Editorial: Questioning McCain and Obama

Both major US Presidential candidates held invitation only meetings with Christian leaders this past week.

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Last week, Senator John McCain met with selected Catholic leaders.

Reports indicated that the meeting was the first of what is promised to become several more invitation only meetings. It was called together by his Catholic surrogates, including Senator Sam Brownback, former RNC Chair and Vatican Ambassador Jim Nicholson and Governor Frank Keating.

I was not invited to the meeting. Nor was I asked whether I had any particular questions I wish would be addressed.

Thus, I had no opportunity to ask what seems to me to be two important questions.

First, I have deep concerns over the Senator from Arizona's continued support for always deadly embryonic stem cell research. They are again affirmed by the strong statement released from the US Bishops last week. Second, I want to understand his current position on the Iraq war.I opposed the initial incursion into Iraq. He did not. However, what is more important right now is what he intends to do to assist both our troops and the people of that War Torn nation.

These are only two among my many concerns.

I know that Senator McCain rightly opposes the current United States policy of abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy. This effect, unfettered abortion by 'choice", was foisted upon the Nation as a result of the effects of Roe v Wade and its progeny.

I was pleased to read of his reaffirmation of the humanity and personhood of the child in the womb at the meeting. I was also very pleased that Father Frank Pavone asked some very important questions along with others whom I also admire.

As I have consistently and repeatedly said - and extensively written- I cannot and will not support any candidate who fails to hear the cry of the poorest of the poor in the first home of the whole human race, the child in the womb.

In the words of the late servant of God, John Paul II, "abortion is the cutting edge of the culture of death" and it has resulted in the loss of over fifty million of our neighbors. It simply must end.

The Abortion issue is for our day what the evil of slavery was for another, our greatest moral challenge as a free people. I will welcome the end of Roe, which the Senator from Arizona at least seems to support.

However, I believe the abortion issue is far more than just an issue of Federalism or picking strict constructionist judges for the bench.That is where the Senator places his emphasis. The current shameful enforcement of abortion on demand as a "right" involves our National rejection of the Natural Law and the clear principles found within our own Declaration of Independence which are derived from it.

We should avoid Fifty State battles over this divisive and deadly issue.

Abortion is the taking of innocent human life and it should be illegal in the same manner as all other taking of innocent human life is. That is why I support a Federal Constitutional Amendment which would simply affirm the Right to Life as found in the Declaration of Independence.

If one really believes that abortion is the taking of innocent human life then it should be illegal, period.

Imagine if during our last great National struggle someone truly believed that slavery was unjust, immoral and should be abolished. To me, it would seem obviously unacceptable to hold a position which would then support fifty States being able to decide as to whether or not such an evil would be allowed in their boundaries.

So it is with the taking of the lives of innocent children in the womb through "legal" abortion.It is not enough to "leave it to the States".

I am closely following the two presumptive Presidential nominees in what promises to be a hard fought and increasingly controversial General Election Campaign for the Presidency of the United States.

Last week, Senator Obama also assembled a selected group of Christian leaders. I was not invited to that meeting either.

His meeting was ecumenical but included several Catholics. Perhaps the most notable was Constitutional scholar and lawyer Doug Kmiec, the former Dean of the Catholic University School of Law and current Caruso Chaired Professor at Pepperdine University. As readers of Catholic Online know, I have repeatedly disagreed with Professor Kmiec in his endorsement of the Senator from Illinois and his rationale for offering such support.

Indirectly, I attempted to get several questions to the presumptive Democratic nominee. I do not know if they came up in what is reported to have been an interesting two hour meeting.

However,in this instance, one of the participants at least asked what three questions I would want to have asked. There are so many I could have asked but, given the limitation given to me, I passed on the following three:

1) Senator, as the work of neo-natal surgery advances we now assist children in the womb in the earliest stages of their lives. Technology allows us to see unborn human life in the womb and every picture tells the same story. The humanity of the child in the womb is objectively obvious.

Senator, do you see the child in the womb as our neighbor? Do you see the child in the womb as the poor? What does that imply?

2) Senator, you have said that you support marriage as properly between a man and a woman and intended for life. You have indicated that a two parent family provides the best place for having and raising our children. You also support the treatment of homosexual persons with dignity and respect.

With the events which have occurred in California, Massachusetts and New York, will you support a constitutional amendment to secure Marriage as only between a man and a woman?

3) Senator, you have been a vocal and consistent opponent of the United State's initial incursion into Iraq and the resulting Iraq War. How will you now ensure that we bring our troops safely home while doing all that we can to ensure the continued safety and self governance of the people of Iraq?

I believe that those who hold the unqualifiedly Whole Life/ Pro-Life position must learn to engage both of these candidates, in their own language. Further, that we should seek every opportunity to do so.

I tried to frame these brief questions for the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, whether they were actually asked or not, within the language of his own stated concerns for the poor and his stated support of marriage and family.

I will continue to work for and welcome the day when both major Parties begin their policy positions with the recognition of the fundamental right to life for every human person and then proceed from there.

At least now, only one of their respective platforms even acknowledges the rights of our youngest neighbors, it is the Republican Platform.

However, today we are publishing a marvelous statement which ran as a full page advertisement in the New York Times in 1992 entitled "A New American Compact: Caring about Women, Caring for the Unborn". It received bi-partisan support.

It was championed by the last great truly Pro-life and Pro-poor Democratic candidates for the Presidency, the late Governor Robert P. Casey. It is extraordinarily timely and recommends itself well to the coming fall campaign.

When the US Presidential Primary season began, we offered every one of the then candidates, in both parties, a series of questions which we asked them to answer. Those who did, we published.

Unfortunately, neither Senator McCain nor Senator Obama responded to our questions.

We publish those same questions once again today and welcome both campaigns to answer them now that the General Election Campaign has begun. If and when they do, we will publish their answers.

We would also welcome interviews with either or both of them. If we receive such interviews we will report extensively about them.

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