure. Where was the outrage when President George W. Bush invade
Iraq without provocation and began a war that has taken over 80,000 lives, many
of them innocent women, children, and elderly?
Over
4,000 of our own American soldiers have lost their lives, and many times that
number are forever maimed, both physically and psychologically. Sen. John
McCain wanted not only to continue this war but possibly to extend it into Iran
and Syria for years on end.
Where
was the outrage when the U.S. began a program of torture?
My
faith has taught me that all life is sacred. The right to life doesn't stop
with birth.
Every
four years, the Republicans trot out the anti-abortion / right-to-life mantra
and hoodwink the Catholic bishops into giving them full support. As soon as the
election is complete, the matter is forgotten by the politicians, and nothing
is done.
I'm
largely in agreement with this writer (who I assume is, like me, both
anti-abortion and anti-Bush). In all fairness, though, there must be pointed
out a factor weighing deeply with many of the voters who cast their ballots by
the candidate's/candidates' stance(s) on anti-abortion first: That over the
course of this inexcusable, reprehensible shame of a war we've been in for
nearly six years, with hundreds of thousands of lives lost directly because of
it, many times that number, of the very youngest and most vulnerable of
all lives were snuffed out through abortion. This abomination must stop – but
the effort does not tie our hands and force us at election-time to be, pardon
me, bedmates of Bush et al.
That's
what I've said here, and that's what the above letter-writer is saying as well.
I did not close my eyes to that when I voted for Barack and the straight
Democratic ticket, and I will not ignore it during his upcoming two terms in
office – I hope, in fact, to begin engaging in more active anti-abortion
activities, most likely (at least initially) through local-parish efforts, in
particular via the Knights of Columbus.
But
I'm going off-track here. I do want to commend The Catholic Review for
its fairness and balance in publishing letters on both sides of this (however
needless, in my opinion) debate. Prime example: In that newspaper's December 4
issue, another reader writes regarding that previous letter:
Agenda,
faith collide
[Your
reader]'s letter (CR, Nov. 27) is the perfect example of a
Catholic who is ready, willing, and able to throw the Church under the bus to
promote her own political agenda. She states, in part: "The right to life
doesn't stop with birth". Maybe, but by supporting the people and
political policies that promote the slaughter of the innocent, [she] is not reflecting what I
assume to be her Catholic faith, and what that faith has taught her in the past
and does so until this day.
I
strongly disagree with this letter; a more realistic read of the previous one
shows that that writer was speaking from a viewpoint of social concern, and
peace activism, rather than mere politics… although her lump-them-all-together
complaint about Republicans feeds into the perception of politicization, and
should have been deleted before submittal.
Here's another
letter, published in the December 11 issue; we've already contrasted the views of the
genuinely estimable George Weigel against the Bishops' document:
Weigel
column distorted by ideological bias
George
Weigel's recent review of the presidential election (CR,
Nov. 20) was most disappointing. Without examining the reasons why 54 percent
of Catholics voted for Sen. Obama or these voters' views on abortion, Mr.
Weigel nevertheless describes these voters as "stupid" and
"mindless". Mr. Weigel's view of the facts is distorted by his
ideological biases.
Preliminarily,
Mr. Weigel's continued insistence that abortion must necessarily trump every
other issue in a Catholic's selection of a candidate ignores the wise counsel
of the U.S. bishops in "Faithful Citizenship": "Decisions about
political life are complex and require the exercise of a well-formed conscience
aided by prudence." Although it may be difficult for Mr. Weigel to
believe, faithful Catholics in good conscience may come to prudential decisions
which actually differ from his.
In
addition, Mr. Weigel's analysis fails to acknowledge what is plainly obvious to
the most disinterested observer – that, as a practical matter, the one-issue
approach to the selection of candidates advocated by Mr. Weigel and others has
failed miserably.
Clinging
to an exhausted and failed political approach, and studiously avoiding any
examination of the facts, Mr. Weigel is unable to provide any meaningful
election analysis.
Finally,
back in the December 4 issue of Baltimore's archdiocesan newspaper is this
letter, which in particular rings a clear chime with me on the matter; here's a
cooler, far more level head... and heart:
Prayer
over rhetoric
I was
extremely disappointed to read the angry letters from writers who are upset by
the election of Barack Obama. The majority of U.S. Catholics did not vote for
Mr. Obama [merely] because he is "pro-abortion". I believe that I
voted for a very moral man.
It is
time for American Catholics to take back our Church from one-issue Catholics.
Isn't it time to ask ourselves if the strategies used by these reactionary
Catholics are effective? Do people really respond in a positive way to strident
– and, in some case grotesque – literature and pictures? I attended Mass at the
Cathedral during Respect Life weekend. The priest spoke of the
problems of abortion, euthanasia, and other life issues, but then went on to
discuss the lack of respect we have for one another as evidenced by some of the
mean, nasty, and judgmental things we say.
I
realize that many pro-life activists are very giving and charitable, and
operate with the best intentions. I do believe however, that it is time for
Catholics to evaluate the methodology and tactics used by some Catholics to
determine if they are truly consistent with Catholic beliefs. More prayer and
less rhetoric might be helpful.
Again,
I hadn't intended, first, a wrap-up at all here. Yet once I'd started, I found
that's exactly what I was writing. And, second, I hadn't then intended to draw
it out over two postings.
But
I'll take up my initial objective in the next posting; as I started out saying
at the top here, I ran into a very familiar name – person – from my childhood,
and want to (with some genuine discomfort) put this up here as well: see the
next posting.
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