Local News
Letter To The Editor
Published: March 26, 2009
To the Editor:
Edward Hula’s letter to the editor in the March 12 Georgia Bulletin was instructive in many ways. Mr. Hula states that it is “disgusting and false” to question the discipleship of a Catholic who votes for a pro-abortion rights candidate. It is most certainly fair to question a Catholic who votes for a pro-abortion rights candidate when that candidate makes abortion rights an issue and when that candidate faces a viable pro-life opponent.
In fact, pro-life versus pro-choice is not “one of many distinctions” Catholics must consider when voting. The teaching of our Archbishop, and the Church, is clear on this matter. Abortion is a fundamental life issue and is foremost among other social justice issues such as poverty, racism, health care and the death penalty (which President Obama supports by the way). It is categorically false to say that these other issues are on an equal footing with abortion.
Mr. Hula goes further to say that “President Obama is firmly in the Catholic camp” on other “issues a Catholic must support.” In what way? By signing executive orders that result in Catholic taxpayers being forced to fund overseas abortions and embryonic stem cell research? By advocating the misnamed Freedom of Choice Act that will force Catholic medical providers and hospitals to aid and abet abortion? How do these policies “actually reduce the number of abortions”?
Finally, President Obama’s decision(s) to send 17,000 additional combat troops to Afghanistan, leave 50,000 “non combat” troops in Iraq indefinitely, and advocate cross-border military action into Pakistan may make sense from a military perspective; however, they clearly don’t appear to be “non-violence to solve international conflict.”
Francis Farrell III, Dunwoody
