Catholic Pro-Life Groups Condemn Phony Voter Guide From Abortion Activist
Here is the first half of the article, the link contains the rest of it:
Catholic pro-life groups are condemning what they call a phony voter guide put out by a Catholic organization with ties to abortion advocates. They say the guide from Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) incorrectly suggests that support for pro-abortion politicians can be justified.
Joseph Cella, the president of Fidelis, a national Catholic-based advocacy group, told LifeNews.com that CACG is headed by Alexia Kelley, a former advisor to the John Kerry presidential campaign.
Kerry, a pro-abortion Massachusetts senator, lost to pro-life President George W. Bush in the 2004 elections.
"Following the 2004 elections, pro-abortion politicians recognized their vulnerability with Catholic voters and have been searching for ways to shrewdly package a convincing arguments that would appeal to morally conscious voters," Cella says about the mindset behind the voter's guide.
The CACG booklet argues “we often must vote for candidates who hold the ‘wrong’ Catholic positions on some issues in order to maximize the good our vote achieves in other areas.”
But the nation's Catholic bishops disagree, Cella explains, saying they made it clear that candidates who are wrong on abortion but hold Catholic views on other political issues don't deserve the votes of faithful Catholics.
In their 1998 document entitled Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics, the United States Catholic Bishops said, “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," the Catholic leaders wrote.
UPDATE 10-6-06: Here's a press release from the Catholic League about the voter guide -CATHOLIC LEAGUE for Religious and Civil Rights
September 29, 2006
CATHOLIC DEMS STUCK WITH ABORTION ALBATROSS
A new Catholic activist organization, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, has issued a voter guide that will be distributed to Catholics between now and election day. Commenting on the 12-page booklet is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:
“The voter guide is a slick attempt to get the abortion albatross off the necks of Catholic Democrats, but it’s a failed effort—the noose is still there. Instead of listening to James Carville and Paul Begala, who have counseled Democrats to drop their opposition to parental notification laws and their support for keeping partial-birth abortion legal, the best Catholics in Alliance can do is say it is opposed to abortion. But it makes it painfully clear that it will never join any effort to ban any abortions, including partial-birth. Alexia Kelley heads the new group, and in 2004 she worked as a religion advisor to John Kerry in the closing weeks of his campaign. Kerry is an advocate of keeping partial-birth abortion legal.
“On p. 9 of the booklet, it criticizes many pro-life candidates (it puts the term pro-life in quotes, as in so-called pro-life candidates) who are nothing but talk. ‘On the other hand,’ it says, there are pro-abortion politicians who ‘support effective measures to promote healthy families and reduce abortions by providing help to pregnant women and young children.’ There’s the moral equivalency: it’s okay for a Catholic politician to give a green light to a practice that kills a baby who is 80-percent born, just so long as he’s against trans fats.
“On August 2, 2006, Catholics in Alliance issued a news release urging the Senate to raise the minimum wage, an issue which the Catholic Church has no official position on, one way or the other. But the group has no statement urging anyone to vote against partial-birth abortion, an issue which the Catholic Church officially opposes. The best it can do is say it opposes the ‘root causes’ of abortion.
“Despite what Catholics in Alliance says, there is a moral hierarchy of issues, and as important as ending poverty is, it does not rival the right of a child to be born.”
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