I’m not a grumpy letter writer – really! I’ve been a parishoner since we moved here 2.5 years ago (might have taken me a bit of time to register though). I love this joyful parish and you our priests. Thanks for all the great work you do.
I’m writing to bring your attention to a voter’s guide I found by the receptionist desk by Sojourners / Call to Renewal. It is a nice looking color multifold pamphlet with summaries of numerous issues. I noticed it because I actually get Sojourners Magazine which is a multi-denominational publication devoted to social justice issues. Their cause is good, but when you read them for a while you realize that they don’t believe in original sin. They seem to believe that only the rich and powerful have anything to repent of. (Which of course they do, but so do us regular guys!) The assumption seems to be that individual sin results from being oppressed by ‘the man’ and that if government would just outlaw large scale social injustice, all other sins would evaporate (One wonders where the concupisence of the powerful comes from in this worldview).
The voter’s guide they produced suffers from the effects of this error. When I look at it critically, I can’t find many WRONG things in it, but overall something bothered me again. I finally figured it out. Please go and read one of these guides for 10 minutes before reading here further. Here’s a link to more if they are now all gone:
sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.display&item=VGP_resources
Back? Thanks! Now for the uncomfortable part. Imagine the Devil himself were worried that christians were beginning to see that there ARE some moral issues that are more serious than others (like the killing of over a million babies a year for example) and that these christians were beginning to vote as a unified block. Imagine that somebody offered him a chance to produce a piece of propaganda that would help to dissipate the votes of these christians such that they largely canceled each other out. What would that pamphlet look like? I suggest that what you just read is a masterpiece in that regard . Notice how the author can’t summon the courage to call for an END to abortion? Just a reduction. Notice how in a national voter’s guide in an election that features some MAJOR votes (Missouri, for example) on embryonic stem cell funding (which is nothing but farming human beings and killing them for spare parts), there is NO mention of this issue? Nothing about euthanasia at all? The overall tone suggests that the growing culture of death is of similar or lesser importance than homelessness, living wages or racism.
Surely a policeman coming upon an attempted murder in progress and noticing at the same time a big teenager bullying a smaller one would have no trouble deciding which crime to stop first! Who would criticize such a cop for minimizing the import of bullying? Sadly, Sojourners / Call to Renewal seems to have no such moral clarity. I hope you will reflect on these thoughts and discern if it is appropriate for the parish to seemingly endorse the reasoning behind this guide by placing it prominently in the lobby. I know many of the justice issues raised in the guide are legitimate, but I suspect you would not support the unwritten implication that they are of equal severity as abortion and stem cell experimentation.
It is a moot point now, but tomorrow isn’t the last election. Thanks for your consideration. I hope I don’t come across as angry or pushy, I’m just saddened and frustrated by the lack of influence we as catholics have on our politics and culture because we continually cancel each other out at voting time.
Have you seen the Catholic Answers ‘Voters Guide for Serious Catholics?’ It may be TOO bold to endorse in church, but at least it seems to recognize that nothing gets done in life if we don’t prioritize our goals. Wouldn’t it be best if a voter’s guide that had the imprimatur of a bishop (there are several) were used in the parish instead of one from a non-catholic group which may have a fundamentally flawed idea of human nature?
Thanks again
