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Letters
Thursday, October 26, 2006
601 E. Liberty Street
Savannah, GA 31401-5196
We welcome your letters. They must
include the writer’s name, address and
daytime telephone number for verifica
tion purposes. All letters are subject to
editing. Preference will be given to let
ters of fewer than 200 words.
Letters published do not necessarily
reflect the views of the Southern Cross
or of the Diocese of Savannah.
Voting for the common good
The “champions of death” use
selected quotes from Church docu
ments to mislead Catholics into
thinking that all social justice
issues are morally equivalent.
The Church teaches exactly the
opposite. The slick pro-abortion
politicians and their surrogates are
experts at misdirection. While
making pious statements about the
common good, these champions of
death do serious harm to the com
mon good by supporting these
evils: abortion, euthanasia, homo
sexual acts, cloning, embryonic
stem cell research, eviction of God
from the Public Square, moral rela
tivism, Socialism, supporting the
anti-Catholic ACLU and the
appointment of activist judges.
Their policies shamefully do griev
ous harm not only to the common
good but also to the Body of
Christ. Such politicians are dis
qualified from the Catholic vote.
Catholics, clergy and laity, must in
conscience put their Catholic Faith
above party loyalty.
Pope John Paul II in paragraph
#38 of Christifideles Laid, said:
“Above all, the common outcry,
which is justly made on behalf of
human rights - for example, the
right to health, to home, to work,
to family, to culture - is false and
illusory if the right to life, the most
basic and fundamental right and
the condition for all other personal
rights, is not defended with maxi
mum determination.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now
Pope Benedict XVI), in a letter to
Cardinal McCarrick in July, 2004
said, “Not all moral issues have the
same moral weight as abortion and
euthanasia . . . While the Church
exhorts civil authorities to seek
peace, not war, and to exercise dis
cretion and mercy in imposing
punishment on criminals, it may
still be permissible to take up arms
to repel an aggressor or to have
recourse to capital punishment.
There may be a legitimate diversi
ty of opinion even among
Catholics about waging war and
applying the death penalty, but not
however with regard to abortion
and euthanasia.”
The Socialistic policies and
moral relativism promoted by the
“champions of death” have been
implemented in Europe and
Canada, and both of them have
descended into the cesspool of
depravity. Obviously, the common
good has not been served.
Socialism has failed everywhere it
has been tried. We need to learn
from history. It makes no sense to
vote for such failed policies here in
America. A conscientious Catholic
will not vote for the champions of
death.
Paul W. Rosenthal
Martinez
***
What would Jesus do?
I am grateful to live in a country
established on religious principles
and morals, including freedom of
religion for us in the Catholic mi
nority. And a democratic society
needs a system of laws to function
well. Immigrants should enter
legally, following legal, orderly
programs.
However, some letter writers in
these pages seem to have suc
cumbed to the tempting mind-set
to make Law the great absolute
American principle. It’s not that
simple. As the Jewish chief priests
said 2000 years ago: “We have a
law, and according to that law he
(Jesus) ought to die.” (John 19:7)
Why do some wish try to make
Law an absolute? God is the only
absolute, not any man-made thing.
I think we find human society
often a confusing and complex
reality. We long to get a handle on
a difficult and multi-faceted situa
tion, and applying a law to that
situation can be an attempt to cut
through the complexity—to put
things in “black and white”: either
he is guilty or not, either this is
good or bad, no middle ground.
But while respecting laws, Jesus
also taught compassion, mercy,
gratitude, generosity, patience,
sharing with the poor, the home
less, the persecuted, the widow,
the orphan, the foreigner in our
midst.
A good law should reflect the
mind and heart of God and that
means the heart and mind of Jesus
Christ. When applying a law to a
situation, we also have to ask
“What would Jesus do?” Would
Jesus speak harshly to the alleged
law-breaker, or handle him rough-
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ly, disrespect him, violate his
basic human dignity and rights?
During the Civil Rights Move
ment, many racist laws on the
books in Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, and other states were
broken by “illegal” sit-ins, march
es, and other demonstrations
against Jim Crow and segregation.
Many men of God and women of
God participated in civil disobedi
ence—not only Rev. Martin
Luther King, Jr., and members of
the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, but also many
Catholic priests, sisters, seminari
ans, and laypersons. (How proud I
was to be a Catholic, and still
am.)
Jesus reminds us, speaking to
Pilate (John 19:10-11), that all
human authority comes from God.
Human authority and laws are
most authentic when they reflect
the mind and heart of God; and if
it is a godly law, then it must be
applied in a way that respects the
dignity of the accused child of
God.
Remember when Jesus’ disciples
were hungry and picked grain on
the Sabbath? The Pharisees
protested, “See, your disciples are
doing what is unlawful to do on
the Sabbath.” He said to them,
“Have you not read what David
did when he and his companions
were hungry, how he went into the
house of God and ate the bread of
offering, which neither he nor his
companions but only the priests
could lawfully eat?” (see Matthew
12:1-8). Jesus says God desires
“mercy, not sacrifice.” And, “the
Son of Man is Lord of the
Sabbath.” Is not Jesus also Lord
of the Law?
There is one God and Father of
all mankind, and so we are all
brothers and sisters of Jesus, of
one another. Or do we separate
ourselves from others into cate
gories like Democrat /
Republican, American / Foreigner,
White / Black / Brown / Yellow,
Catholic / Protestant, Christian /
Jew / Muslim, etc.? The Hispanic
immigrants in Georgia are chil
dren of God, our brothers and sis
ters first; their legal status is sec
ondary in God’s eyes. Let’s treat
them as brothers and sisters, even
when deciding to arrest them and
separate the men from their wives
and children. Is that what Jesus
would do?
David B. Conner
Macon
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