In the Further Defense of Life

[The following articles have been reposted from other sources. If those with the legal right to do so desire one or more of them removed, I will do so immediately.]

Bishop Martino shows up unannounced to an election debate in his diocese: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14123

Bishop Serratelli's remarks end up strong enough that the IRS may eventually remove tax-exempt status from the Catholic Church: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14139

Bishop Brandt deals with a possibly dissident university and a Catholic supporter of Obama, Douglas Kmiec: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14144

10 Points for Catholic Citizens to Remember

Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Original version published in The Denver Catholic Register on 16 January 2008

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput Personal witness is always the best proof of what we claim to believe. In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II reminds us that all Christians are involved in "a struggle for the soul of the contemporary world." In every compartment of our lives -- from our families, to our jobs, and even to the solitude of the voting booth -- God asks us to be His witnesses, His apostles. And this year, like every other year, with or without an election, we need to apply the idea of Catholic witness in a special way to our public life as citizens. Let's remember that as we consider our political choices. We might find it useful to remember 10 simple points as we move toward November.

1. George Orwell said that one of the biggest dangers for modern democratic life is dishonest political language. Dishonest language leads to dishonest politics - which then leads to bad public policy and bad law. So we need to speak and act in a spirit of truth.

2."Catholic" is a word that has real meaning. We don't control or invent that meaning as individuals. We inherit it from the Gospel and the experience of the Church over the centuries. We can choose to be something else, but if we choose to call ourselves Catholic, then that word has consequences for what we believe and how we act. We can't truthfully claim to be Catholic and then act like we're not.

3. Being a Catholic is a bit like being married. We have a relationship with the Church and with Jesus Christ that's very similar to being a spouse. And that has consequences. If a man says he loves his wife, his wife will want to see the evidence in his love and fidelity. The same applies to our relationship with God. If we say we're Catholic, we need to show that by our love for the Church and our fidelity to what she teaches and believes. Otherwise we're just fooling ourselves, because God certainly won't be fooled.

4. The Church is not a political organism. She has no interest in partisanship because getting power or running governments is not what she's about, and the more closely she identifies herself with any single party, the fewer people she can effectively reach.

5. However, Scripture and Catholic teaching do have public consequences because they guide us in how we should act in relation to one another. Loving God requires that we also love the people He created, which means we need to treat them with justice, charity and mercy. Being a Catholic involves solidarity with other people. The Catholic faith has social justice implications - and that means it also has cultural, economic and political implications. The Catholic faith is never primarily about politics; but Catholic social action - including political action - is a natural byproduct of the Church's moral message. We can't call ourselves Catholic, and then simply stand by while immigrants get mistreated, or the poor get robbed, or unborn children get killed. The Catholic faith is always personal, but never private. If our faith is real, then it will bear fruit in our public decisions and behaviors, including our political choices.

6. Each of us needs to follow his or her own properly formed conscience. But conscience doesn't emerge from a vacuum. It's not a matter of personal opinion or preference. If our conscience has the habit of telling us what we want to hear on difficult issues, then it's probably badly formed. A healthy conscience is the voice of God's truth in our hearts, and it should usually make us uncomfortable, because none of us is yet a saint. The way we get a healthy conscience is by submitting it and shaping it to the will of God; and the way we find God's will is by opening our hearts to the counsel and guidance of the Church that Jesus left us. If we find ourselves disagreeing as Catholics with the Catholic teaching of our Church on a serious matter, it's probably not the Church that's wrong. The problem is much more likely with us.

7. But how do we make good political choices when so many different issues are so important and complex? The first principle of Christian social thought is: Don't deliberately kill the innocent, and don't collude in allowing somebody else to do it. The right to life is the foundation of every other human right. The reason the abortion issue is so foundational is not because Catholics love little babies - although we certainly do - but because revoking the personhood of unborn children makes every other definition of personhood and human rights politically contingent.

8. So can a Catholic in good conscience support a "pro-choice" candidate? The answer is: I can't and I won't. But I do know some serious Catholics - people whom I admire - who will. I think their reasoning is mistaken. But at the very least they do sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And even more importantly: They don't keep quiet about it; they don't give up their efforts to end permissive abortion; they keep lobbying their party and their elected representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can support "pro-choice" candidates if they support them despite - not because of - their "pro-choice" views. But they also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it.

9. What is a "proportionate" reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It's the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life - which we most certainly will. If we're confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.

10. Lastly, the heart of truly "faithful" citizenship is this: we're better citizens when we're more faithful Catholics. The more authentically Catholic we are in our lives, choices, actions and convictions, the more truly we will contribute to the moral and political life of our nation.

Bishop Serratelli dealing with Barack Obama: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=475

Bishop Gracida's election radio add: http://www.randallterry.com/

Eduardo Verastegui's [star of Bella] video on abortion and the election: http://www.obamamustsee.com/

Chuck Norris on the American election and abortion: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14176

International Call for the Rights and Dignity of the Human Person and the Family by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute: http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.95/default.asp

Planned Parenthood admits Obama-defended infanticide: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=DnlHNbAh6xY

Why Barack Obama opposed the Born Alive Infants Act: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=uyPioaocVPQ

Bishop Robert J. Carlson [of the Diocese of Saginaw]'s statement in preparation for the election: http://www.saginaw.org/images/election-statement_carlson_102808.pdf

A Call for a Rosary Novena

By Fr. John Corapi

Among the most important titles we have in the Catholic Church for the Blessed Virgin Mary are Our Lady of Victory and Our Lady of the Rosary. These titles can be traced back to one of the most decisive times in the history of the world and Christendom. The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7 (date of feast of Our Lady of Rosary), 1571. This proved to be the most crucial battle for the Christian forces against the radical Muslim navy of Turkey. Pope Pius V led a procession around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City praying the Rosary. He showed true pastoral leadership in recognizing the danger posed to Christendom by the radical Muslim forces, and in using the means necessary to defeat it. Spiritual battles require spiritual weapons, and this more than anything was a battle that had its origins in the spiritual order—a true battle between good and evil.

Today we have a similar spiritual battle in progress—a battle between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, truth and lies, life and death. If we do not soon stop the genocide of abortion in the United States, we shall run the course of all those that prove by their actions that they are enemies of God—total collapse, economic, social, and national. The moral demise of a nation results in the ultimate demise of a nation. God is not a disinterested spectator to the affairs of man. Life begins at conception. This is an unalterable formal teaching of the Catholic Church. If you do not accept this you are a heretic in plain English. A single abortion is homicide. The more than 48,000,000 abortions since Roe v. Wade in the United States constitute genocide by definition. The group singled out for death—unwanted, unborn children.

No other issue, not all other issues taken together, can constitute a proportionate reason for
voting for candidates that intend to preserve and defend this holocaust of innocent human
life that is abortion.

I strongly urge every one of you to make a Novena and pray the Rosary to Our Lady of Victory
between October 27th and Election Day, November 4th. Pray that God’s will be done and the
most innocent and utterly vulnerable of our brothers and sisters will be protected from this
barbaric and grossly sinful blight on society that is abortion. No woman, and no man, has the
right to choose to murder an innocent human being.

May God grant us the wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and counsel to form our conscience in
accordance with authentic Catholic teaching, and then vote that well formed Catholic conscience.
Please copy, email, link and distribute this article freely.

God Bless You
Fr. John Corapi
www.fathercorapi.com

Catholic apologist John Martignoni on the American election and abortion:

"Before I get to the questions, and my answers to those questions, I want to first make a general statement about my personal political views. I am not a Democrat nor am I a Republican. I have voted for Democrats in the past, and I have voted for Republicans in the past, and I have voted for 3rd Party candidates in the past.

I am actually of the opinion that we need a viable third party in this country because the Republican and Democrat parties both have more than their fair share of liars, cheats, hypocrites, cowards, and power-hungry egotistical jack asses. And, the choice of candidates being provided by just these two parties – in the general election but also in the primaries – leaves much to be desired. In other words, I am generally disgusted with both parties and most of the people within those parties – with a few exceptions.

A viable third party, one that is across the board pro-life, would receive my whole-hearted support. I would love to see all the pro-life Christians get together and start something along these lines.

Regarding President George Bush, he has been a huge disappointment to me in many areas. In the pro-life area, specifically, I do not believe he has done all that he could have. However, he has done some things which have indeed saved the lives of babies and have the potential to save the lives of many more babies. In regards to the latter, is his appointment of Judges Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court – both of whom would probably vote to overturn Roe v. Wade if given the opportunity (I will discuss this more in-depth below). In regards to the former, he has upheld Reagan’s Mexico City Policy which bans the U.S. from giving money to overseas organizations that promote or provide abortions, he has banned funding for research on new lines of fetal stem cells (taken from aborted babies or from cloned, and subsequently killed, embryos), and he signed the Partial Birth Abortion ban. So, he has done some good things in the pro-life realm, but not enough, in my humble opinion.

Now, on to the Q&A:

Question: “McCain is not truly prolife like we are, he still supports it for rape or incest and if the woman’s life is in danger. I know he is better than Obama on this issue but these are the same things Obama said he was in support of abortion over.

