Kerry's Catholic Supporters

OK, everyone, jump in. We surely know other supporters of the CINO. Post them here!

Pax Christi

Catholics for Political Responsibility

Catholics for a Free Choice

Obviously these groups are not Catholic -- and it disgusts me that they can even use the word Catholic with which to identify themselves.

**Pax Christi caused a stir this week after running an ad promoting the notion that Catholics should not focus solely on abortion when considering the candidates.**

Guess they have not read this:

Catechism of the Catholic Church and what it says about those who support abortion

From the USCCB

Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility

For Catholics, the defense of human life and dignity is not a narrow cause, but a way of life and a framework for action. A key message of the Vatican statement on public life is that Catholics in politics must reflect the moral values of our faith with clear and consistent priority for the life and dignity of the human person.13 This is the fundamental moral measure of their service. The Vatican statement also points out:

It must be noted also that a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals. The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church's social doctrine does not exhaust one's responsibility towards the common good.14 Decisions about candidates and choices about public policies require clear commitment to moral principles, careful discernment and prudential judgments based on the values of our faith.

*Kerry is kaput

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President Bush: Shares Our Catholic Values

President Bush and John Kerry: On the Issues Important to Catholics

"Seismic" Catholic Shift to Bush [Insight ]

Catholics for Bush

Analyst cites abortion stance as some Catholic voters shift to Bush

Poll: Catholics Trending Towards Bush

Kerry Losing Ground Among White Catholics

Voting Our Conscience, Not Our Religion [Catholic Prof Says "Vote Kerry"]

Vatican: Kerry guilty of heresy; incurrs automatic excommunication

Should a Catholic Vote for Bush or Kerry?

Why is Bush getting the bishop's blessing?

Ambassador Ray Flynn in Cleveland 10/16/2004- "Vote 2004: The Catholic Factor"

John Kerry Flip-Flops on When to Use His Catholic Belief on Politics

Abortion is Turning Democrats Off to Kerry

Planned Parenthood Unveils TV Ads Backing John Kerry on Abortion

Spiritual Windsurfer [Kerry]

Kerry’s Auxiliary Bishops

The army of God marching for Bush

The Catholics for Bush website is now live!

America at the Crossroads

(Clinton Apointee Raymond)Flynn: Catholics must vote for culture of life

Priest: It's a sin to vote pro-choice

Some attempts to sabotage Catholic voters

So true!

The Pax Christi ad in the PittsburgH (I hate when people misspell it) was an eye opener (for me atleast). Just about every Catholic politician in the metro Pittsburgh Area (almost all Dems) signed this 'letter.' My take on it was a redefinition of Kerry's spew about this faith at the last debate. They (the signers) deeply beleive in the teaching of Catholic Church, but they cannot let their theological beliefs guide their public decision making...yadayadayada...

My take...their polls were showing that they were slipping to the CONSERVATIVES and their seats (ie., jobs) were/are in jeopardy. Had to do something...so wrap yourself up in the devout Catholic lable...but continue to not follow the teaching of the faith you profess.

**My take...their polls were showing that they were slipping to the CONSERVATIVES and their seats (ie., jobs) were/are in jeopardy**

Your analysis seems totally coherent to me. The dims are in trouble and they know it!

In SwPa. the biggest voting block is the elderly...most are Roman Catholic. They used to just automatically vote Dem. But now, thanks to cable, talk radio, and the inherent intelligence of these voters, they are actully paying attention and realizing that they have been voting for people who support partial birth abortion and gay marriage, etc., and that they (the voters) oppose such based on their faith. The Dems are running scared...here even in the local state level seats. They can't run from their voting records...so the have to try to justify them.

What is the get out the Republican vote -- 72 hours -- campaign doing in Pennsylvania?

I hope they are calling all the Republican, independent and Libertarian voters like we are doing in Oregon!

God bless!

