Fr. Johansen comments on the march for life and decries both political parties (validly, I think) for their either overt or de facto support of the culture of death. I agree with him that the president’s absence from the march was troubling. I know the man can’t be everywhere, but this does not seem to me to be the event to which he should “phone it in.” I don’t know where he was, but it’s not where I would have had him be, and this holding-at-arm’s-length is not encouraging.
This is encouraging: the vanguard of the pro-life movement seems to be the under-30s. Let us hope and pray for a social revolution.
The President was in New Mexico. For the past four years, he has managed to be somewhere else for every March of Life. He knows pro-lifers have nowhere else to go, and that he hasn’t pissed them off enough to make them stay home, so he’s not going to take any more political risk with the mushy middle than he has to.
Guys, a little perspective: how many times have Republican presidents appeared at the March for Life? Zero. Presidents don’t like to appear at political rallies for narrowly-defined causes — it makes them look small and “unpresidential.” It’s not a commentary on how Bush views the pro-life movement.
Still skeptical? Can you name another single-issue rally that a president has personally addressed in the last couple of decades?
Yes – have we not had presidents appear at NAACP events?
Ah, but the NAACP isn’t a single issue organization. They advocate 1) socialism and 2) affirmative action for minorities. Those are two issues.
I despise both political parties. One advocates for abortion, the other supports policies that make abortion economically more appealing. Neither speaks out on chastity with enough vigor.
We need a new political party, one that supports the rights of all humans, born and unborn, from conception to natural death. We need a party that supports the basic principles outlined in Rerum Novarum as well as Humanae Vitae. We need a culture of life that supports a politics of abundance and hope, not shortages and despair.
It is getting harder and harder to find a candidate to support in either party – so often it is a matter of deciding who stinks the least.
alicia,
I sympathize, but the way our political system is set up, a third party is simply not viable.
Besides, most Catholics still in the Democratic party are theologically and morally liberal and most Catholics in the Republican party would see Rerum Novarum as a product of a bygone age. Actually, I doubt there are many Catholic Democrats left who actually want distributism; they want pseudo-state socialism a.k.a. the welfare state. That is no more distributism than the pseudo-capitalism that the Republicans support.
I sympathize with your position, as I said before, but I will still vote Republican. The Dems are deliberately working against the family, as well as religion, and they have raised the murder of innocent babies to the level of a sacrament. They also work to undermine the ability of the people to ever reverse their policies by making the court as activist as they can. If they win in making the court totally activist, it won’t matter how successful your new political party would be, if it ever got off the ground. The judges would stop the congress from ever doing anything to reverse the damage.
I also wonder whether from a logistics/security standpoint it’d make sense for the president to appear at a rally like this. I mean, it’s a HUGE outdoor event – I don’t imagine there’d be a good way to screen all the attendees for weapons. I suspect the phone-ins make sense. (And I’d far rather have a pres who phones in greetings than one who signs pro-abort executive orders while the March is taking place – as Clinton did just two days after his ’92 inauguration.)