Notice:

Dear Blogger,

You may wish to look at, in particular, the next to last article on energy and the comments. (Click on April and scroll down to Energy.) There have been two excellent thoughtful rebuttals to the part of my article in which I caution against single issue voting. I do submit that the bishop’s agree with me in their article on “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.”

What do you think?

With grateful thanks to those of you who have offered prayers for my family.

Susan
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Dear Reader.

For the record, on my own behalf, I was called into question (see Energy) because in my bulletin paragraph I did not quote the bishops regarding the attention that must be given intrinsic evils when one decides for whom to vote. However, in the bulletin in which that paragraph was due to appear, (happened to come a week later) the bishops two sided summary page, designed for bulletin insert, The Challenge of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, was inserted into the bulletin. It was there because I myself had chosen to order, pay for and submit that document so that the parish would have exactly what the bishops document says. Following is my censured paragraph.

What do we need to do now? Clearly energy resources are an issue for the coming election. We will have to form our conscience, balancing issues. It isn’t easy. We need to consider that the U.S. Bishops united declared, “Catholics are not single issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support…both opposing evil and doing good are essential.”3 What do the bishops tell us about how we can decide between the intrinsic evil of abortion, for example, against say energy, health care, the war in Iraq and other compelling issues? The bishops tell us, “A voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.”3 Political decisions, they say, require the exercise of a well-formed conscience aided by prudence, which is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason. The bishops do not tell us how to vote; they give us guidance in forming our own individual conscience.

You Are the People

YOU ARE THE PEOPLE

Today we hear the shocking story of the current world food crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people face starvation. I saw children eating baked mud pies on TV. Food has become so expensive that people all over the world cannot buy it. Rice, wheat, and corn have doubled in price in the past three years. When I hear this, I say to myself, (what I often say), “I feel so helpless.”

But am I helpless? When we were children, playing a game with our hands, lacing our fingers, palms inward, then putting our wrists together thumbs pointing up, we would chant, here’s the church. (then forefingers up, tips together) here’s the steeple, then open the door swinging our fingers up we would say, “and here’s all the people.” This is the clue of why I’m not helpless; there are all the people, in the church, with the steeple.

We have each other; we have people; we are not alone. We don’t need to cure the world’s hunger by ourselves. We belong to a loving, giving community; all we need to do is our part. People don’t ordinarily say to one another, “I give (so many dollars a month) to Catholic Relief,” for example. But we know the members of St. Patrick’s give. They contribute to Catholic Relief, to the missions, to Catholic Charities, to the pope and bishops’ funds, to the food kitchen, and countless other charitable organizations. As well as giving money, fellow parishioners take action for charity – Scullys for example – travel to South America to help the poor, the Etlings have for years been the backbone of Catholic Charities, Ruth Myers and her volunteers cook for the hungry, and Jack and Kay Barnet write congress regularly on behalf of the hungry in the world. These are some of the loving giving people of our Church. But just as we do not know what money others are giving, we do not know the countless hours others spend helping the poor. Similar to an election, when we each cast our vote, we are powerful - each doing our silent part.

How powerful are we – the people – together? Together for example, gifts to Catholic Relief Services provide assistance to 80 million people in more than 100 countries and territories. We are not helpless in this food crisis around the world. We are not alone. When we open the door at St. Patrick’s Church, there are all the people – the people of hope.

Participate in Good Government (Click on article to enlarge)