Some people I know participated in the RNC's Catholic Voter Outreach effort this morning. Out of probably 600 vehicles at the Catholic church, ONLY ONE had a pro-Kerry sticker on it. This one had it on the windshield on the inside (movable) along with a Rosie the Riveter card with "Up Yours, Bush!" on it. Classy! My friend said she felt so good placing the "Vote Your Values" card next to that stuff.

Only about 10% of the remaining cars had anything political and it was all BCO4 or W04 or pro life stickers.

There was a huge effort at churches across Central Florida today. Hope it did some good.

CPR --“John Kerry’s leadership demonstrates the best of Catholic tradition.”

***

Must be another of those groups cobbled together by the 'Rats to fool some Catholics. How dispicable!


There are Catholics, however, who are actively supporting Kerry’s presidential bid and they are not shy about expressing their opinions. One such group is Pax Christi USA (peace of Christ), an organization calling itself “the national Catholic peace movement.” Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, Gabino Zavala, heads Pax Christi, and the other clergy representative on the group’s National Council is Father Kevin M. Queally, T.O.R., campus minister to the Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania. Their narrow focus on issues of war and peace has led them to join forces with abortion supporters. They recently partnered with the NAACP in “an effort to bring international election observers to the US to monitor the upcoming November elections.” Last winter, the NAACP for the first time in its 95-year history announced its support for keeping abortions legal. According to a March Lifenews.com article, NAACP Board Chair Julian Bond said, "This is an issue of equal rights, and we are pleased to join those insisting on a woman's right to control her own body." Over the summer, Catholic University (CU) became embroiled in a controversy with the NAACP over the group’s effort to start a chapter at the school. NAACP’s support of abortion was the reason CU initially banned the group from campus. (The ban was rescinded October 13th after students met with the university president and pledged that the CU chapter would not advocate abortion rights.) Pax Christi caused a stir this week after running an ad promoting the notion that Catholics should not focus solely on abortion when considering the candidates. The ad’s headline argues, “Life does not end at birth. Catholics called to vote for the common good.” The text begins by selectively quoting from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops 2004 Faithful Citizenship. “A Catholic moral framework does not easily fit the ideologies of ‘Right’ or ‘Left,’ nor the platforms of any party.... Our responsibility is to measure all candidates, policies, parties, and platforms by how they protect or undermine the life, dignity, and rights of the human person, whether they protect the poor and vulnerable and advance the common good.” The ad continues with another statement from Faithful Citizenship. “It is a common misperception of politicians seeking office that the Catholic vote can be courted by addressing a narrow range of issues. In reality, the great majority of Catholics in the US, in agreement with the US Catholic Bishops, will vote for candidates based on the full range of issues, as well as on [the candidate’s] personal integrity, philosophy and performance.’” Taking a shot at our brave clergy, the ad boldly states, “Members of the media — and indeed a few of our own religious leaders — do a great disservice to our Church and nation when they attempt to use one or another issue as the benchmark for Catholic identity.” Clearly, this “peace at all cost” organization does not view abortion in the same light as the document they quote in their ad. In Faithful Citizenship, the US bishops list “protecting human life” as the first moral priority. It continues, “Abortion, the deliberate killing of a human being before birth, is never morally acceptable.” The priority the Church places on protecting the unborn is clearly different from the Church’s stance on war. About armed conflicts, the document says, “Catholic teaching calls on us to work to avoid war.” An issue that is “never morally acceptable” is more significant than one we should “work to avoid.” Pro-life Catholics in Pittsburg were outraged when they saw the Pax Christi ad in their diocesan newspaper. A Pittsburg Post-Gazette story on Wednesday said that an “ad in the Pittsburgh Catholic that criticized single-issue voting has sparked a flurry of opposing ads from groups that say that abortion takes priority over other social problems.” One such group is Catholics United for Integrity in Voting, which allowed the Post-Gazette to see a draft of their response ad. The draft said, "We are SCANDALIZED that many Catholics, including local priests and religious, have joined with Pax Christi USA in what we believe is their veiled, back door endorsement of an adamant pro-abortion candidate for the presidency." Another pro-life