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Group of Bishops Using Influence to Oppose Kerry

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  • Group of Bishops Using Influence to Oppose Kerry


    Archbishop Charles J. Chaput speaking to a gathering of Roman Catholics in Denver last week.

    DENVER, Oct. 9 - For Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, the highest-ranking Roman Catholic prelate in Colorado, a swing state, there is only one way for a faithful Catholic to vote in this presidential election, for President Bush and against Senator John Kerry.

    "The church says abortion is a foundational issue,'' the archbishop explained to a group of Catholic college students gathered in a sports bar here on Friday night. He stopped short of telling them whom to vote for, but he reminded them of Mr. Kerry's support for abortion rights. He did not explicitly endorse Mr. Bush, but pointed out the potential impact his re-election could have on Roe v. Wade.

    "Supreme Court cases can be overturned, right?" he asked.

    Archbishop Chaput, who has never explicitly endorsed a candidate, is part of a group of bishops intent on throwing the weight of the church into the elections.

    Galvanized by battles against same-sex marriage and stem cell research and alarmed at the prospect of a president who, like Mr. Kerry, is a Catholic and supports abortion rights, these bishops and like-minded Catholic groups are blanketing churches with guides identifying abortion, gay marriage and the stem cell debate as among a handful of "non-negotiable issues."

    To the dismay of liberal Catholics and some other bishops, traditional church concerns about the death penalty or war are often not mentioned.

    Archbishop Chaput has discussed Catholic priorities in the election in 14 of his 28 columns in the free diocesan newspaper this year. His archdiocese has organized voter registration drives in more than 40 of the largest parishes in the state and sent voter guides to churches around the state. Many have committees to help turn out voters and are distributing applications for absentee ballots.

    In an interview in his residence here, Archbishop Chaput said a vote for a candidate like Mr. Kerry who supports abortion rights or embryonic stem cell research would be a sin that must be confessed before receiving Communion.

    "If you vote this way, are you cooperating in evil?" he asked. "And if you know you are cooperating in evil, should you go to confession? The answer is yes."

    The efforts of Archbishop Chaput and his allies are converging with a concerted drive for conservative Catholic voters by the Bush campaign, which has spent four years cultivating Catholic leaders, organizing more than 50,000 volunteers and hiring a corps of paid staff members to increase Catholic turnout.

    Together, the efforts constitute an extensive effort to break the traditional allegiance of Catholic voters to the Democratic Party, an affiliation that began to crumble with Ronald Reagan 24 years ago.

    Catholics make up about a quarter of the electorate and many are concentrated in swing states, pollsters say. Catholic conservatives say they are working hard because the next president is quite likely to name at least one new Supreme Court justice.

    Catholic prelates have publicly clashed with Catholic Democrats like former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York and Geraldine A. Ferraro, the former representative and vice-presidential candidate.

    But never before have so many bishops so explicitly warned Catholics so close to an election that to vote a certain way was to commit a sin.

    Less than two weeks ago, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis issued just such a statement. Last week, Bishop Michael J. Sheridan of Colorado Springs issued a statement telling Catholics that despite what other church officials might say, abortion outweighed any other issue. Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark recently used an editorial in The Wall Street Journal to argue a similar case.

    In theological terms, these bishops and the voter guides argue that abortion and the destruction of embryos are categorically wrong under church doctrine. War and even the use of the death penalty can in certain circumstances be justified.

    There is resistance, however, from a sizable wing of the church that argues that voting solely on abortion slights Catholic teaching on a range of other issues that affect life and dignity, including war, poverty, the environment and immigration.

    Liberal Catholics contend that the church has traditionally left weighing the issues to the individual conscience. Late in the campaign, these Catholics have begun to mount a counterattack, belatedly and with far fewer resources.

    In diocesan newspapers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, they are buying advertisements with the slogan "Life Does Not End at Birth." Organizers of the campaign say it is supported by 200 Catholic organizations, among them orders of nuns and brothers.

    "We are looking at a broader picture, a more global picture," said Bishop Gabino Zavala, an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles who is president of Pax Christi USA, a Catholic peace group that initiated the statement. "If you look at the totality of issues as a matter of conscience, someone could come to the decision to vote for either candidate."

    In the presidential debate on Friday, Mr. Kerry discussed his religious beliefs. "I was an altar boy," he said. "But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever." Alexia Kelley, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said Mr. Kerry's policies were more consistent with the totality of Catholic teachings than Mr. Bush's were.

    The Republican Party is betting that many observant Catholics will disagree. The National Catholic Reporter reported that that on a visit to the pope this year Mr. Bush asked Vatican officials directly for help in lining up American bishops in support of conservative cultural issues.

    For four years, the party has held weekly conference calls with a representative of the White House for prominent Catholic conservatives. To ramp up the Catholic campaign last summer, the party dispatched its chairman, Ed Gillespie, and a roster well-known Catholic Republicans on a speaking tour to Catholic groups throughout the swing states.

    In contrast to its outreach to some other groups, the party has recruited an undisclosed number of Catholic field coordinators who earn $2,500 a month, along with up to $500 a month for expenses to increase the number of conservative Catholic voters in the weeks before the election.

