September, 2008

As I noted in my letter to Obama, Catholics are not a lock-step army of voters. Some are die-hard Democrats, some die-hard Republicans. Others, like me, grew up in families committed to one party but have also voted for both Republican and Democratic presidential nominees or have voted independent or by write-in. Many of us who are committed to the intrinsic value of human life have profound problems with Obama's position on abortion, but also have profound problems with one of your positions. It is not an abortion problem—although you may want to rethink your conflicting statements that human rights begin "at conception," and that embryonic stem cell research should be approved and funded.

On few issues do Barack Obama and John McCain diverge as dramatically as they do on healthcare. Both say they want to reduce costs and expand coverage to the 47 million uninsured. But while Obama wants to build on the existing employer-based system with new coverage plans for families and businesses, McCain aims to move the country away from work-based insurance and toward a system in which all Americans cut their own deals with private insurers. If the national campaign ever gets past lipstick and the collapse of investment banks, these differences on healthcare may get the attention they deserve.

Abortion has been one of the most divisive and polarizing issues in American politics for the past 35 years. Despite the extensive public debate, people's views are not changing. Opinions on abortion have remained relatively stable since 1995 according to a recent report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Support for keeping abortion legal in all or most cases has fluctuated between 49% and 61% while support for making abortion illegal in all or most cases has fluctuated between 36% and 48%. Currently the numbers are 54% for keeping it legal; 41% for making it illegal. Neither side is convincing the other. Opponents of abortion argue that morality is not based on public opinion. That is true, but law is often based on public opinion. Certainly laws cannot be enforced without the support of public opinion. The inability of the United States successfully to enforce laws against illegal immigration, drugs, prostitution and gambling shows how difficult it is to enforce laws that significant numbers of citizens, even a significant minority, do not support.

The week of Sept. 11, 2008, I had the privilege of hosting a national summit on torture at Mercer University in Atlanta. In this column I want to reflect on what the torture summit meant to me and where our movement will go from here. The combination of military, legal, national security, and religious speakers have convinced me that the practice of torture by the United States marks the first major American scandal of the 21st century. It is a governmental scandal, necessitating investigations, accountability and policy change for at least the next several years. But it is also a religious scandal, involving the compromised loyalties of a majority of American evangelicals.

The bishops said candidates who promote fundamental moral evils such as abortion are cooperating in a grave evil, and Catholics may never vote for them to advance those evils. A Catholic voter's decision to support a candidate despite that gravely immoral position "would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil." This standard of "grave moral reasons" is a very high standard to meet. The bishops added that "a candidate's position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support." This is timely in light of offensive comments on race quoted in the article.

When you are too big to fail, you are bailed out. When you are too small to save, you are down and out on the street. Some aspects of the Wall Street crisis are tough to understand. But one economic principle is pretty clear. When a really big company goes bust, the little guy pays with his home or job. But those CEOs and money managers who boldly march their corporate empires into bankruptcy just get paid millions and millions of dollars more. But no one wants to help taxpayers who are losing homes and jobs. In the grand scheme of American capitalism, they are overreaching specks, too stupid, presumptuous, and inconsequential to spare. In February, Bush signed into law a $170 billion stimulus package that did nothing for those hit hardest by the home mortgage collapse. And Congress, controlled by Democrats, went along.

In the midst of a lengthy political campaign, matters of public policy that are also moral issues sometimes are misrepresented or are presented in a partial or manipulative fashion. While everyone could be expected to know the Church's position on the immorality of abortion and the role of law in protecting unborn children, it seems some profess not to know it and others, even in the Church, dispute it. Since this teaching has recently been falsely presented, the following clarification may be helpful. The Catholic Church, from its first days, condemned the aborting of unborn children as gravely sinful. Not only Scripture's teaching about God's protection of life in the womb (consider the prophets and the psalms and the Gospel stories about John the Baptist and Jesus himself in Mary's womb) but also the first century catechism (the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) said: "You shall not slay the child by abortions. You shall not kill what is generated."

