Many of you, like me, have been drowning in election-related news this week, but let’s not lose sight of a remarkable fact: two powerful pro-abortion pseudo-Catholics went down to defeat, in large part because they were pro-abortion.
Senator Tom Daschle won his seat as a pro-lifer, but once his ambition seized him, he dumped that stand, going so far as to sign a fundraising letter for Planned Parenthood. South Dakota voters, among the most conservative and religious in the nation, dumped him for a staunchly pro-life candidate.
Senator John Kerry, who went around saying that he was an altar boy in his youth (just like Hitler!), was one of the most reliable pro-abortion votes in the Senate. You probably heard that he lost to that pro-life other guy, whatshisname.
In Daschle’s case, his bishop explicitly and publicly singled him out for his crimes against human life &mdash and it worked. Despite winning numerous statewide offices over a quarter-century, and despite the clout he brought South Dakota by being the minority leader, voters turned him out.
Kerry’s case is much less clearly linked to an episcopal rebuke. However, many bishops made it clear that Catholic politicians must not cooperate with evil by voting for laws that violate human life. In the crucial states that Kerry lost (Ohio and Florida in particular), that resonated.
Don’t believe me? Consider this: John Kerry, only the third Catholic nominated for the presidency by a major party, received a minority of Catholic votes — fewer than Protestant Algore did in 2000.