    In an interview this week from Albuquerque, where he was rallying Catholic outreach workers, Leonard A. Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, who has taken the role of informal adviser to Mr. Bush's campaign on Catholic issues, said Republicans hoped that Mr. Bush could draw even more of the Catholic vote than Reagan, who attracted 54 percent when he ran for re-election in 1984. Mr. Bush received just under half of the Catholic vote in 2000. In a Pew Research poll this month, 42 percent of white Catholics favored Mr. Bush, 29 percent favored Mr. Kerry, and 27 percent were undecided.

    "I can't think of another time in recent political history where a political party and a campaign have paid more attention to faithful Catholics," Mr. Leo said.

    How the bishops' guidance or the new voter guides are playing in the pews remains to be seen. In a poll for Time magazine in June, 76 percent of Catholics said the church's position on abortion made no difference in their decisions about voting.

    Republican strategists say Catholics and others who attend religious services at least once a week tend to be more conservative. Fifty-three percent of those Catholics supported Mr. Bush in 2000 compared with 47 percent of all Catholics, according to exit polls. The Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life of Staten Island, N.Y., says priests with his group are going from church to church in swing states like Florida, giving fellow priests sample homilies for each Sunday in November, inserts for church bulletins and voter guides.

    Father Pavone spoke by telephone from Aberdeen, S.D., where he said he was meeting with dozens of priests and nuns to teach them how to organize transportation to take parishioners to the polls. Addressing abortion, he said he told audiences, "One can't hold public office and say it's O.K. to kill some of the public."

    In past elections, the main voter guide distributed in many Catholic churches was a questionnaire from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that listed candidates' stands on dozens of issues. This year, conservative Catholic groups sought to derail the questionnaire, because it appeared to give equal weight to each issue. When neither the Bush nor Kerry campaigns responded to the questions by the deadline, the bishops' conference abandoned the effort, a spokesman, Msgr. Francis Maniscalco, said.

    Many parishes are having free-for-alls over what materials to use in helping Catholics think through their choices. Many bishops are using a document the bishops developed last year, "Faithful Citizenship." It tells Catholic voters to consider a range of issues and vote their consciences. Other parishes are instead using a guide from a conservative Web site, Catholic Answers, at www.catholic .com. The guide says it is a sin to vote for a candidate who supports any one of five "non-negotiable issues," abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and homosexual marriage.

    Archbishop Chaput says he has had no contact with either campaign or political party. He says his sole contact with the White House has been his appointment to the President's Commission on International Religious Freedom. The prelate acknowledged that his communications director, Sergio Gutierrez, had worked in the Bush administration, but Archbishop Chaput said he had known Mr. Gutierrez long before that.

    It was only logical for the Republicans to view the church as a "natural ally" on cultural issues, the archbishop said. He said that would end if a Republican candidate supported abortion rights.

    "We are not with the Republican Party," he said. "They are with us."

    Mr. Kerry's Catholicism is a special issue for the church, Archbishop Chaput said. To remain silent while a President Kerry supported stem cell research would seem cowardly, he said. The Rev. Andrew Kemberling, pastor of St. Thomas More Church in Centennial, the largest congregation in the archdiocese, said parishioners sometimes accused him of telling them how to vote. He said his reply was: "We are not telling them how to vote. We are telling them how to take Communion in good conscience."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/12/po...rtner=homepage

  • #2
    I hope people do not listen to these christian fundamentalist mullahs.

    Why should abortion be an issue in the first place? It is a woman's personal issue, not something for society to impose on her. The choice is her, it is nobody elses business.
    Last edited by turnagainarm; 12 Oct 04,, 15:53.

    Comment


    • #3
      I love it when people like this can be selective about which kind of sin to tolerate and which kind to demonize.

      Killing is a sin, my followers! If you support abortion, you support murder! Now, quick loligagging around and support our President! Off to war we go!!

      Comment


      • #4
        If that's what they believe, then good for them, they should be heard like anyone else.
        No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
        I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
        even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
        He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Fonnicker
          I love it when people like this can be selective about which kind of sin to tolerate and which kind to demonize.

          Killing is a sin, my followers! If you support abortion, you support murder! Now, quick loligagging around and support our President! Off to war we go!!
          That is a remark of sarcasm isn't it? If so, I think others missed it. Ahem...isn't going to war with the intent of killing.....premeditated murder....murder being a sin.....just like abortion? I mean, let's be consistent here.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Julie
            isn't going to war
            Without war, none of us would be free.
            No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
            I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
            even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
            He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Confed999
              Without war, none of us would be free.

              Without cars, it would take us longer to get to the store...but we would eventually get there.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Fonnicker
                Without cars, it would take us longer to get to the store...but we would eventually get there.
                How many millennia would you like to wait though? Freedom is a necessity of life, at least to me. We would all be under the heel of whatever tyrant was strongest, if nobody had been willing to fight, and I doubt said tyrant would just give up his control peacefully, ever.
                No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
                I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
                even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
                He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Confed999
                  How many millennia would you like to wait though? Freedom is a necessity of life, at least to me. We would all be under the heel of whatever tyrant was strongest, if nobody had been willing to fight, and I doubt said tyrant would just give up his control peacefully, ever.