The 47 million Catholics in America consist of the largest single faith group in the nation. Moreover, 41 percent are independents and Catholics are one-quarter of all registered voters. It is no wonder that both candidates are paying special attention to them. Catholics have a track record of supporting the winner of the popular vote in in the last nine presidential elections. In 2008, Barack Obama chose Sen. Joseph Biden partly because his Catholic faith was considered potentially useful in wooing the many white, blue-collar voters - who also are Catholic - and who tended to favor Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries and caucuses. When Mr. Obama announced his running mate, he mentioned Mr. Biden's faith twice. Democrats hope to appeal to those Catholics who are most concerned with ending the war, oppose the death penalty and care about social justice.

f the 2008 campaign has established one indisputable fact, it is that Nancy Pelosi is no St. Augustine. Nor is Joe Biden another Thomas Aquinas. The two Democrats -- and Roman Catholics -- invoked both those church heavyweights recently on separate "Meet the Press" appearances, responding to a question from Tom Brokaw as to when life begins and what that means to their support for abortion rights. The so-called communion wars -- the quadrennial intramural Catholic feud over who is in a state of grace -- had broken out yet again. Mrs. Pelosi's misstep jarred the start of the Democratic convention, and Mr. Biden's comments came just as John McCain's surprise pick for running mate, Sarah Palin, was wowing fellow evangelicals with her pro-life persona. By week's end, the usual storyline was playing out -- secular pro-choice Democrats versus godly pro-life Republicans, with millions of unborn lives in the balance.

When Barack Obama announced that he had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate, Catholic Democrats knew some kind of religious rumble was inevitable. They had spent the 2004 campaign watching John Kerry pummeled by charges that he was not a good Catholic and by warnings that he could be denied communion because of his support for abortion rights. Already this year they had seen pro-choice Catholic Kathleen Sebelius knocked out of vice presidential contention after her archbishop imposed a "pastoral action" on her, demanding she no longer receive the Eucharist. The involvement of the bishops conference is a clear signal that the communion wars are not over. And it has Catholics Democrats worriedly asking themselves: Can one of their own ever again win national office?

In books and speeches, I have often said that God is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I have contended that to make either party "The God Party" is idolatry. This, however, does not mean that Christians should abandon political activism. It has been said that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Consequently, I have long called for Christians to be involved in both political parties, striving to be the "leaven" that permeates both parties with biblically-based judgments and values derived from Christian beliefs.

Millions of Americans point to Ellis Island as the place where their family was first introduced to the United States. Others trace their ancestry to ships that dropped anchor centuries ago in New England. Still more greeted Lady Liberty by way of airplanes and a visa. My father? He fondly remembers the comfortable space in the trunk of a Chevy Bel Air that was his ticket to the American dream. The American frontier will never close, not as long as there are people like my father who were and are willing to cross deserts, stuff themselves into cars, float across water -- just for the chance to establish themselves in this country and thrive.

Sarah Palin has put the Republican ticket in play, giving it the energy John McCain lacked for the fall campaign. He needed a "wow" pick, and she gives him wow. A self-described anti-abortion, Bible church-attending feminist, she connects culturally to white evangelical Republicans who weren't sold on Mr. McCain. Plus, she could resonate with some carpool-driving, daytime-working, homework-helping mothers who support a woman's right to an abortion, but who aren't ideological. And beyond the thorny abortion issue, they could see themselves in a 44-year-old professional woman and mother of five.

"Jesus for President!" So proclaims a progressive Christian movement aiming to tweak the national conscience. Recent trend lines in the country suggest an even more provocative tagline for our consideration: "Jesus for Parole." That's right. Jesus is imprisoned — at least in the view of an increasingly vocal set of Christians spurred into action by some deeply troubling truths about America and our bursting-at-the-seams prison system. The fact that violent crime, according to the Justice Department, has dropped over the same three decades of surging prison-population growth poses a complex tangle: Is less crime the product of get-tough enforcement and sentencing, or are we just incarcerating more low-level offenders who don't need to be in prison? Probably some of both.

With the political conventions over for this electoral season, I found myself haunted by the memory of an old child's game called "Pickup Sticks." In the game of "Pickup Sticks" somebody throws a bundle of long, thin pieces of balsa wood into the air. What had been an orderly assortment of wire-thin skewers is now a higgledy-piggledy mound of wood with each stick of different value. Task: Pick up each one of them without moving any of the other sticks, accrue as many points as you can and then start again, like darts, toward an established series score. I never really liked the game. I woke up the morning after the Republican National Convention feeling like I'd just found myself sitting in a pile of pickup sticks. Whatever had defined the two parties before their national conventions suddenly seemed to have blurred a bit. In fact, it's getting more difficult by the day to tell who's who anymore.