It is indeed true that John McCain is not across the board pro-life. He supports the “right” to an abortion in cases of rape and incest. He also supports the use of federal funds for fetal stem cell research that would result in the destruction of already frozen embryos that are no longer “wanted” by anyone. So, what is one to do?

Well, the Church has always been clear, and the bishops have been very clear in what they’ve recently written (see paragraphs #36 of the Bishops’ statement, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship”; and #5.a. of the statement from Bishops Vann and Farrell – both of which are in the last newsletter), that it is morally permissible to vote for the lesser of two evils so as to “limit the evil done”.

Given that, which of these two candidates is the lesser of two evils, from a purely pro-life perspective? Let’s look at a number of issues and see:

Obama is in favor of the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the federal funding of abortion. McCain supports the Hyde Amendment. According to NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League), the Hyde Amendment “forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes.” So, if we go by the words of the abortionists themselves , as represented by NARAL, the repeal of the Hyde Amendment will result in an additional 1 million or so abortions each year.

Obama is in favor of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), McCain is opposed. In fact, Obama stated that “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.” This legislation would effectively sweep away all state and federal limits on abortion, such as: parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry…protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The National Organization for Women (NOW), which is a pro-abortion group, has proclaimed that FOCA would “sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.” These laws that would be swept away are credited, by the abortion industry, for reducing the number of abortions by hundreds of thousands per year in the last several years.

Obama is opposed to the Pregnant Women Support Act, a bill proposed by Democrats for Life, which aims to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies. The key provisions being: providing coverage of unborn children in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and informed consent for women about the effects of abortion and the gestational age of their child. I am not aware of McCain’s position on this particular bill.

Obama opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist’s unsuccessful effort, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. McCain is on record of being in support of such legislation.

Obama co-sponsored a bill that would authorize the large-scale industrial production of human embryos for use in biomedical research. The embryos would be cloned and then destroyed – all in the name of the god of science. McCain opposed the bill. This bill alone could result in eventually millions of embryos being cloned for scientific research. It could also open the doors to the eventual birth of cloned human beings.

Obama was one of the few Senators who opposed a bill that would give modest federal funding to stem cell research that does not involve the destruction of an embryo – adult stem cell research. McCain supported this bill.

McCain has stated that he will nominate more judges like Alito and Roberts to the Supreme Court. Obama has stated quite clearly that he will not nominate anyone to the Supreme Court who is not pro-abortion.

So, to sum up, the one anti-life position on which Obama and McCain agree, is the destruction of already frozen, and “unwanted,” embryos for stem cell research. So, on that one issue, there is no difference in voting for Obama or McCain. They also agree that abortion should be available to women in cases of rape and incest, but McCain believes these should be the exception to the rule, Obama believes unrestricted abortion should be the rule.

On all the other issues, the Freedom of Choice Act, the Clone and Kill bill, the Pregnant Women Support Act, the nomination of pro-life Supreme Court and federal judges, the Born Alive Infants Act, the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy, and funding for adult stem cell research, McCain’s positions are pro-life while Obama’s can only be described as fervently and radically pro-death. In fact, the NARAL website proclaims that Obama’s “pro-choice” voting record is 100%, while John McCain’s is 0%! So, I believe, as the abortion industry itself believes, that voting for one over the other would be the difference in millions of human beings living or dying.

Question: “Will you address [Catholic Professor] Douglas Kmiec’s argument that overturning Roe v. Wade just brings it back to the states, who can’t even agree on a common speed limit or drinking age, so why would they make abortion illegal?

If enough Supreme Court Justices wake up and realize that there is no such thing in the U.S. Constitution as a “right” to an abortion or a “right” to privacy, and Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, then the abortion issue will indeed need to be addressed state by state. What would happen then? Well, if you think about it, there are already hundreds of laws on the books of most states that restrict abortion in some manner or another. Do you think these laws were passed by “pro-choice” legislators? Of course not! In other words, you have the majority of legislators in the majority of states who have already shown a willingness to limit abortion as best they can in a Roe v. Wade environment.

Given that, it is thereby a very logical thing to assume that many, not all, but many of these states would pass laws to outlaw abortion altogether once the dagger of Roe v. Wade is no longer held to their throats. I think Alabama would be one of the first states to do so. And, it would also be logical to assume that if the current abortion restrictions, which are relatively minor – such as parental notification laws – and which are not found in every state, are enough to save hundreds of thousands of lives each year, imagine how many more lives would be saved by outright bans on abortion in a number of states.

Furthermore, the overturning of Roe v. Wade would do something that Prof. Doug Kmiec never addresses – it would bring the abortion debate back to front and center in the public arena. Right now abortion is only mentioned if necessary by news outlets. Never has any news outlet ever shown the results of an abortion on TV. They show all sorts of maimed bodies and violence against persons, but they have never shown an abortion. Why not? Because as soon as the majority of Americans saw what it actually is, they would be screaming for it to stop!

Overturning Roe v. Wade may have its biggest long run impact not in the immediate banning of abortion by individual states, but in forcing abortion into the public discussion in such a way that the hearts and minds of millions of “pro-choice” people will be forever changed, and abortion will no longer be considered a legitimate “choice” by women when they become pregnant, or by society as a whole. And, God willing, this horrendous evil will be permanently done away with.

Question: What about the argument that McCain did not vote to increase funding for social programs to help and encourage single mothers to take care of their babies born out of wedlock? Wouldn’t this encourage them to have an abortion, instead? Obama is in favor of programs to assist these women.

Well, I have heard this argument, but I am not aware of any such bill having actually been voted on. As quite often happens, people associated with political campaigns say things that may actually bear little to no resemblance to the truth. Maybe there was such a bill, but I don’t know which bill, when it was voted on, and what it actually said. If anyone reading this has the specifics, I’d love to hear them.

But, let’s also consider this: On the one hand, you have Obama saying he will vote to increase funding for programs that would encourage single mothers to allow their babies to be born. On the other hand, you have him voting for the lifting of any and all restrictions on public funding of abortion, such restrictions having resulted – according to the abortion industry itself – in the birth of more than one million babies a year. And, as mentioned above, Obama is on record as indeed opposing bills, like the Pregnant Women Support Act, that will help women to make a choice for life. McCain supports that particular bill. So, is Obama really in favor of programs that will encourage unwed mothers to give birth to their babies?

Furthermore, the Catholic Church in the U.S. has stated that if there is a woman anywhere in the country who is going to abort because she cannot financially support her child, then she needs to call the Catholic Church and she will receive support. Plus, if a woman cannot financially support her child, there is always the adoption option. Why kill your child when you can let them live and be loved by others? Why not vote federal funds to support adoption – which John McCain and his wife know all about since they have an adopted child – rather than voting to use federal funds to kill babies – as Obama is in favor of.

Question: Please help convince me to “hold my nose” to vote for McCain, because I am very pro life but – like the daughter for Obama- I don’t like anything else about him. This includes the 2nd Amendment, which also kills innocent people if the guns get into the wrong hands. Plus I don’t like his choice of VP being a heartbeat away from the presidency, as she isn’t qualified.

Several things to address here: First, what issue is more important than the issue of life? If Obama is elected, it is very possible that it will cost literally millions of lives, that could be saved if McCain is elected. As Bishops Vann and Farrell clearly stated (as quoted in the last newsletter), there is no issue or even any combination of other issues, that are the moral equivalent of the pro-life issues – abortion, fetal stem cell research, euthanasia, and infanticide.

In regards to the 2nd Amendment, I will say this: I don’t like guns. Don’t own one. I don’t even hunt. I wish we had less of them – not just at an individual level, but at the level of nations as well. However, the fact of the matter is, that the 2nd Amendment is a part of the Constitution and it gives people the right to own guns. The President of the United States takes an oath to uphold the Constitution, which means an oath to uphold the 2nd Amendment. That’s his job. Besides, as far as I know, Obama has never said he is opposed to the 2nd Amendment.

Regarding Sarah Palin and her inexperience. With all due respect, but Sarah Palin was Governor of Alaska for 2 and a half years before being tapped as the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee. Before that she had been a two-term City Council member and two-term mayor. Barack Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate for two terms, before becoming a U.S. Senator. He apparently voted “present” more than a hundred times during his tenure in the Illinois Senate. Mayors and governors don’t get to vote “present.” He was in the U.S. Senate for only a little over a year before making it known that he would run for President, officially announcing in February of ‘07 – just two years after becoming a U.S. Senator.

Sarah Palin has run a government, at the city level and at the state level. Barack Obama has never been a part of the executive branch of government. He’s never actually governed anything or anyone. He’s not even the Chairman of a Committee in the Senate. He’s authored no major legislation that I am aware of. While Sarah Palin was running a state, Barack Obama was running his Senate office…then running for President. From where I sit, Sarah Palin has much more experience with actually governing than Barack Obama has. Neither Palin nor Obama has a whole lot of experience, but Palin actually has more of the necessary experience for the executive branch than Obama does. If the TV news media was actually fair and impartial, you would be doubting Obama’s qualifications for the presidency much more than Palin’s qualifications for the vice-presidency.

