And I didn’t say vote for a worse candidate. But we cannot settle on just an antiabortion candidate. We must seek to form a prolife candidate across the board. Ending abortion is just the beginning. Then we must end the death penalty and stupid wars where our men are dying unnecessarily. Only then will we be prolife.
But you see, Jim, asking the political system to be truly prolife in every way and all at once, and including those ways upon which Catholics may, in good conscience, differ, is asking too much of it. Further, asking it to do so inevitably ends in failure, which is the very thing the pro abortion people depend on. You can see it on here all the time. So, abortion gets mixed with issues like the war in Iraq; people vote in every direction and the abortionists win.
Suppose, in 2008 (and I know I’m dreaming) every Catholic voter based his/her vote solely on curtailing abortion on demand. Yes, that would leave other issues out, and one would be trusting to luck when it came to, e.g., the next non-negotiable issue.
But politicians would absolutely take notice, and likely shy away from related issues such as euthanasia and fetal stem cell research. Supposing then, in the next congressional elections, Catholics voted only in favor of those who supported the next important issue on the list, and so on.
It wouldn’t take long for politicians to figure out that they absolutely had to pay attention to the whole panoply of issues important to Catholics.
Now, when it comes then to those issues on which Catholics may, in good conscience disagree; e.g., the war in Iraq, free trade, etc., there would not be a clear direction. Some things about which you or I might disagree might go your way or mine. But at least some very important things would have been accomplished. And, I suspect, it would allow Catholics, ourselves, to focus more clearly on those other issues, and perhaps come to better understandings about them.
The problem right now, Jim, is that Catholic principles have essentially no effect at all on the political process because Catholics are divided. Politicians of all stripes actually have an interest in keeping Catholics divided and powerless, precisely because most of them don’t really support Catholic principles. And they get away with it precisely because Catholics won’t unite on one issue at a time.
So, if I vote for a pro-abortion candidate because I oppose the war in Iraq or because I favor the Fair Tax, I have played into the hands of politicians who know full well that they have canceled out the vote of another voter who voted against the pro-abortion candidate despite his opposition to the war or support of the Fair Tax.
And I’m going to go a bit further with that. Whose fault is it that abortion on demand is still the law of the land? It’s ours, Jim. Catholics could end it in one election, but we don’t. And we don’t because we won’t. We won’t because we’re too short-sighted, too stubborn, and because the moral leadership in the Church in this country is weak. It’s a problem that feeds on itself. Moral leadership is weak because of all the dissent among Catholics. Catholics vote against absolute Church positions because moral authority is blurred and cowardly churchmen allow the confusion to continue and sometimes even add to it. But at the core, Jim, the fault is ours; the people in the pews. It’s a terrible thing to say in a way, but Catholics in the U.S. are, alone, responsible for abortion on demand, because Catholics in the U.S., alone, could end it, and won’t.
I support the war in Iraq, Jim. I believe we might just avert a lot of suffering that would be caused worldwide if the Middle East is dominated by some of the most rotten dictators the world has ever known. To me, it’s not just about driving SUVs. It’s about financing terrorists who can blow up schools and subways using the resources oil will give them. It’s about the family in Kenya that gets a deadly or debilitating parasitic disease because they can no longer afford kerosene for an inexpensive cooker. You oppose the war, for all of your reasons, and I understand that.
But, despite the way I feel about Iraq, if an anti-war presidential candidate who is truly prolife opposes a pro-war candidate who is an abortion supporter, I have to vote against the pro-war candidate I would otherwise favor. I have to.
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