The Roman Catholic Church in Chicago, and indeed the world, is blessed by the thoughtful teaching of Cardinal Francis George. It gives me special joy to say that years ago his mother and my grandmother were over-the-fence neighbors in St. Pascal's Parish. Truth be told, I heard more than once in my childhood, "Why can't you be like the 'saintly Francis George'?" But let's not go there. For the last several months, conservative bloggers have been lampooning me for endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president - admittedly, a somewhat unusual thing for a Republican to do-so some political paddling is fair. What is unfair has been those Republican partisans who have tried to close the door on Obama in the name of the Catholic faith.

Father Kavanaugh's purpose in writing Senator Obama was to alert him to what he called "his abortion problem." Having raised this topic with the senator myself in person, and having made it my principal reservation in giving him my public endorsement, I concur. In fact, Father Kavanaugh thoughtfully noted that my endorsement-which I would give again-has nevertheless come at a considerable cost for me: the loss of collegial friendships from the Reagan and Bush administrations; harsh, even brutal, blog commentary that embarrasses my family and myself; and even the denial of communion by a zealous prelate. Why endure all that? Because Senator Obama is not only ready to lead, he is leading. He inspires America and foreign nations alike with his integrity, intelligence, and call for change to meet great needs precipitated by unjustified war, corporate profiteering and a self-centered autonomy that aggravates, rather than elevates, the human condition.

The pioneering Massachusetts program to provide health insurance for all citizens looks more and more successful with each passing month. The number of uninsured has dropped - Massachusetts now has the lowest rate in the nation - and so have the number of those who turn to costly emergency rooms for routine care. And while the state has had to seek additional sources of revenue - mainly because of the program's popularity - the gains in the first 21 months suggest that the plan could become a model for universal health coverage for other states or the nation. The plan requires everyone to take out health insurance or suffer a tax penalty and requires employers to offer coverage or pay a small assessment if they don't. Low-income residents can enroll in an expanded state-federal Medicaid program or receive subsidies to pay all or part of the premiums for private insurance. Those who earn more than 300 percent of the federal poverty level (about $63,000 for a family of four) receive no subsidy but can buy private policies through a new insurance exchange at much lower rates than before.

So far, however, New Orleans' fate has been largely absent from the campaign conversation. Its few appearances have been more rhetorical than substantive - a way for the Democrats to attack the GOP's record rather than to propose what to do about a city that remains in crisis. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick referred to it briefly: "The same folks who call themselves 'compassionate conservatives' are the same folks who abandoned all those people, not only after Katrina, but before the storm. The American people have had enough." Bill Clinton used Katrina to assail the Bush Administration for cronyism. Yet amid a riveting, potentially historic presidential race, New Orleans has become a three-year-old footnote.

A s the presidential campaign goes into full swing, the American public is likely to be bombarded with the kind of misleading clichés and false dichotomies that distort serious discussion of health care reform in this country. One of these false dichotomies is "private market versus government" health care or "private market versus socialized medicine." Both terms mislead because their users seem not to understand precisely what the terms mean or, if they do, use them mischievously. The term "socialized medicine" in particular conveys to some an objectionably "un-American" form of government: socialism.

Once again John McCain is being forced—unwillingly and only partially prepared—into a position of religious leadership. Many Americans expect their nominee to talk about his or her faith openly and fluently. Though America is not a "Christian nation" either in fact or intention, the president has always played a role of nonsectarian, priestly comfort, especially in times of mourning and crisis. And the great movements of justice in American history-from abolition to woman suffrage to civil rights-have often been rooted in the content and language of faith. At the recent Saddleback presidential forum hosted by Pastor Rick Warren, McCain still had all the reticence of his generation in talking about his personal beliefs.

Just three years ago ago, at the G-8 summit of industrialized nations, it looked like the world of foreign aid was about to change. As the 2005 conference ended, British Prime Minister Tony Blair ascended the steps of a resort in the quaint Scottish village of Gleneagles and announced that rich nations would double their aid to Africa by 2010, giving some $50 billion annually. "It is progress - real and achievable progress," he concluded. Around the rich world, it seemed, millions of people had finally begun to pay attention to global poverty. Today, however, those hopes have all but evaporated. A collision of factors, from politics to shifting global wealth, has unraveled the consensus among rich countries and allowed poorer nations to ignore their calls for reform. Western nations have failed to deliver the money promised at Gleneagles, casting doubt on the entire experiment - and leaving development veterans deeply pessimistic about the future.