Linked on the Corner earlier this morning, this is an op/ed piece that speaks to the contention over Kerry's Katholicity and the orthodox Catholics who engage in the political discourse. This is a must-read for everyone, especially for those small number of you who think we work full-time for the RNC and club baby seals on our day off.
We don't club baby seals on our day off from the RNC, but Eric does run a secret empire whose sole aim is to pave rain forests to make parking lots for Walmart. When he gets a free moment at work he opens the window and discharges an entire can of hairspray in order to deplete the ozone layer. I have also heard him speak of the need for us to re-intern the Japanese. His car runs on low standardized test scores - a clean, renewable resource produced in abundance by inner city public schools. He prays the Rosary daily with his family. They implore Mary's intercession to impose a Catholic theocracy on America.
Listen, don't take me seriously. I make a caricature of these bugaboos to make this point: Our faith informs our politics. It isn’t the other way around. Eric doesn't do all those things I so ridiculously wrote above. Marines don't buy hairspray! He rides his bicycle to work - how’s that for environmental stewardship? And we don't all work for the RNC. We are faithful Catholics who believe with the Church that the cause of life must be defended. Bush is not the perfect pro-life candidate but since Roe v. Wade our only option has been to try to win by degrees.
Contrary to what one of our commenters thinks, Pete is well within his rights to write whatever he wants about what he believes is the canonical implication of Kerry's support for abortion. As a canonist he's eminently qualified to do so.
Read Archbishop Chaput’s excellent article. Read “The Participation of Catholics in Political Life,” a statement by the CDF that Chaput mirrors.
The life of a democracy could not be productive without the active, responsible and generous involvement of everyone, "albeit in a diversity and complementarity of forms, levels, tasks, and responsibilities".[6]
By fulfilling their civic duties, "guided by a Christian conscience",[7] in conformity with its values, the lay faithful exercise their proper task of infusing the temporal order with Christian values, all the while respecting the nature and rightful autonomy of that order,[8] and cooperating with other citizens according to their particular competence and responsibility.[9] The consequence of this fundamental teaching of the Second Vatican Council is that "the lay faithful are never to relinquish their participation in ‘public life’, that is, in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good".[10] This would include the promotion and defence of goods such as public order and peace, freedom and equality, respect for human life and for the environment, justice and solidarity.
Don't be fooled by the moral relativism and subjectivism of liberalism. Just becuase you want something to do be true doesn't make it true. And we all know liberalism is a sin. So don't be a liberal, you'll go to Hell.
