Not one issue among many. Not one issue among many. Not one issue among many. Not one issue among many. Not one issue among many.
WHAT’S SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND?!
LifeNews.com reports:
The nation’s Catholic bishops have released an updated version of their voter’s guide that calls on Catholics to make abortion the central point when considering which candidate to support in next year’s presidential elections.
The guide, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship is nearly identical to the bishops’ guide published four years ago and it calls abortion “evil” throughout the document and says Catholics should give the highest priority to protecting unborn children and supporting candidates who will back such protections.
“The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many,” the document says.
“As Catholics we are not single-issue voters,” the bishops wrote in the guide. “A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.”
That means slowing the rate of growth in the federal budget isn’t equal to tearing babies apart limb from limb. Can you imagine that? Huh, who’d a thunk it?
October 5, 2011 at 3:39 am
Why so many does not understand that and criticize USCCB?
See: http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=848
I think that the main problem is not the USCCB, but the Catholics, they spin the document.
However, I think USCCB should clarify that abortion is more important than immigration issues, for instance. There is a number one concern: protection of life. WRITE THIS, PLEASE, USCCB!!
October 5, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Without life, does it matter where one lives? If the immigrants are so selfish and ignorant to not care about life, do they need to be here?
Mary De Voe
October 5, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Being a fervent pro-lifer, I hate to even challenge this a little, but I am afraid it is too simple.
I feel like the pro-life issue is of prime importance, but if in other ways, a candidate is unelectable I would be throwing my vote on the trash heap with his other supporters. And this is my reasoning:
Our prioritizing of issues needs to ensure that President Baby Killer and his ilk are voted out of office.
If the pro-life candidate doesn't defeat him soundly in popular opinion polls prior to the elections, we could be stuck with his or another liberal candidate's (Hillary?) reign of death for four more years. Can Christians, especially Catholic Americans allow that?
My fervent hope is that the strong front-runner in the elections is a decidedly pro-life candidate. If the front runner is not pro-life, I will have to decide who is most able to take democrats out of office first, in hopes that they can be persuaded to vote for the pro-life causes that are most important to me after they get in.
October 5, 2011 at 10:16 pm
I can not and will not vote for a pro-abortion candidate. If all the candidates are pro-abortion I will not vote. If the only pro-life candidate is 'unelectable' then I guess I will throw my vote away. When you make a deal with an electable, pro-abortion, devil do not be surprised when you get burned twice! in this world and the next!
Just consider the intellectual dishonesty necessary to submit the 'I am personally opposed' argument in the face of what actually happens in an abortion. Then try to justify giving credibility to any position they hold.
October 6, 2011 at 11:05 am
Can't they just say it's evil to vote for a pro-choice candidate? Can't our elitist (for the most part) Bishops just say it? I understand what they are saying but a lot of people will become confused by it. Do they use wordy text like this to make what they are saying appear to be ambiguous? This is the problem with our overly educated clergy. Just say it! Say it simply!
October 6, 2011 at 3:47 pm
In 2008, I got into an e-mail fight with someone who tried to convince me that the Faithful Citizen indeed endorsed voting for Obama.
I know he twisted the writing, but we all know you cannot twist something that is written in concrete language, like say " Pro Multus"
Anyway, USCCB doesn't get my vote on how to get Catholics to vote like Catholics. They are too afraid to lose money coming in from the wrong people.
It's great that the Bishops encoruage people to vote pro-life, but when are they going to re-educate us on Marxism, Communism and Socialism as our good popes have?
Phil
October 6, 2011 at 9:51 pm
I'm pretty sure the entire Republican primary lineup is at least weakly pro-life. But I'm sure someone will come in here and explain why favoring the execution of murderers—or allowing rich people to keep money they have, in at least some sense, earned—is totally the same thing as the murder of children in the womb, and thus the Republicans are "just as bad".
If the bishops had any brains at all, they'd say to the Democrats, "Look, a bunch of our people are still Ethnic Democrats, with an unlettered, kneejerk hatred of Republicans that nothing, not even your manifest provable history of legally actionable treason, nor the total discrediting of your every economic theory and program, could ever unseat. But they keep voting for Republicans solely and exclusively because of your stance on abortion. Drop that, and a majority of Catholics will be more completely your voting-booth zombies than any other demographic—and consider what zombies some of your others are!"