Finally, I “held my nose” to vote for Bush #1 back in ‘88 and in ‘92. I did not vote for Dole in ‘96 because he had voted for pro-abortion judges for the Supreme Court and the other federal courts and he had voted for the Freedom of Choice Act. Instead, I voted for Howard Phillips of the Constitution Party – a truly pro-life candidate. I voted, less than enthusiastically, for Bush #2 in 2000 and I held my nose to vote for Bush #2 in 2004. I will vote, less than enthusiastically for McCain, but very enthusiastically for Palin.

The number 1 reason I will vote for McCain is because I believe the next President will have the opportunity to nominate at least two, and possibly three, judges to the U.S. Supreme Court. If McCain is elected and is true to his word (which I believe he will be – one thing I like about McCain is that, agree or disagree with his positions, he appears to be a man of his word), then I believe he will appoint justices who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. I believe that this election offers the best opportunity to change the highest court in the land that we have had in 35 years and may have for the next 35 years.

However, as important as that is, I do not believe it is politics that is the major front in the war against the evil of abortion. The number one front is spiritual and we will only conquer on that front when we turn hearts and minds back to God. We need, though, to wage this war on all fronts – spiritual, political, economic, cultural, etc.

If Obama is elected, then it could very well be that God, as He did in the Old Testament with the Israelites, is giving us exactly what we deserve. We, as a country, and in many instances within the Catholic Church, have turned away from God. We think the power resides with us, instead of with God. So, God lets us have what we want, and what we deserve. Then, disaster strikes, and we turn back to God (hopefully). Maybe that’s what electing a radically pro-abortion candidate will lead to, but we cannot vote for an evil in the hopes that it will get so bad that God will allow even more evil to befall us, and we cannot refrain from voting against an evil with that same hope. We must fight evil wherever and whenever we come across it.

Regarding voting for a 3rd party candidate, as I did in ‘96, or not voting at all, the Bishops have not spoken out about that as far as I am aware. My personal opinion is that voting for a 3rd party pro-life candidate – if there is one on your ballot – is perfectly acceptable from a moral standpoint. Not voting at all, is obviously better than voting for a pro-abortion candidate, and could lead, in the long run, to a party paying more attention to the pro-life vote it has too often neglected. So, again, in my opinion, not voting – in the hopes of increasing the long-term impact of the pro-life vote – may be a morally acceptable option. However, it is an option that should be taken only after carefully considering and praying about the judicial front in this war on abortion, and after talking with your pastor and possibly even your bishop.

Question: While we strive to align all of our personal beliefs with the Church to be sure, we acknowledge that we live in what Biden (a Catholic himself) refers to as a ‘pluralistic society.’ Make no mistake about it—We are Pro Life. That does not mean, however, that there should not be abortion ‘rights.’ While God’s word is clear, it is not for us to IMPOSE and REQUIRE that our beliefs be honored by everyone. We can (strive to) live by God’s laws and set a good example, and we can passionately share with people our personal stance on the issues, but it is certainly not for me to DICTATE that other people live by my (still very nieve and childlike) view of God. We are not the judge—God is.

This is something along the lines of the “separation of Church and State” argument. This statement is a beautiful example of what I like to call…stupidity. This person claims to be “pro-life,” but because we live in a “pluralistic society” she says we must not “IMPOSE and REQUIRE that our beliefs be honored by everyone!” And that it is not for us to “DICTATE that other people live by my…view of God.” So, since we live in a pluralistic society, that means there should be abortion “rights.”

So, let me sum up what she is essentially saying here. I believe murdering babies is wrong. But, we need to have abortion “rights” for those who believe it isn’t wrong. We shouldn’t therefore try to pass laws to protect unborn human beings. Assuming that she believes stealing is also wrong, and this belief being based on the Commandments (Thou shalt not steal) and therefore based on her “naive and childlike” view of God, then I assume she believes we must also have some theft “rights,” as we cannot IMPOSE our beliefs on others. We should also have rape “rights,” for those in our pluralistic society who believe rape is okay. We must also have slavery “rights,” for those in our pluralistic society who believe slavery is okay. So, if a Muslim, whose religion allows for the institution of slavery, wants to own a slave, then we cannot REQUIRE them to not do so. So many people have lost the ability to think…it really is sad.

Murder is a moral evil. So, if we want to live in this pluralistic society, then we need to have murder “rights” for those who believe murder is okay. Wait a minute…she already said that.
Abortion is the murder of a human being and she says we should have abortion “rights,” so she is in essence saying that we should have murder “rights.” And that we cannot DICTATE otherwise to anyone.

Again, an unfortunately not-so-rare example of stupidity.

Question: What you don’t deal with in this article is that George Bush hasn’t overturned Roe v. Wade—or even TRIED to overturn this verdict in the two terms he has been President. The abortion issue is being used by the Republicans to get votes from Catholics and other pro-life advocates when in reality these administrations are the FARTHEST thing from Christian. You can’t vote on one issue—and on this I think you all are wrong unfortunately. WAKE UP—they are using you!

Sorry, but you can and must vote on one issue, when that issue is LIFE ITSELF! WAKE UP, back atchya! Without life, everything else is irrelevant. Pope John Paul II said so. Pope Benedict has said so. The Bishops, as a group and individually, say so. Common sense says so. Mother Teresa said that if we allow mothers to kill their babies, then what reason can we give to say that strangers should not kill strangers.

Regarding George Bush, he actually did set the stage for the overturning of Roe v. Wade with his appointment of Judges Alito and Roberts to the Supreme Court. As I said above, I believe he could have and should have done more, but at least he did that. This next President will more than likely have the opportunity to appoint two new Supreme Court justices, and very possibly three. If we get 3 more Roberts or Alitos or Scalias or Thomases, we will have an excellent chance to overturn Roe.

For that possibility, and that possibility alone, I will vote for McCain. This issue outweighs all others either individually or as a group. Listen to what Cardinal George has said: “[Too many Americans have] no recognition of the fact that children continue to be killed [by abortion], and we live therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This can’t be something you start playing off pragmatically against other issues.”

Question: You say anyone who votes for a pro-choice candidate is gambling their soul. Well, what if both candidates support abortion or some intrinsic evil? What do we do now? Don’t vote? What if John McCain thinks contraception is OK? I don’t know if he does or not, but are we still supporting an intrinsic evil by voting for someone who thinks contraception is OK? What about voting for someone who supports programs to hurt the poor rather than help them? Would that not be supporting an intrinsic evil? These are just questions to consider when you say someone is gambling their soul by voting for a pro-choice candidate.

Actually, I’m not the one who said you are gambling your soul if you vote for a pro-abortion candidate, the bishops are saying that – I’m just letting you know what they are saying. If both candidates support an intrinsic evil then, as I said above, Church teaching allows for voting for the lesser of the two evils. What John McCain privately thinks about contraception is irrelevant to the argument. John McCain’s private beliefs on masturbation and sex before marriage are also irrelevant to the argument. John McCain’s private views on whether or not the Eucharist is actually the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are also irrelevant to the argument. You are not “supporting” an intrinsic evil by voting for a candidate who privately believes in an intrinsic evil.

Regarding voting for someone whose programs would “hurt the poor,” well any program that hurts the poor would be intrinsically evil. But, two things to remember: 1) We must be very careful in our judgments of what actually hurts the poor and what helps the poor. I’ve worked for a non-profit that helped the poor – I ran a food bank and a free heath clinic and several other programs aimed at lifting people out of poverty. I can tell you from first hand experience that the welfare policies that have been pushed by the Democrats, and many Republicans, in the last 20 or so years, have not been good for the poor. What people claim helps the poor, actually hurts them in many instances. 2) Even if we could say that a particular candidate’s welfare policies would definitively “hurt” the poor, that would not be the moral equivalent of killing millions of babies in the womb. One would still, from a moral standpoint, be required to vote for the lesser of two evils – the candidate whose policies may “hurt” the poor vs. the candidate whose policies result in the deaths of millions of human beings.

Question: Instead of concentrating on legalistic concerns (i.e., one’s right to do or not to do something), attention could be directed to human dignity concerns like what to do with an enfeebled Grandma, a poor neighborhood, the war in Iraq.

The right to life is a “legalistic concern” and not a “human dignity” concern? Turn off the TV! Read a book! Engage your brain! What if someone pointed a gun at this guy and he begged for his life saying, “I have a right to life!” And the gunman said, “Oh, please…don’t bother me with legalistic concerns.”

And, finally, someone forwarded me something written by Olga Bonfiglio, who is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She said this:

“Frankly, it is discouraging to me as a white, church-going Catholic and a convert, to see political ideologues pushing this ONE issue [abortion] as their basis for promoting candidates for elective office when there are so many other problems troubling our nation and our world.”

Olga, please give me one other “problem,” or any number of problems all piled together, that has resulted in the death of almost 50 million innocent human beings in this country alone, and close to 1 billion innocent human beings internationally, in the last 35 years?! Olga, with all due respect, but it is discouraging to me as a white, church-going Catholic, to see people with brains that are obviously not fully engaged being employed as college professors. And, it is even more discouraging to me, as a white, church-going Catholic, to see people who call themselves Catholic so flippantly dismiss the teachings of their Church, the words of Popes and bishops, the battle that pro-lifers have been fighting on behalf of the unborn for the last 35 years, and the deaths of 50 million innocents in this country alone.