                  I guess it depends on how you chose to use war. Defending against an invading force? Absolutely, but when you are the invading force...that's something altogether different in my book.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Fonnicker
                    I guess it depends on how you chose to use war. Defending against an invading force? Absolutely, but when you are the invading force...that's something altogether different in my book.
                    So then it's ok to leave tyrants in power, as long as you're free...
                    No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
                    I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
                    even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
                    He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Julie
                      That is a remark of sarcasm isn't it? If so, I think others missed it. Ahem...isn't going to war with the intent of killing.....premeditated murder....murder being a sin.....just like abortion? I mean, let's be consistent here.

                      As long as you are killing in other countries it is not considered sin!
                      Last edited by turnagainarm; 13 Oct 04,, 02:48.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Confed999
                        So then it's ok to leave tyrants in power, as long as you're free...
                        Well, if it's not okay then we better pull up our bootstraps because we have lots of killing ahead of us.

                        Why be so selective about which tyrants we tolerate and which ones we don't? Heck, Bush now calls Quadafi an ally in the war on terror. Now there's a nice fella!

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Fonnicker
                          Well, if it's not okay then we better pull up our bootstraps because we have lots of killing ahead of us.
                          Not neccesarily, there are alot of things to try before war becomes the last option. Both the Taliban and the Baath made it quite obvious there was no chance of comming to any conclusion other than war. Though the Taliban were given little time for compliance, in comparison to Saddam, the need was more urgent.
                          Originally posted by Fonnicker
                          Why be so selective about which tyrants we tolerate and which ones we don't? Heck, Bush now calls Quadafi an ally in the war on terror.
                          I can explain it, but I don't believe in all of it. First, in order to stop dealing with all tyrants, their allies, and trade partners we would have to become isolatioist. That's no good. So the second choice is to apply political pressure in excess of those applying pressure in favor of said tyrant. This is often an impasse. Third choice is to apply economic pressure in addition to political. This creates a state of "containment" if enough countries are on board. Containment usually only serves to harm the people that all are trying not to harm. The final choice would be "regime change" with the least force needed. If at any point in this very basic outline the tyrant in question makes any significant concession, said tyrant is to be rewarded. The idea is to encourage them to realize they can change their ways and still hold power. Others will see the examples of the fallen tyrants, and the effect of tyrants becoming less tyranical. I have to admit, Quadafi has changed alot, Saudi is making changes, Iran is at least faking it, and there are others.
                          No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
                          I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
                          even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
                          He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Not neccesarily, there are alot of things to try before war becomes the last option. Both the Taliban and the Baath made it quite obvious there was no chance of comming to any conclusion other than war. Though the Taliban were given little time for compliance, in comparison to Saddam, the need was more urgent.
                            I was under the impression that Saddam did make changes. He hasn't invaded anyone since the first gulf war and he did let UN weapons inspectors in who found nothing. We chose not to believe their reports. Apparently Saddam did disarm after all. So we invaded based on intellegence that there WERE WMDs. Irrefuteable evidence. We found nothing. So, now we say he was "intending" to develop WMDs. This kind of evidence for prosecution would be thrown out of any US Court if it were applied to an individual.

                            I fully agree with our actions against he Taliban. That was a direct retaliation to 9/11. It was swift and effective. The after effects might hurt for a while, but it was the right thing to do.

                            The Saudis however. I don't see them improving. They just denied women the vote again. This time because they, "didn't have enough people to man the polling booths."

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Fonnicker
                              I was under the impression that Saddam did make changes. He hasn't invaded anyone since the first gulf war and he did let UN weapons inspectors in who found nothing. We chose not to believe their reports.
                              LOL @ "hasn't invaded anyone" lately, you don't actually consider that a change do you? Saddam did not cooperate, that's what the inspector's reports showed. Saddam had to show the weapons, or their disposal site. It was not the inspector's job to search 437,072 square kilometers, because it would have taken decades if not centuries to do it. A cooperative disarmament would have taken months, not years. Durring this time he was even more harsh on his people, requiring patroled no-fly zones to protect the people in the north and south. His forces constantly fired on those patrols. Saddam never changed, no matter how many chances he was given...
                              Originally posted by Fonnicker
                              we say he was "intending" to develop WMDs.
                              They allways said he intended to make more. The intel of every country in the world was wrong on this one, as were most of the Iraqi people, and much of their military.
                              Originally posted by Fonnicker
                              The Saudis however. I don't see them improving.
                              No? Actually hunting down terrorists, a rudimentary parliment, material support for the Iraq reconstruction, aren't changes? Don't expect everything to happen at once, anywhere. Also, it is the way to do it without war, it takes alot longer, and often hurts more innocent people, but there is no war.

                              If you have other ideas on how to achieve the same results, or better, as the way it's done now, without anyone getting hurt, I'd love to hear it. Personally, I say no deals with bad guys, ever, and everyone else is with us or against us, even if that means isolationism.
                              No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
                              I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
                              even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
                              He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

                              Comment

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