A special voting email I received today...

I received the following email today from the Catholic Voting Project, a site which purports to be Catholic and follows the USCCB document Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility. One thing, among many, which this group fails to understand is that John Kerry professes to be a devout Catholic - after all, he was an altar boy, and since he makes this claim he should more readily embrace and assent to the teachings of the Church. George Bush, on the other hand, is not under the same obligation as Kerry in this regard, yet the Catholic Voting Project seems to dismiss this.

The Catholic Voting Project launched today a new animation that exposes the platforms of both Presidential candidates Bush and Kerry as "Cafeteria Catholic," picking and choosing only the Catholic issues that suit them, and tossing the rest out the window. In the animation, the candidates are pictured dining at a fine Catholic restaurant, but when they cannot order the full pro-life entree to the Bishop waiter's satisfaction, he sends them to the Catholic Cafeteria across the street.

You can view the animation at www.CafeteriaCatholics.com.

The animation is designed to educate Catholic voters about the full breadth of Catholic Social Teaching so they can make informed, conscientious voting decisions. The Catholic Voting Project uses as its framework the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' document "Faithful Citizenship," which lays out some fifty "moral priorities for public life" relevant to the upcoming presidential election.

Check out www.CafeteriaCatholics.com and be sure to spread the word to friends! The Catholic vote is critical this election year, and we need to make sure that everyone is aware of the full Catholic menu.

The Catholic Voting Project Team

I hesitate to post this site and the information, however, I believe it is prudent to know what is going on in the realm of alleged Catholic voting undertakings.

For instance, most are aware of the excellent Catholic Voter Guides by Catholic Answers and EWTN's Fr. Stephen Torraco (listed on the side of this page). As a matter of fact, Archbishop Burke has approved the Catholic Answer's Voter's Guide for distribution in our Archdiocese. Yet we see on Catholic Voting Project website this statement:

There are many other voter guides for the 2004 elections that claim to be "Catholic", yet they focus on only a handful of issues, depending largely on the ideology of the sponsor. Some voter guides look only at abortion, stem cell research, and homosexual marriage—issues on which from a Catholic perspective President Bush gets better marks than Kerry.

So the Catholic Answers Voter's Guide is NOT "Catholic"? Someone better inform Karl Keating! I bet he would like to know this.

Other voter guides focus only on domestic economic issues, such as tax policy and social programs for the poorest Americans—issues on which Senator Kerry prevails.

Perhaps this refers to groups like Call to Action, NetworkLobby, or CatholicActionNetwork (which rely, by the way, in large part , on the USCCB document Faithful Citizenship)...Proof? See this.

The Catholic Voting Project's voter guide is unique in that it considers all the issues highlighted by the U.S. Catholic Bishops.

Ah yes, the glorious document, Faithful Citizenship...which, when put in the hands of some, becomes twisted and distorted.

But this isn't all. On October 4, the group posted a Press Release titled: The Catholic Voting Project Responds to Archbishop Burke's Pastoral Letter which states, in part:

Catholic Voting Project spokesperson Chris Korzen said, “Archbishop Burke’s pastoral letter is his personal theological opinion and is intended as guidance for voters within his archdiocese. Speaking as a collected assembly, however, the U.S. Bishops have consistently promoted Faithful Citizenship as the standard that American Catholics should use to inform their conscience when weighing electoral choices. The Bishops explicitly warn against single-issue voting in Faithful Citizenship, and assert that ‘it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine.’”

Archbishop Burke is expressing his own personal theological opinion???...This is the same mantra we always hear when a bishop speaks out against the evils of the age which must be addressed because they are always and everywhere evil and sinful. But that's not all...

“The content and wording of Archbishop Burke’s letter is strikingly similar to the ‘Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics,’ a publication of a lay organization called Catholic Answers. Although Archbishop Burke has promoted the Catholic Answers guide and has sanctioned its distribution in local parishes, such actions have been eyed warily by the U.S. Bishops as a whole.”

I really cannot believe that someone actually has the nerve to write what I just read here..."such actions have been eyed warily by the U.S. Bishops as a whole”? It seems that for a number of years, the U.S. Bishops, generally speaking, have viewed strong and orthodox bishops "warily". The fact of the matter is that the Archdiocesan website has links to both the Catholic Answers Guide and Faithful Citizenship. Perhaps, it's this menu selection that Mr. Korzen finds disturbing, or maybe it's because Archbishop Burke, like a few other god bishops, are concerned for the education of the faithful and concerned for their salvation?

But there is one more point:

“Using Faithful Citizenship as the benchmark, the Catholic Voting Project urges American Catholics to approach voting guides like the Catholic Answers guide with a critical eye. Voting guides that isolate issues without taking into consideration the full richness and breadth of Catholic Social Teaching risk putting a partisan agenda before Catholic principles. They also fail to reflect the spirit of Faithful Citizenship, in which each individual is called to inform his or her conscience and examine it personally when making difficult voting decisions.”

It seems to me, that in this age of little to no catechesis. a guide such as that by Catholic Answers is the perfect beginning point for Catholics as this deals with those issues about which the Church permits of NO exceptions, NO debates, NO dissent...