As Bishop Robert J. Herman, the administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, has said:

“My desire for a good economy cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion. My desire to end the war in Iraq cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion.”"

Warriors with Our Eyes Fixed on Heaven

[By Bp. Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph, Missouri]

Last Saturday I had the privilege of consecrating the restored church of Old St. Patrick. This is the oldest existing Catholic church in Kansas City. It will serve as the Oratory for the Latin Mass community which first began here under Bishop John Sullivan, and for many years has shared the parish of Our Lady of Sorrows.


One of the beauties of the Traditional Latin High Mass that I celebrated is that it highlights a most profound aspect of the Mass, namely our participation with the Communion of Saints. The high altar, multiple candles, incense and Gregorian chant, collectively give us a striking image of the Heavenly Jerusalem which is our ultimate home. Every Mass celebrates this reality, but I must admit that the traditional Mass captured this magnificent expression of the ultimate hope and goal of Christians in a powerful way. We should reflect on this often, because the ultimate goal of everything we do is to get ourselves to heaven and bring with us as many as we can.


The month of November begins with the two great celebrations: All Saints day (November 1) and the Commemoration of All Souls (November 2). These feasts celebrate our communion with the "Church triumphant" in heaven, and the "Church suffering" in purgatory. Today I would like to share a few brief comments about what we have sometimes called the "Church militant," the Church here on earth.


We, the Church on earth, have a very special challenge as participants in the grace and life of Jesus Christ to "fight" against the enemies of Christ's justice and truth and light and life. We must be attentive to the demands of this daily "battle" in a peaceable but serious manner.


I am sometimes amazed at the casual manner with which Christians, Catholics included, take up our life within what Pope John Paul II rightly called the "culture of death." The Church, by comparison, reminds us that we are engaged - by reason of our Baptism and Confirmation - in a battle, "not with flesh and blood, but with the principalities and powers, with the rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in heaven." (Eph 6:12) Jesus Christ has won the ultimate battle, but we, in the course of our human life must make our choice, determining on whose side we will live and die. Whose side will you choose?!


What is at stake in this battle is our immortal soul, our salvation. My responsibility as bishop is with the eternal destiny of those entrusted to my care. My total energies must be directed to the well being of those who otherwise may come under the spell of a radically flawed and fundamentally distorted moral sense, at odds with what our Mother the Church teaches. There are objective and transcendent truths. There is such a thing as right and wrong. There is a legitimate hierarchy of moral evils, and the direct willful destruction of human life can never be justified; it can never be supported. Do you believe this firm teaching of the Church?


Did you know that in Canada priests and Christian ministers have already been brought before tribunals for preaching and teaching in support of marriage? They are charged with "hate speech" against homosexuality. In light of the tyranny of choice growing each day in our own beloved country, we ought to be ready for similar attacks on religious freedom. We must not fail to preach the Gospel. We can not withhold the truth of our faith. That is why I will never be silent about human life. It is why I am proud of so many others - bishops, priests, deacons, religious and laity - who are not afraid to speak out about the values that matter most. What about you?!


Our Lord told His apostles that they would be hated by the world, just as He was. Nearly all of them died a martyr's death. As warriors in the Church militant, we must never resort to violence. But we must stand up fearlessly against the agents of death, the enemies of human life. Human beings are not Satan, but we know too well that they can come under his spell. They can become willing agents of death, numbed and poisoned in this culture of death. What about you?!


As we begin this month of November, the month of the Church, let us call upon the Saints to inspire us, befriend us, and pray for us. Let us offer many prayers and sacrifices for the poor souls who have gone before us. They need our meritorious suffrages to help them reach heaven.


And let us resolve to be warriors of the Church militant; warriors with our eyes fixed on heaven. Let us ask God's mercy and strength to persevere in our call - individual and collective - to holiness. Mary, Mother of the Church, Pray for us!

Abp. Nienstedt: Obama’s Freedom of Choice Act is bad legislation

The Freedom of Choice Act will be considered by Congress (S. 1173, H.R. 1964) when it reconvenes in January.

Contrary to its deceptively clever title, FOCA would create a “fundamental right” for a woman to “terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability” or to “terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.”

No governmental agency at any level (federal, state or local) could “deny or interfere with” this right nor discriminate against the exercise of this right “in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services or information.”

Devastating effects

If enacted, this would become the first time in our nation’s history that abortion is established as an “entitlement.” This, in effect, would move our country beyond even the Supreme Court’s decision of Roe v. Wade.

It would also do away with a large number of existing state laws on abortion, substantially impede the ability of states to regulate abortion, and override nearly 40 years of jurisprudential experience on the subject of abortion.

Legal experts say it would likely invalidate informed consent laws, parental notification laws, laws promoting maternal health (if they result in an increased cost for abortions), abortion clinic regulations (even those designed to make abortion safer for women), laws prohibiting a particular abortion procedure (such as partial-birth abortion) and laws requiring that abortions only be performed by a licensed physician.

It is hard to imagine a more radical piece of pro-abortion legislation. FOCA would have a devastatingly destructive impact on the government’s ability to regulate abortion.

I urge our readers to contact their senators and representatives and tell them to vote against this bill.

Cardinal’s warning

Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of our U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said on the occasion of last month’s Respect Life Sunday:

“FOCA establishes abortion as a ‘fundamental right’ throughout the nine months of pregnancy, and forbids any law or policy that could ‘interfere’ with that right or ‘discriminate’ against it in public funding and programs. If FOCA became law, hundreds of reasonable, widely supported, and constitutionally sound abortion regulations now in place would be invalidated.

“Gone would be laws providing for informed consent, and parental consent or notification in the case of minors. Laws protecting women from unsafe abortion clinics and from abortion practitioners who are not physicians would be overridden. Restrictions on partial-birth and other late-term abortions would be eliminated. FOCA would knock down laws protecting the conscience rights of nurses, doctors and hospitals with moral objections to abortion, and force taxpayers to fund abortions throughout the United States.

“We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot tolerate an even greater loss of innocent human lives. We cannot subject more women and men to the post-abortion grief and suffering that our counselors and priests encounter daily in Project Rachel programs across America.

“For 24 years, the Catholic Church has provided free, confidential counseling to individuals seeking emotional and spiritual healing after an abortion, whether their own or a loved one’s. We look forward to the day when these counseling services are no longer needed, when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law. If FOCA is enacted, however, that day may recede into the very distant future.”

In effect, FOCA would certainly be a boon to the abortion industry with the government forced to condone and promote such procedures. Now is the time to reduce, not increase, the incidence of abortion. Now is the time to work for the defeat of the Freedom of Choice Act.

God love you!

Excerpt from the "Letter to Diognetus", a 1st or 2nd century Christian writing:

"Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.

[Note: Exposing children on hillsides was a common practise of getting rid of disabled children.]

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself." [Thank you, Adoro.]

Archbishop Eldon F. Curtiss of Omaha: Voting Statement: http://www.archomaha.org/newsandevents/pdf/ArchbishopsVotingStatement.pdf

Over 80 Bishops Say Abortion/Life Issues Defining Issues of Election: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08102710.html

May the Lord have mercy on us all.

From a Current Radio Ad

"This is Bishop Rene H. Gracida, reminding all Catholics that they must vote in this election with an informed conscience. A Catholic cannot be said to have voted in this election with a good conscience if they have voted for a pro-abortion candidate. Barack Hussein Obama is a pro-abortion candidate."

(This ad can be freely downloaded and distributed and suchlike for free, period, etc. Please see www.randallterry.com for details.)

In the Defense of Life

[The following articles have been reposted from other sources. If those with the legal right to do so desire one or more of them removed, I will do so immediately.]


Our Moral Responsibility as Catholic Citizens
Joint Pastoral Letter – September 8, 2008
Most Reverend Joseph F. Naumann, Archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas
Most Reverend Robert W. Finn, Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph

Dear Friends in Christ,

With the approaching general election this November, we believe this to be an important moment for us to address together the responsibility of Catholics to be well informed and well formed voters.

Except for the election of our next President, the people of Northwestern Missouri and Northeastern Kansas will be choosing different candidates for different offices in our two dioceses. Yet the fundamental moral principles that should guide our choices as Catholic voters are the same.

For generations it has been the determination of Catholic Bishops not to endorse political candidates or parties. This approach was initiated by Archbishop John Carroll – the very first Catholic Bishop serving in the United States. It was long before there was an Internal Revenue Service Code, and had nothing to do with a desire to preserve tax-exempt status. Rather the Church in the United States realized early on that it must not tether the credibility of the Church to the uncertain future actions or statements of a particular politician or party. This understanding of the Church’s proper role in society was affirmed in the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern Word: “The Church, by reason of her role and competence, is not identified with any political community nor bound by its ties to any political system. It is at once the sign and the safeguard of the transcendental dimension of the human person.”(Gaudium et Spes n.76)

A Right to Speak Out on Issues

At the same time, it is important to note that the Catholic Church in the United States has always cherished its right to speak to the moral issues confronting our nation. The Church has understood its responsibility in a democratic society to do its best to form properly the consciences of her members. In continuity with the long history of the efforts of American Bishops to assist Catholics with the proper formation of their consciences, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) this past November issued a statement: Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. In that document our brother bishops took care to note: “This statement is intended to reflect and complement, not substitute for, the ongoing teachings of bishops in our own dioceses and states.”

