Hudson & Fournier: Catholic Countdown to Election 2012, Day 10: Consequences for Alphabetical Voter Guides

10/27/2012

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"consequences" for those who prepared the alphabetical guide. We told him, based upon our experience over the years, "probably not." His response, "Then's there no leadership, it's a joke."

The mainstream media who have noticed the stories we've written on the alphabetical voter guide may consider this "business as usual" in regard to the bishops' lack of control over their state conferences and the USCCB. Here are some of the Catholic conferences using the alphabetical issue guide known as, "Know the positions of the presidential candidates":

Rhode Island Catholic Conference

Virginia Catholic Conference

Pennsylvania Catholic Conference

Florida Catholic Conference

Georgia Catholic Conference

Connecticut Catholic Conference

We can easily imagine someone reading this story and wondering why we continue to "harp" about this. The answer is simple but not necessarily apparent to those who have not been deeply involved with Catholic voters through four national elections: Voiding the distinction between settled, or non-negotiable issues and those issues which allow for the application of prudential judgment is the primary tactic used to win Catholic support for pro-abortion and anti-marriage politicians.

Can we say that any plainer? To erase the qualitative difference between these two sets of issues is to adopt the foremost tactic of the pro-abortion, anti-marriage/ pro "same-sex marriage" crowd. The use of these alphabetical voter guides means that state Catholic conferences are de facto participating in this tactical effort.

Let us be clear -- we are not saying that "consequences" means people lose their jobs; it means that measures will be taken to insure such "information" is never distributed to Catholic voters again.

- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: social justice, social doctrine, Catholic Vote, Voter guides, State catholic Conferences, Obama, Biden, Romney, Ryan, campaign 2012, Deal W Hudson, Keith A Fournier

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1 - 6 of 6 Comments

Jane
6 months ago

What about the homeless and those without health insurance. Are their spirits not murdered. They will continue to live with broken spirits under bridges, in shelters begging us for help. What about families who have worked hard and their job gets outsourced and they have no medical insurance? What about the veterans who, and the brave wariors who have fought and given their lives, or limbs, or minds for this country. Do we not fight for their rights , the very ones who have stood up to defend our country and given us the right to vote. What about torture(water boarding) yes, that is torture. My son is a navy vet. and he is so much against that. How about the unjust war that even the Pope was opposed to. How many lives and limbs were lost there on both sides. And....where were the weapons of mass destruction.
What about cultural bias, that some discount others because they have not had the same opportunities that people with wealth have, and do their loved ones go off to war. The trickle down rich rhetoric is just that - rhetoric.Yes, abortion is abosolutely evil when it is used as a birth control method and not for the health of the mother or because an evil act was committed against the mother. Same sex marriage, if you don't believe in God or nature, forget man. There won't be any. It is a shame that both sides have dropped the ball for all of us especially the poor and suffering in favor of big business. May we all start praying for whomever is elected that we will be a more perfect union under God with liberty and justice for all.
Gloria
6 months ago
Tom - you probably haven't been paying much attention but the church including my parish have said and preached and written quite a lot on "torture, unjust war, use of the death penalty, genocide, attacks against noncombatants, racism or poverty and suffering" and don't forget all the church has been doing to help reduce trafficking, immigration issues, child abuse, religious freedom, the economy, pornography, conscience formation, and practicing one's faith on public, etc. The church has been saying a lot. In my opinion Obama is not the answer and never was. Both the republicans and the democrats have dropped the ball in favor of big corporations. The fact that this country has so many billionaires and a large number of impoverished and many without health insurance should be shameful to us.
Rob
6 months ago
So long as our own house continues to have no unity, we cannot possibly expect to change the culture. We seem to be as divided as the greater society.
Thomas
6 months ago
The assault on the teaches of the Church continues, help us Bishops, help us God.
Eamon Hatley-Smith
6 months ago
"It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals".

Frankfurter, Felix (1950). Dennis V. United States, 339 U.S. 162 339 U.S. 162. Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Circuit. No: 14, Argued November 7, 1949. Decided March 27, 1950, U.S. Supreme Court.
Tom McGuire
6 months ago
"We Are Not a One-Issue Church. " These articles and some Bishops have narrowed the choice to three issues: abortion, same sex marriage, and birth control. I am happy to say that my parish rejects this view. In this week's parish bulletin we read:

"This is part of a series of excerpts from Voting and Holiness which the Parish Faith Formation Commission is providing as part of its mission to prepare parishioners to vote in November and to act as committed Christian citizens all the rest of the time. The ideological drift rightward among some members of the Catholic hierarchy and influential Catholic pundits undermines the church’s own teachings about the role of faith in politics. In 2003, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life, which warned against narrowing the broad spectrum of Catholic values to a single issue. “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,” the statement read. “A political commitment to a single isolated aspect
of the Church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility toward the common good.” And this from Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the U.S. bishops’ election-year document on political responsibility: “Catholic teaching about the dignity of life calls us to oppose torture, unjust war, and the use of the death penalty; to prevent genocide and attack against noncombatants; to oppose racism; and to overcome poverty and suffering.”
John Gehring, “Not a Single-Issue Church,” Voting and Holiness, p.84"

These Catholic Online election articles have made clear intrinsic evil in terms of abortion, same sex mariage and birth control, but what have they said in the context of the present political decision making process about torture, unjust war, use of the death penalty, genocide, attacks against noncombatants, racism or poverty and suffering?

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