Catholics Care. Catholics Vote.

Tuesday, November 8

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No News?

Life advocates march in downtown San Francisco
(C) 2013 On Being Roman Catholic in America

Despite some 50,000 people in support of life flowing like a river down Market Street in San Francisco, California, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon on January 26, 2013, it hardly made the news at all. 

Odd.  No news?

First, news because the event marked the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade 1973 legal ruling by the United State Supreme Court that set into motion the legal-ized killing in the United States of an estimated 55,000,000 human lives to date--with no end in site. 

Second, news because the number of life advocates continues to appear on the rise in polls and, over this weekend, in person.  In Washington, D.C., on Friday, January 25, some 500,000 people marched in protest to the steps of the United State Supreme Court.  The next day, on the West Coast, in the City of Saint Francis, some 50,000 showed up, but, thanks to the mainstream media, unaccounted for.

Third, news because technological changes, such as 3-D ultra sound imaging, is offering stark truth about the reality of abortion on demand.  And changing hearts--and minds.

Fourth, news because a growing number of young women--and young men--are rejecting the false truths of our "culture of death"--as evidenced especially in advertising, movies, television, and video games--in favor of choosing life.

Fifth, news because recent legal decisions and legislative actions are, at last, beginning to cause the unravelling of Roe '73.

At least five news angles for a thoughtful exercise in journalism.  And here's one more:  the fact that there was hardly any reported news over this weekend from our "Fourth Estate," well, that's the real story!   Need pictures?

Hold the press!

-30-

A Call to Citizenship

“No, I want my people to be a force in public life!”

Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, on being asked during an interview if he wanted "the Catholic Church" "to be a force in public life."  (See the video.)

From your lips to God's ears, good Cardinal!

Labels

In a recent op-ed piece about religion and politics in America, Michael Gerson, of the Washington Post Writers Group, eventually comes to his point that neither the politics of sectarianism nor the politics of secularism fits the American model of "religious pluralism, humanized by tolerance."  Point taken.  Yet the opinion begins by describing Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum as "(t)he pre-Vatican II Catholic candidate."  The pre-Vatican II Catholic.  An odd phrase.  With this code-laden description, Gerson neatly categorizes Santorum's religious beliefs, labels them--and marginalizes them.  Pre-Vatican II Catholic and other such labels--name calling, in essence--cut against the fostering of a society built upon pluralism and tolerance.  Lacking thought, honesty, or civility, labels serve the lowest form of persuasion, the ad hominum argument.  Why debate ideas when you can attack, label, and marginalize the person?  As such, labels are a first step to intolerance.  As Catholics and Christians, we have a right, as do all Americans, to participate fully in the markeplace of ideas, including religious ideas.  As aptly described by Archbishop Chaput, it is our duty.