It is in this context that we offer the following reflections to assist the Catholic people of Northwestern Missouri and Northeastern Kansas in forming their consciences in preparation for casting their votes this November.

Many Issues: Prudential Judgments

Every Catholic should be concerned about a wide range of issues. We believe in a consistent ethic that evaluates every issue through the prism of its impact on the life and dignity of the human person. Catholics should care about public policies that:
a) promote a just and lasting peace in the world,
b) protect our nation from terrorism and other security threats,
c) welcome and uphold the rights of immigrants,
d) enable health care to be accessible and affordable,
e) manifest a special concern for the poor by attending to their immediate needs and assisting them to gain economic independence,
f) protect the rights of parents to be the primary educators of their children,
g) create business and employment opportunities making it possible for individuals to be able to provide for their own material needs and the needs of their families,
h) reform the criminal justice system by providing better for the needs of the victims of crimes, protecting the innocent, administering justice fairly, striving to rehabilitate inmates, and eliminating the death penalty,
i) foster a proper stewardship of the earth that God has entrusted to our care.

This is by no means an exhaustive list.

While the above issues, as well as many others, have important moral dimensions, Catholics may and do disagree about the most effective public policies for responding to them. How these issues are best addressed and what particular candidates are best equipped to address them requires prudential judgments – defined as circumstances in which people can ethically reach different conclusions. Catholics have an obligation to study, reflect and pray over the relative merits of the different policy approaches proposed by candidates. Catholics have a special responsibility to be well informed regarding the guidance given by the Church pertaining to the moral dimensions of these matters. In the end, Catholics in good conscience can disagree in their judgments about many aspects of the best policies and the most effective candidates.

The Priority of Rejecting Intrinsic Evil

There are, however, some issues that always involve doing evil, such as legalized abortion, the promotion of same-sex unions and ‘marriages,’ repression of religious liberty, as well as public policies permitting euthanasia, racial discrimination or destructive human embryonic stem cell research. A properly formed conscience must give such issues priority even over other matters with important moral dimensions. To vote for a candidate who supports these intrinsic evils because he or she supports these evils is to participate in a grave moral evil. It can never be justified.

Even if we understand the moral dimensions of the full array of social issues and have correctly prioritized those involving intrinsic evils, we still must make prudential judgments in the selection of candidates. In an ideal situation, we may have a choice between two candidates who both oppose public policies that involve intrinsic evils. In such a case, we need to study their approach on all the other issues that involve the promotion of the dignity of the human person and prayerfully choose the best individual.

Limiting Grave Evil

In another circumstance, we may be confronted with a voting choice between two candidates who support abortion, though one may favor some limitations on it, or he or she may oppose public funding for abortion. In such cases, the appropriate judgment would be to select the candidate whose policies regarding this grave evil will do less harm. We have a responsibility to limit evil if it is not possible at the moment to eradicate it completely.

The same principle would be compelling to a conscientious voter who was confronted with two candidates who both supported same-sex unions, but one opposed abortion and destructive embryonic research while the other was permissive in these regards. The voter, who himself or herself opposed these policies, would have insufficient moral justification voting for the more permissive candidate. However, he or she might justify resorting to a write-in vote or abstaining from voting at all in this case, because of a conscientious objection.

In 2004 a group of United States Bishops, acting on behalf of the USCCB and requesting counsel about the responsibilities of Catholic politicians and voters, received a memo from the office of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, which stated: “A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

Could a Catholic in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports legalized abortion when there is a choice of another candidate who does not support abortion or any other intrinsically evil policy? Could a voter’s preference for the candidate’s positions on the pursuit of peace, economic policies benefiting the poor, support for universal health care, a more just immigration policy, etc. overcome a candidate’s support for legalized abortion? In such a case, the Catholic voter must ask and answer the question: What could possibly be a proportionate reason for the more than 45 million children killed by abortion in the past 35 years? Personally, we cannot conceive of such a proportionate reason.

Time for Catholics to Exercise Moral Leadership

The number of Catholics and the percentage of Catholics in the United States have never been greater. There has never been a moment in our nation’s history when more Catholics served in elective office, presided in our courts or held other positions of power and authority. It would be wrong for us to use our numbers and influence to try to compel others to accept our religious and theological beliefs. However, it would be equally wrong for us to fail to be engaged in the greatest human rights struggle of our time, namely the need to protect the right to life of the weakest and most vulnerable.

We need committed Catholics in both major political parties to insist upon respect for the values they share with so many other people of faith and good will regarding the protection of the sanctity of human life, the upholding of the institution of marriage between a man and a woman as the foundation of family life, as well as the protection of religious liberty and conscience rights. It is particularly disturbing to witness the spectacle of Catholics in public life vocally upset with the Church for teaching what it has always taught on these moral issues for 2,000 years, but silent in objecting to the embrace, by either political party, of the cultural trends of the past few decades that are totally inconsistent with our nation’s history of defending the weakest and most vulnerable.

Thank you for taking time to consider these reflections on applying the moral principles that must guide our choices as voters. We are called to be faithful Catholics and loyal Americans. In fact, we can only be good citizens if we allow ourselves to be informed by the unchanging moral principles of our Catholic faith.

Bishop Vasa: Pro-Abortion Candidates are "Disqualified" - Clarifies "Faithful Citizenship"
LifeSiteNews ^ | 9/12/08 | John-Henry Westen

Posted on Saturday, September 13, 2008 12:25:25 PM by wagglebee

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, September 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During the opening day of the Catholic Leadership Conference yesterday, Baker Oregon Bishop Robert Vasa clarified the teaching of the US Bishops Conference regarding voting in favor of pro-abortion politicians. The question of whether Catholics may remain in good standing with the Church while voting for pro-abortion politicians was raised.

Bishop Vasa responded referencing the document of the United States Catholic Conference titled "Faithful Citizenship", noting a pro-abortion stance disqualifies candidates from consideration by faithful Catholics.

LifeSiteNews.com spoke with Bishop Vasa after the session. Describing the deliberation among US bishops over the "Faithful Citizenship" document, he said: "When we were working on the document 'Faithful Citizenship', and the issue of whether or not a person's adamant pro-abortion position was a disqualifying condition, the general sense was 'yes that is a disqualifying condition'."

However, during the discussions mention was made of the document by Pope Benedict just prior his elevation to the pontificate which noted that Catholics may in good conscience vote for a politician who supports abortion in the presence of "proportionate reasons."

Bishop Vasa explained the notion of proportionate reasons, saying, "The conditions under which an individual may be able to vote for a pro-abortion candidate would apply only if all the candidates are equally pro-abortion."

He added: "And then you begin to screen for the other issues and make a conscientious decision to vote for this pro-abortion candidate because his positions on these other issues are more in keeping with good Catholic values." In that case, he said, "It doesn't mean that you in any way support or endorse a pro-abortion position but you take a look in that context at the lesser of two evils."

Speaking of politicians with a pro-abortion stand he said, "When we have someone who has that stand on a disqualifying issue, then the other issues, in many ways, do not matter because they are already wrong on that absolutely fundamental issue."

Only when taken to a level of insanity could a 'pro-war' candidate be considered on par with a pro-abortion candidate in the Bishop's view. "If we had a candidate in favor of a war in Iraq in which we decimate the entire population and we kill as many civilians to impose as much terror on everybody as possible to make sure . . . If that was in opposition to a pro-abortion person then I'd have a real conflict of conscience because you'd have a direct and intentional killing of innocent persons on one hand and the direct and intentional killing of persons on the other hand, said the Baker Bishop.

"But we don't have that issue with capital punishment, we don't have that issue with the war in Iraq we don't have that issue with the present Administration," he added.

Bishop Vasa explained that as a man from the Midwest, the analogy of a combine worked well to describe how a sifting of candidates could be undertaken. He described a combine as having a series of sieves, the first of which eliminates the largest and most obvious refuse. In the analogy the first screen would eliminate pro-abortion candidates, "to weed out the greatest evil," he said.

He concluded saying, "Abortion needs to be in our country a defining issue and we ought not be afraid to make it a defining issue because when we do that we will have an end of abortion in this country."




"Church teaching could not be more clear on this point. The Magisterium has stated repeatedly that direct abortion is intrinsically evil under all circumstances, and that it is immoral to vote for a politician because he supports abortion. The Church has also taught that voting for a politician in spite of the fact that he supports abortion is at least remote cooperation with evil, and so can be justified only when there is a proportionate reason. I endorse this latter point entirely. But the problem, for those who wish to take advantage of this to support pro-abortion candidates, is that there is no issue on the contemporary American political scene that is even remotely proportionate to abortion. No issue exists that can be cited as a proportionately moral reason to support a candidate that favors abortion, especially in a Presidential election.

