Fr. Roger Landry, of the diocese of Fall River, Mass., is editor of the diocesan newspaper, The Anchor, and he is an orthodox priest who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. (Fr. Landry wrote this homily in 2002 that made the Internet just as the Scandal was breaking in Boston. It’s still one of the best takes on the situation I’ve seen.)
In his editorial for this Friday’s edition of the newspaper, he addresses the question of how a Catholic should vote. Unlike some who would counsel the approach of “let your (ill-formed) conscience be your guide and if you don’t go the way the Church wants, so be it,” Fr. Landry stands strong and says that a Catholic must search for the Truth, a Truth which Christ promised the Holy Spirit would keep in the Church’s teachings, and follow it.
He praises those voters’ guides that take the latter approach, but he calls out the wolves in sheep’s clothing of those seeking to undermine Church teaching.
As the importance of Catholics’ voting according to their faith in recent national elections has notably grown, and Catholics became much more sensitive to secularists-in-Catholic-clothing manipulating their baptismal status for political gain, it was only a matter of time until the “personally opposed… but” crowd sought to craft another strategy or slogan. They think they’ve found it, in a new organization and a new deceptive voters’ guide. But Catholics should not be fooled.
Voting for the Common Good: A Practical Guide for Conscientious Catholics published by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good — which is led by former advisors to Senators John Kerry and Hillary Clinton — is nothing other than a well-funded attempt to try to persuade Catholics that it is morally okay to continue to vote for the “personally opposed” pro-choice candidates who have swindled them in the past.
Taking Ratzinger out of context
