The local newspaper in Rockford, Illinois, picked up my favorable comments about Bishop Thomas Doran of Rockford and his recent diocesan newspaper column taking the “party of death” to task for advocating an alphabetical list of sinful conduct: “abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type and genetic experimentation and mutilation.” (Thanks to Fr. Clark for pointing that out.) The newspaper takes the tack that Doran was specifically targeting Democrats and making a partisan political point, and as partial proof they quote me.
But most of the Web sites commenting on the matter have seen the column as an attack on the Democratic Party. For example, Bettnet.com, a Catholic blog written by Domenico Bettinelli Jr., approvingly refers to Doran’s “scathing rebuke against the Democrats.”
Of course, what I actually wrote was: “He launches a scathing rebuke against the Democrats, the culture of death, radical feminism, and homosexuals in his diocesan newspaper column dated August 10.” There’s no denying that the Democrats are part of the problem the bishop mentioned because they support all of those things. Of course, it should be said that there are many Republicans on the wrong side of those issues too. It’s just that they’re not part of the party’s platform ... yet.
Meanwhile, there’s Voice of the Faithful popping up on the side of liberal Democrats again. For an organization that supposedly embraces Catholics across the whole spectrum, they seem heavily weighted toward one end.
F. Patrick LaSalle, a Rockford Catholic and member of Voice of the Faithful, a group organized to speak out against sexual abuse by the clergy, said he disagrees with Doran’s effort “to classify an entire political party.”
A majority of Americans, LaSalle added, “feels more comfortable in the party they believe protects the disadvantaged, supports minorities, the elderly and the young, fosters equal rights for all, protests unjust wars and represents the thinking of middle-class America.”
Yep, the Republican Party. Oh wait, that’s not what he meant. Seriously, do all those supposed party attributes (which is a disputable list, I know) outweigh the party’s support for the abortion holocaust and all the rest?
Good for Bishop Doran, weathering the media firestorm and calling on all his Catholic faithful to consider whether their votes have a moral consequence.
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