Admittedly this is partly a prudential judgment, for it involves not only the nature of the evil involved but how widespread it is—how many people are impacted by it. The Church’s teaching authority can help us to discern that murder is a more serious evil than theft, but the Church can employ no special charism to determine how large a problem murder may be in a particular society at a particular time. If the murder rate is very low, and the theft rate high, one is certainly justified in voting for a politician who concentrates his attention on reducing theft. But abortion is not only in the most serious class of moral evils (the deliberate taking of an innocent human life), but it affects more people than any other comparably serious crime.

The number of abortions reported in the United States is over one million per year. Since abortion is notoriously under-reported, the actual numbers are substantially higher. For the sake of argument, we will suggest that there are at least 1.5 million abortions annually in the United States. By contrast, there are about 17,000 other homicides per year in our country, a number two orders of magnitude lower. In fact, abortion is in roughly the same class as far less serious (but still significant) crimes such as burglary and domestic violence assaults, which numbered about 2.1 million each in 2005.

When compared with the issues that are widely argued to be somehow proportionate, the lack of proportionality is even more astonishing. Thus, while abortion claims between one and two million lives per year in the United States, premature deaths due to inadequate health care are estimated at about 34,000 per year; the Iraq War has claimed a total of roughly 55,000 American and Iraqi lives since its beginning several years ago; and the death penalty claimed the lives of 42 persons in the United States last year, most of whom were presumably at least guilty of a serious crime. You can find all these statistics in about five minutes of research on the web. I submit, again, that no voter who is guided by reason can even begin to make the argument that there is an issue in the United States presidential election that is remotely proportionate to abortion.

False Assumptions

The argument that there are legitimate reasons to support a pro-abortion candidate is weakened still further when two common but false assumptions are brought into play. The first false assumption is that there is a moral equivalence between a candidate who places his emphasis on other issues and a candidate who is actually in favor of abortion. I stated earlier that, if the murder rate were very low and the theft rate very high, one might well vote for a politician who advances a good program for reducing theft. But what if this same candidate is determined to protect the right to murder or even seeks to expand murder's “availability”? Surely this changes both the moral equation, and the potential consequences.

The second false assumption is that abortion is so endemic to our culture that there isn’t likely to be much that any candidate can do about it; therefore, whether a President is pro-abortion or pro-life will make very little practical difference. While I would reject this assumption for symbolic reasons alone (what impact does it have on a culture to place in its highest office a person who publicly advocates murder?), the argument rests on so deep an ignorance of American political life as to be utterly ludicrous. The primary political reason abortion is both legal and extremely widespread in our culture is because we are increasingly ruled by an oligarchy of activist judges who wish to remake society in their own image. At the apex of this oligarchy is the Supreme Court, and Supreme Court justices are appointed for life by the President of the United States. Apart from all other considerations, this political fact is of capital importance in the selection of the next President, especially with the Court in many ways fairly evenly divided, and with an opportunity for the next President to appoint two or more justices.

Moreover, in the culture wars overall, our nation is fairly evenly divided. The future of abortion (along with many related grave evils) will depend on relatively small shifts in American voting patterns. Yes, it is a difficult and long struggle, but it is hardly an irrelevant struggle or a struggle with no hope of success. Persons who are very much more pro-life than would be suggested by existing rulings and laws are not in a tiny minority. On the various related issues, they are always close to half of the population, and often more than half. The person who argues that there is nothing we can do about abortion, and therefore it is perfectly moral to vote based on other considerations, is simply denying—in the midst of hotly contested circumstances—that there is at least one very important thing he can do: He can refuse to vote for those who support abortion.

Thanks, But I’m Not Personally Affected

I could go on at considerable length about the links between abortion and so much else that horribly afflicts the American people and their social fabric: the breakdown of the family, the objectification and abuse of women, contraception, rampant divorce, female poverty, ubiquitous pornography, experimentation on human persons, euthanasia and everything else that attends both irresponsible sex and increasing callousness toward the human person. But it should be enough to focus on the unmistakable fact that well over one million innocent persons are being willfully and directly murdered each year, and that this is happening not in a few inaccessible locations but all around us, in our local communities, as part of the fabric of our daily lives.

The bottom line is that to most of us the unborn child is invisible. It is not as if we have to witness the fear, the screams of terror, the bloodshed, the grief and the devastation that accompanies the murder of older persons, whom we often encounter and sometimes come to know. No, abortion is rather a case of out of sight, out of mind, for a little baby that hardly anybody wanted anyway, and we find it very easy to go on with our lives, attending to the issues that affect us personally, hobnobbing with those we find congenial, feeling secure in being part of the status quo, and thankfully aware that we’re not foolish enough to rock the boat. Indeed, with respect to abortion, the commitment to resist is very seldom the result of an emotional process; it is very seldom governed by our feelings. Very few pro-lifers are moved by feelings of solidarity with pre-born children. How could they be?

Instead, the pro-life moral and political commitment is a rational commitment: Abortion is a serious evil, it is an epidemic evil, and it is linked to a great many other evils in our culture. Therefore I will oppose it, root and branch, tooth and nail. Unfortunately, those who seek instead to justify with specious arguments their desire to vote for pro-abortion candidates make no such intellectual commitment. As we have seen, their arguments are utterly bankrupt. For where is their proportionate issue? Global warming? Tax revisions that might possibly benefit the poor? The price of gas? No, we are talking here about death, death immediately before us and on a grand scale. That is why those who justify voting for pro-abortion candidates are so obviously wrong, so seriously wrong and—let us tell the whole truth—so dangerously wrong."

by Dr. Jeff Mirus, September 5, 2008 [http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/articles.cfm?id=265]

[The following is by Justin Cardinal Rigali, on the occasion of Respect Life Sunday.]

On October 5, 2008, Catholics across the United States will again celebrate Respect Life Sunday. Throughout the month of October, Catholic parishes and organizations will sponsor hundreds of educational conferences, prayer services, and opportunities for public witness, as well as events to raise funds for programs assisting those in need. Such initiatives are integral to the Church's ongoing effort to help build a culture in which every human life without exception is respected and defended.

Education and advocacy during Respect Life Month address a broad range of moral and public policy issues. Among these, the care of persons with disabilities and those nearing the end of life is an enduring concern. Some medical ethicists wrongly promote ending the lives of patients with serious physical and mental disabilities by withdrawing their food and water, even though -- or in some cases precisely because -- they are not imminently dying. This November, the citizens of Washington State will vote on a ballot initiative to legalize doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. In neighboring Oregon, where assisted suicide is already legal, the state has refused to cover the cost of life-sustaining treatments for some patients facing terminal illness, while callously informing them that Oregon will pay for suicide pills. Such policies betray the ideal of America as a compassionate society honoring the inherent worth of every human being.

Embryonic stem cell research also presents grave ethical concerns. The Catholic Church strongly supports promising and ethically sound stem cell research -- and strongly opposes killing week-old human embryos, or human beings at any stage, to extract their stem cells. We applaud the remarkable therapeutic successes that have been achieved using stem cells from cord blood and adult tissues. We vigorously oppose initiatives, like the one confronting Michigan voters in November, that would endorse the deliberate destruction of developing human beings for embryonic stem cell research.

Turning to abortion, we note that most Americans favor banning all abortion or permitting it only in very rare cases (danger to the mother's life or cases of rape or incest). Also encouraging is the finding of a recent Guttmacher Institute study that the U.S. abortion rate declined 26% between 1989 and 2004. The decline was steepest, 58%, among girls under 18. An important factor in this trend is that teens increasingly are choosing to remain abstinent until their late teens or early 20s. Regrettably, when they do become sexually active prior to marrying, many become pregnant and choose abortion -- the abortion rate increased among women aged 20 and older between 1974 and 2004, although the rate is now gradually declining.

Today, however, we face the threat of a federal bill that, if enacted, would obliterate virtually all the gains of the past 35 years and cause the abortion rate to skyrocket. The "Freedom of Choice Act" ("FOCA") has many Congressional sponsors, some of whom have pledged to act swiftly to help enact this proposed legislation when Congress reconvenes in January. FOCA establishes abortion as a "fundamental right" throughout the nine months of pregnancy, and forbids any law or policy that could "interfere" with that right or "discriminate" against it in public funding and programs. If FOCA became law, hundreds of reasonable, widely supported, and constitutionally sound abortion regulations now in place would be invalidated. Gone would be laws providing for informed consent, and parental consent or notification in the case of minors. Laws protecting women from unsafe abortion clinics and from abortion practitioners who are not physicians would be overridden.

Restrictions on partial-birth and other late-term abortions would be eliminated. FOCA would knock down laws protecting the conscience rights of nurses, doctors, and hospitals with moral objections to abortion, and force taxpayers to fund abortions throughout the United States. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot tolerate an even greater loss of innocent human lives. We cannot subject more women and men to the post-abortion grief and suffering that our counselors and priests encounter daily in Project Rachel programs across America.

