| 89 Catholic Bishops Speak Out: In This Election, Abortion is the Defining Issue DALLAS, October 28 /Christian Newswire/ -- "As Election Day nears, more and more U.S. Catholic bishops - 89, at latest count - are proclaiming that in this election, Catholic voters must make abortion their defining issue," says Sue Cyr, head of the Ad Hoc Committee in Support of Our Bishops. "That means not voting for pro-aborts." "All Catholics need to hear these bishops' voices," says Mrs. Cyr, "especially those whose favorite candidates are pro-abortion. They need to listen to the following bishops. We've provided the bishops' contact data for the convenience of the news media." 1) Archbishop Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican: "Catholics who support pro-abortion candidates participate in a grave evil. They must show a change of heart and be sacramentally reconciled or refrain from receiving Holy Communion." "At this point the Democratic Party risks transforming itself definitely into a 'party of death.'" www.catholicnews.com/data/ 2) Bishop Robert Hermann, Administrator, Archdiocese of St. Louis: "Save our children! How can a so-called good Catholic vote for a candidate that supports laws that take the life of innocent children, when there is an alternative?... Save our children! How can a so-called good Catholic vote for a candidate that supports laws that justify the killing of a child that survived a botched abortion? How can such a so-called good Catholic receive the Holy Eucharist?" (column, Oct. 10, 2008) 3) Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas, Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth: "...there are no 'truly grave moral' or 'proportionate' reasons, singularly or combined, that could outweigh the millions of innocent human lives that are directly killed by legal abortion each year. To vote for a candidate who supports the intrinsic evil of abortion or 'abortion rights' when there is a morally acceptable alternative would be to cooperate in the evil -- and, therefore, morally impermissible." 4) Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., of Denver: "In the United States in 2008, abortion is an acceptable form of homicide... If you vote this way [for a candidate who supports or promotes abortion], are you cooperating in evil? And if you know you are cooperating in evil, should you go to confession? The answer is yes." "So I think that people who claim that the abortion struggle is 'lost' as a matter of law, or that supporting an outspoken defender of legal abortion is somehow 'pro-life,' are not just wrong; they're betraying the witness of every person who continues the work of defending the unborn child. And I hope they know how to explain that, because someday they'll be required to." 5) Bishop Rene H. Gracida, retired bishop of Corpus Christi: "This is Bishop Rene H. Gracida, reminding all Catholics that they must vote in this election with an informed conscience. A Catholic cannot be said to have voted in this election with a good conscience if they have voted for a pro-abortion candidate. Barack Hussein Obama is a pro-abortion candidate." (radio ad, Oct. 2008)) (Download radio spot in English and Spanish at www.RandallTerry.com) 6) Kansas Catholic Conference of Bishops: "[I]t is a correct judgment of conscience that we would commit moral evil if we were to vote for a candidate who takes a permissive stand on those actions that are intrinsically evil when there is a morally-acceptable alternative." Office: 913-722-6633 7) Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J.: "Certainly policies on welfare, national security, the war in Iraq, Social Security or taxes, taken singly or in any combination, do not provide a proportionate reason to vote for a pro- abortion candidate." 8) Bishop Robert W. Finn, Diocese of Kansas City- St. Joseph: "But, again and again, I am asked, 'Can a Catholic vote for the candidate who is perhaps the most extreme in favor of abortion, even if they promote other policies which we judge to be good?'... When a candidate supports ready access to abortion on demand, they are inviting Catholics to put aside their conscience on this life and death issue. Such a candidate is inviting conscientious Catholics to look elsewhere for moral leadership." 9) Cardinal Edward Egan of New York City: "Do me a favor. Look at the photograph [of a 20- week preborn baby] again. Look and decide with honesty and decency what the Lord expects of you and me as the horror of 'legalized' abortion continues to erode the honor of our nation. Look, and do not absolve yourself if you refuse to act." 10) Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics (A Statement by the Catholic Bishops of the United States, 1998): Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care...But being 'right' in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the 'rightness' of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community. (sec. 23) - http://www.usccb.org/prolife/ 11) Bishop Robert F. Vasa of the Diocese of Baker, Ore.: "When we have someone who [supports legal abortion] then the other issues, in many ways, do not matter because they are already wrong on that absolutely fundamental issue." 12) Bishop Joseph Martino, Diocese of Scranton, Pa.: "No social issue has caused the death of 50 million people [as abortion has]. This is madness, people." (to parish forum) "Our Lord, Jesus Christ, does not ask us to... take up his Cross only to have us leave it at the voting booth door... Let us continue to speak the language of love and affirm the right of every human being to have the value of his or her life, from conception to natural death, respected to the highest degree." (pastoral letter, Respect Life Sunday, 2008) Mrs. Cyr says, "This election presents a stark contrast between a pro-life candidate and one who is the most pro-abortion Presidential candidate in American history. Barack Obama has pledged that his first act as President would be to sign a bill that would undo all the pro-life legislative protections for abortion-targeted preborn babies that pro-lifers have gained in the last 35 years." "Barack Obama," she continues, "has also promised to appoint only pro-abortion nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. That would entrench abortion on demand for another whole generation. That would be a disaster for our country and a death sentence for millions more innocent babies." |