group, LIFEPAC, also responded by running an ad that argues that “five issues are non-negotiable for Catholics: opposition to abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning and homosexual marriage,” according to the Post-Gazette. "The only major party candidate for president of the United States that meets the above five non-negotiable issues is George W. Bush," the ad closes. A local doctor, Daniel Callaghan, was so upset by Pax Christi that he paid for an ad himself because “"I just feel somebody has to speak up for the unborn." Callaghan sought to respond to Pax Christi’s moral relativism, which the newspaper describes as the “argument that Catholic womb-to-tomb social concern allows other issues to trump opposition to abortion.” His ad simply said, "Because of abortion, 44 million unborn American girls and boys went directly from the womb to their tomb." Another group calling itself Catholics for Political Responsibility (CPR) is even more brazen than Pax Christi. According to their website, Dr. Sidney Callahan, “a Catholic author on moral theology, professor and licensed psychologist” and Dr. David O'Brien, “Loyola Professor of Roman Catholic Studies at the College of the Holy Cross,” are the group’s co-chairs. CPR is “a group of serious Catholic worshipers, theologians, and nuns who feel called to defend our faith’s proud tradition of stewardship, social justice, and service to the common good. As conservatives try to reduce the profound Catholic tradition to a partisan tool, Catholics for Political Responsibility has launched a national radio campaign.” The campaign claims first, “George Bush’s leadership has been a moral failure.” Second, “John Kerry’s leadership demonstrates the best of Catholic tradition.” And finally, “Catholic conscience calls us to look beyond any one issue to support ‘the common good.’” The group is running four radio commercials in Ohio and Wisconsin, two key swing-states. Pax Christi and CPR are part of a loud chorus of Left-leaning clergy, columnists, and lay leaders who continue to cling to the failed “seamless garment” theology. This teaching wrongly weighs all issues equally and argues the world is too complex for moral absolutes like opposition to abortion. Robert McFadden, a representative from Catholics for Kerry ’04, summarized this false teaching on Tuesday during Catholic Outreach’s press teleconference. Catholic Outreach held the press conference to discuss their election year primer, The Five Issues that Matter Most: Catholics and the Upcoming Election. The issues include abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, stem cell research and cloning, and same-sex marriage. McFadden, responding to the excellent commentary by people like Father Frank Pavone of Priest for Life about “non-negotiable” issues for Catholics, presented the pro-Kerry logic. “[I]n regards to the five non-negotiables, I…wanted to know if the 40,000 people around the world or children who died from today, from hunger are negotiable?” he began. “Are the lives of innocent children killed by a bombing in Iraq or Afghanistan negotiable? Is the dignity of the father who is unable to provide income and health care for his children because his job was shipped overseas negotiable?” He then moved from poverty, war, and healthcare to the environment. “Are the future natural resources for our children and grandchildren negotiable and are the futures of US children living with lead paint on their walls and mercury in the water negotiable?” Finally, he peddled the unsubstantiated accuasation that abortion rates have increased under President George W. Bush. In his 1907 encyclical condemning the heresy of modernism (Pascendi Dominici Gregis), Pope Pope Pius X called this philosophy “cumulatio omnium haeresium, the syntheses of all heresies of the past.” The pope noted that, “many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology...vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church.” He continues that these individuals “lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fires. And having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to disseminate poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth from which they hold their hand, none that they do not strive to corrupt.” He concludes “none is more skilful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious arts; for they double the parts of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and since audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance.” The sanctity of human life and in particular protecting the life of the unborn is non-negotiable and does trump all other moral issues facing our complex modern world. The Church could not be clearer on this. Look it up. Those peddling anything else would do well to reflect on Pascendi Dominici Gregis. St. Thomas More, pray for us. © Copyright 2004 Catholic Exchange Craig Richardson is the founder of the recently launched Catholic Action Network, an organization committed to calling Catholics to authentic and faithful citizenship particularly on issues of life and family.