For twenty-four years, the Catholic Church has provided free, confidential counseling to individuals seeking emotional and spiritual healing after an abortion, whether their own or a loved one's. We look forward to the day when these counseling services are no longer needed, when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law. If FOCA is enacted, however, that day may recede into the very distant future.

In this Respect Life Month, let us rededicate ourselves to defending the basic rights of those who are weakest and most marginalized: the poor, the homeless, the innocent unborn, and the frail and elderly who need our respect and our assistance. In this and in so many ways we will truly build a culture of life.

[The following blurbs are from OnTheIssues.org]

McCain:

* Pro-life and an advocate for the Rights of Man everywhere. (Feb 2008)
* GovWatch: 1999: Don't force women to have illegal operations. (Feb 2008)
* Abortion issue shows what kind of country we are. (Aug 2007)
* Concerned if women undergo illegal dangerous operations. (May 2007)
* Supports federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. (May 2007)
* Prosecute abortion doctors, not women who get them. (Jan 2000)
* “Family Conference” if daughter wanted an abortion. (Jan 2000)
* Abortion OK if raped; and no testing for rape. (Jan 2000)
* Supports fetal tissue research; against over-intensity. (Jan 2000)
* Overturn Roe v. Wade, but keep incest & rape exceptions. (Jan 2000)
* Support adoption & foster care; work together on abortion. (Oct 1999)
* Wants Roe vs. Wade made irrelevant, but would not repeal it. (Aug 1999)
* Opposes partial-birth abortions & public financing. (Aug 1999)
* Nominate justices based on experience, and values. (Jun 1999)
* Restrict abortions; no partial-birth; no public funding. (Jul 1998)

Voting Record

* Supports repealing Roe v. Wade. (May 2007)
* Voted YES on defining unborn child as eligible for SCHIP. (Mar 2008)
* Voted YES on barring HHS grants to organizations that perform abortions. (Oct 2007)
* Voted YES on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines. (Apr 2007)
* Voted YES on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)
* Voted NO on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)
* Voted YES on criminal penalty for harming unborn fetus during other crime. (Mar 2004)
* Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions except for maternal life. (Mar 2003)
* Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
* Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
* Voted YES on banning human cloning. (Feb 1998)
* Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec 2003)
* Expand embryonic stem cell research. (Jun 2004)
* Rated 75% by the NRLC, indicating a mixed record on abortion. (Dec 2006)
* Prohibit transporting minors across state lines for abortion. (Jan 2008)

Obama:

* 1990: Wrote law article that that fetus cannot sue mother. (Aug 2008)
* FactCheck: Abortions HAVE gone down under Pres. Bush. (Aug 2008)
* Ok for state to restrict late-term partial birth abortion. (Apr 2008)
* We can find common ground between pro-choice and pro-life. (Apr 2008)
* Undecided on whether life begins at conception. (Apr 2008)
* Teach teens about abstinence and also about contraception. (Apr 2008)
* GovWatch: Obama's "present" votes were a requested strategy. (Feb 2008)
* Expand access to contraception; reduce unintended pregnancy. (Feb 2008)
* Rated 100% by NARAL on pro-choice votes in 2005, 2006 & 2007. (Jan 2008)
* Voted against banning partial birth abortion. (Oct 2007)
* Stem cells hold promise to cure 70 major diseases. (Aug 2007)
* Trust women to make own decisions on partial-birth abortion. (Apr 2007)
* Extend presumption of good faith to abortion protesters. (Oct 2006)
* Constitution is a living document; no strict constructionism. (Oct 2006)
* Moral accusations from pro-lifers are counterproductive. (Oct 2004)
* Pass the Stem Cell Research Bill. (Jun 2004)
* Protect a woman's right to choose. (May 2004)

Voting Record

* Supports Roe v. Wade. (Jul 1998)
* Voted NO on defining unborn child as eligible for SCHIP. (Mar 2008)
* Voted NO on prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion. (Mar 2008)
* Voted YES on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines. (Apr 2007)
* Voted NO on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)
* Voted YES on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)
* Sponsored bill providing contraceptives for low-income women. (May 2006)
* Rated 0% by the NRLC, indicating a pro-choice stance. (Dec 2006)
* Ensure access to and funding for contraception. (Feb 2007)

[Please note that, in addition to the above, Barack Obama has pledged to pass FOCA ([the Freedom of Choice Act). For a short brief on the FOCA, please read this document, produced by USCCB's Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.]

DENVER, Colorado, OCT. 17, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver gave tonight at a dinner sponsored by ENDOW (Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women). The talk is titled "Little Murders."

* * *

I want to do three things with my time tonight. First, Terry asked me to talk a bit about my book, "Render Unto Caesar," and I'm happy to do that. Second, I want to talk about some of the lessons we can already draw from this year's election. And third, I want to talk about the mission of ENDOW.

Before I do any of that though, I need to say what a friend of mine calls my "Litany to the IRS." Here it is. I'm not here tonight to tell you how to vote. I don't want to do that, I won't do that, and I don't use code language -- so you don't need to spend any time looking for secret political endorsements.

I plan to speak candidly, but I can only do that if you remember that I'm here as an author and private citizen. I'm not speaking for the Holy See, or the American bishops, or any other bishop, or even officially for the Archdiocese of Denver. So the things I say tonight are my personal views, nothing more. I think they're pretty solidly grounded in Catholic teaching and the heart of the Church, but it's your task as Catholics and citizens to listen, evaluate and then act as you judge best.

As adults, each of us needs to form a strong Catholic conscience. Then we need to follow that conscience when we vote. And then we need to take responsibility for the consequences of the vote we cast. Nobody can do that for us. That's why really knowing and living our Catholic faith is so important. It's the only reliable guide we have for acting in the public square as disciples of Jesus Christ.

So let's talk for a few minutes about "Render Unto Caesar." When people ask me about the book, the questions usually fall into three categories. Why did I write it? What does the book say? And what does the book mean for each of us as individual Catholics? This last question will be a good doorway into talking about the 2008 election, but let's start at the beginning first. Why did I write this book, now?

One answer is simple. A friend asked me to do it. Back in 2004, a young attorney I know ran for public office as a prolife Democrat. He nearly won in a heavily Republican district. But he also discovered how hard it can be to raise money, run a campaign and stay true to your Catholic convictions, all at the same time. After the election he asked me to put my thoughts about faith and politics into a form that other young Catholics could use who were thinking about a political vocation -- and it really is a "vocation."

That's where the idea started. But I also had another reason for doing the book. Frankly, I just got tired of hearing outsiders and insiders tell Catholics to keep quiet about our religious and moral views in the big public debates that involve all of us as a society. That's a kind of bullying, and I don't think Catholics should accept it.

Another reason for writing the book is that when I looked around for a single source that explains the Catholic political vocation in an easy, authentic and engaging way, it just didn't exist. So I thought I might as well try to write it, because a friend told me it would "practically write itself."

Unfortunately, writing a new book is a bit like childbirth. You forget that it hurts until you're living the labor. I didn't remember the experience of my first book until after I signed the contract with Doubleday for my second.

So what does the book say? I think the message of "Render Unto Caesar" can be condensed into a few basic points.

Here's the first point. For many years, studies have shown that Americans have a very poor sense of history, and that's very dangerous, because as Thucydides and Machiavelli and Thomas Jefferson have all said, history matters. It matters because the past shapes the present, and the present shapes the future. If American Catholics don't know history, and especially their own history as Catholics, then somebody else -- and usually somebody not very friendly -- will create their history for them.

Let me put it another way. A man with amnesia has no future and no present because he can't remember his past. The past is a man's anchor in experience and reality. Without it, he may as well be floating in space. In like manner, if we American Catholics don't remember and defend our religious history as a believing people, nobody else will, and then we won't have a future because we won't have a past. If we don't know how the Church worked with or struggled against political rulers in the past, then we can't think clearly about the relations between Church and state today.

Here's the second point. America is not a secular state. As historian Paul Johnson once said, America was "born Protestant." It has uniquely and deeply religious roots. Obviously it has no established Church, and it has non-sectarian public institutions. It also has plenty of room for both believers and non-believers. But the United States was never intended to be a "secular" country in the radical modern sense. Nearly all the Founders were either Christian or at least religion-friendly. And all of our public institutions and all of our ideas about the human person are based in a religiously shaped vocabulary. So if we cut God out of our public life, we cut the foundation out from under our national ideals.

Here's the third point. We need to be very forceful in defending what the words in our political vocabulary really mean. Words are important because they shape our thinking, and our thinking drives our actions. When we subvert the meaning of words like "the common good" or "conscience" or "community" or "family," we undermine the language that sustains our thinking about the law. Dishonest language leads to dishonest debate and bad laws.

Here's an example. We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue, and it's never an end in itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of evil. Likewise, democratic pluralism does not mean that Catholics should be quiet in public about serious moral issues because of some misguided sense of good manners. A healthy democracy requires vigorous moral debate to survive. Real pluralism demands that people of strong beliefs will advance their convictions in the public square -- peacefully, legally and respectfully, but energetically and without embarrassment. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the public conversation.

Here's the fourth point. When Jesus tells the Pharisees and Herodians in the Gospel of Matthew (22:21) to "render unto the Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's," he sets the framework for how we should think about religion and the state even today. Caesar does have rights. We owe civil authority our respect and appropriate obedience. But that obedience is limited by what belongs to God. Caesar is not God. Only God is God, and the state is subordinate and accountable to God for its treatment of human persons, all of whom were created by God. Our job as believers is to figure out what things belong to Caesar, and what things belong to God -- and then to put those things in right order in our own lives, and in our relations with others.

So having said all this, what does the book mean, in practice, for each of us as individual Catholics? It means that we each have a duty to study and grow in our faith, guided by the teaching of the Church. It also means that we have a duty to be politically engaged. Why? Because politics is the exercise of power, and the use of power always has moral content and human consequences.

As Christians, we can't claim to love God and then ignore the needs of our neighbors. Loving God is like loving a spouse. A husband may tell his wife that he loves her, and of course that's very beautiful. But she'll still want to see the evidence in his actions. Likewise if we claim to be "Catholic," we need to prove it by our behavior. And serving other people by working for justice and charity in our nation's political life is one of the very important ways we do that.

The "separation of Church and state" does not mean -- and it can never mean -- separating our Catholic faith from our public witness, our political choices and our political actions. That kind of separation would require Christians to deny who we are; to repudiate Jesus when he commands us to be "leaven in the world" and to "make disciples of all nations." That kind of separation steals the moral content of a society. It's the equivalent of telling a married man that he can't act married in public. Of course, he can certainly do that, but he won't stay married for long.

I began work on "Render Unto Caesar" in July 2006. I made the final changes to the text in November 2007. That's a long time before anyone was nominated for president, and it was Doubleday, not I, that set the book's release date for August 2008. So -- unlike Prof. Douglas Kmiec's recent book, "Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama," which argues a Catholic case for Senator Obama -- I wrote "Render Unto Caesar" with no interest in supporting or attacking any candidate or any political party.

The goal of "Render Unto Caesar" was simply to describe what an authentic Catholic approach to political life looks like, and then to encourage Americans Catholics to live it.

Prof. Kmiec has a strong record of service to the Church and the nation in his past. He served in the Reagan administration, and he supported Mitt Romney's campaign for president before switching in a very public way to Barack Obama earlier this year. In his own book he quotes from "Render Unto Caesar" at some length. In fact, he suggests that his reasoning and mine are "not far distant on the moral inquiry necessary in the election of 2008." Unfortunately, he either misunderstands or misuses my words, and he couldn't be more mistaken.

I believe that Senator Obama, whatever his other talents, is the most committed "abortion-rights" presidential candidate of either major party since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973. Despite what Prof. Kmiec suggests, the party platform Senator Obama runs on this year is not only aggressively "pro-choice;" it has also removed any suggestion that killing an unborn child might be a regrettable thing. On the question of homicide against the unborn child -- and let's remember that the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer explicitly called abortion "murder" -- the Democratic platform that emerged from Denver in August 2008 is clearly anti-life.

Prof. Kmiec argues that there are defensible motives to support Senator Obama. Speaking for myself, I do not know any proportionate reason that could outweigh more than 40 million unborn children killed by abortion and the many millions of women deeply wounded by the loss and regret abortion creates.

To suggest -- as some Catholics do -- that Senator Obama is this year's "real" pro-life candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse. To portray the 2008 Democratic Party presidential ticket as the preferred "pro-life" option is to subvert what the word "pro-life" means. Anyone interested in Senator Obama's record on abortion and related issues should simply read Prof. Robert George's essay of earlier this week, "Obama's Abortion Extremism," at thepublicdiscourse.com. It says everything that needs to be said.

Of course, these are simply my personal views as an author and private citizen. But I'm grateful to Prof. Kmiec for quoting me in his book and giving me the reason to speak so clearly about our differences. I think his activism for Senator Obama, and the work of Democratic-friendly groups like Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, have done a disservice to the Church, confused the natural priorities of Catholic social teaching, undermined the progress pro-lifers have made, and provided an excuse for some Catholics to abandon the abortion issue instead of fighting within their parties and at the ballot box to protect the unborn.

And here's the irony. None of the Catholic arguments advanced in favor of Senator Obama are new. They've been around, in one form or another, for more than 25 years. All of them seek to "get beyond" abortion, or economically reduce the number of abortions, or create a better society where abortion won't be necessary. All of them involve a misuse of the seamless garment imagery in Catholic social teaching. And all of them, in practice, seek to contextualize, demote and then counterbalance the evil of abortion with other important but less foundational social issues.

This is a great sadness. As Chicago's Cardinal Francis George said recently, too many Americans have "no recognition of the fact that children continue to be killed [by abortion], and we live therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This can't be something you start playing off pragmatically against other issues."

Meanwhile, the basic human rights violation at the heart of abortion -- the intentional destruction of an innocent, developing human life -- is wordsmithed away as a terrible crime that just can't be fixed by the law. I don't believe that. I think that argument is a fraud. And I don't think any serious believer can accept that argument without damaging his or her credibility. We still have more than a million abortions a year, and we can't blame them all on Republican social policies. After all, it was a Democratic president, not a Republican, who vetoed the partial birth abortion ban -- twice.

The truth is that for some Catholics, the abortion issue has never been a comfortable cause. It's embarrassing. It's not the kind of social justice they like to talk about. It interferes with their natural political alliances. And because the homicides involved in abortion are "little murders" -- the kind of private, legally protected murders that kill conveniently unseen lives -- it's easy to look the other way.

The one genuinely new quality to Catholic arguments for Senator Obama is their packaging. Just as the abortion lobby fostered "Catholics for a Free Choice" to challenge Catholic teaching on abortion more than two decades ago, so supporters of Senator Obama have done something similar in seeking to neutralize the witness of bishops and the pro-life movement by offering a "Catholic" alternative to the Church's priority on sanctity of life issues. I think it's an intelligent strategy. I also think it's wrong and often dishonest.

It's curious that nobody seems to worry about the "separation of Church and state," or religious interference in the public square, when the religious voices that speak up support a certain kind of candidate. In his book, Prof. Kmiec complains about the agenda and influence of what he terms RFPs -- Republican Faith Partisans. But he also seems to pay them the highest kind of compliment: imitation. If RFPs are bad, is it unreasonable to assume that DFPs -- Democratic Faith Partisans -- are equally dangerous?

As I suggest throughout "Render Unto Caesar," it's important for Catholics to be people of faith who pursue politics to achieve justice; not people of politics who use and misuse faith to achieve power. I have no doubt that Prof. Kmiec belongs to the former group. But I believe his arguments finally serve the latter.

For 35 years I've watched thousands of good Catholic laypeople, clergy and religious struggle to recover some form of legal protection for the unborn child. The abortion lobby has fought every compromise and every legal restriction on abortion, every step of the way. Apparently they believe in their convictions more than some of us Catholics believe in ours. And I think that's an indictment of an entire generation of American Catholic leadership.

The abortion conflict has never simply been about repealing Roe v. Wade. And the many pro-lifers I know live a much deeper kind of discipleship than "single issue" politics. But they do understand that the cornerstone of Catholic social teaching is protecting human life from conception to natural death. They do understand that every other human right depends on the right to life. They did not and do not and will not give up -- and they won't be lied to.

So I think that people who claim that the abortion struggle is "lost" as a matter of law, or that supporting an outspoken defender of legal abortion is somehow "pro-life," are not just wrong; they're betraying the witness of every person who continues the work of defending the unborn child. And I hope they know how to explain that, because someday they'll be required to.

Before I conclude and we go to questions, let me say just a couple of things about ENDOW. When you're a bishop, you meet a lot of very good people with very good ideas. You meet a lot fewer people who know how to make good ideas work, or who have the generosity, brains, stubbornness and endurance to lead and grow a good idea into a whole movement of good people who can make a much wider difference.

Betsy Considine, Marilyn Coors, Terry Polakovic and the other women who founded ENDOW are exactly that kind of leader. And the success of ENDOW is a testimony not just to their enthusiasm and hard work, but to yours.

ENDOW succeeds because its message for women is true. ENDOW succeeds because in forming women in the truth of Jesus Christ, it serves the Church and opens the door to the most powerful kind of renewal -- the kind that comes from a Christ-based friendship between husband and wife; the kind that comes from a family shaped by Christian love; the kind that comes from real Catholic leadership by lay and religious women in their communities, in business, in education, in medicine and in public life.

These are difficult times for our country. Even within our Church, the economy, the Iraq War, the life issues in general, and this election in particular, have created a deep spirit of conflict and anxiety. But I do believe Scripture when it tells us not to be afraid. God uses each of us to renew the world if we let him. The genius of women is their capacity to love; to blend talent, intelligence and energy with patience, understanding, respect for the sacredness of life and compassion for others.

That's the kind of leadership we need, in our communities of faith, in our public service and throughout our country. Whatever happens next month and in the years ahead, ENDOW will have a hand in sustaining and refreshing the heart of the Church. That's not a bad achievement for an organization so young. I'm proud of your witness, proud of what you've accomplished and very, very grateful for your service to the Church. God bless you.

Heed the Call