Fr. Paul first leads us to some great resources, some of which I've already linked to in other posts here. Secondly, he introduces us to the open letter that Fr. John Bustamante, another associate at Assumption Grotto, wrote to Christians voting for Senator Obama.
Ponder this!
Editorial (10/15/08)Now for the words of Fr. John Bustamante:
Open Letter to Christians Voting for Obama
Guest Column
Today I am happy to present a letter written by Fr. John Bustamante. It was presented as a private e-mail, and I have obtained his consent to show his letter on my web site. But allow me three little comments only tangentially related, which I’d rather not wait until next week to write:
1. Before the letter, I wish to provide a link to this important video and article, documenting the ferociously violent hatred pro-abortion and pro-homosexual activists have for the Catholic Church: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=13854.
2. Second, some of you know about the Freedom of Choice Act. With typical hypocrisy, the pro-abortionists include “freedom of choice,” but the fact is, your tax dollars would provide endless abortions, mountains of aborted babies, and you would not be free to do anything about it. Several bishops have expressed objections about it, as the elections draw near, for example, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Mo., and Cardinal Justin Regali, Archbishop of Philadelphia (link opens .pdf).
3. Third, recently I mused so: if you give power to men who abort babies, then why will they stop the killing once it comes to you? Voters can be amazingly superficial.
These introductory comments bring abortion to mind, but now let us consider Fr. Bustamante’s Open Letter, (emphases in original.), as I sign off to you, Gentle Reader,
- Fr. Paul Ward
Open Letter to Christians Voting for Obama
By Fr. John Bustamante
I would like to ask you a question: if you were a Supreme Court Justice sitting on the bench in 1973 and your vote was one of the nine votes for or against abortion-on-demand, how would you have voted? Would you have voted for abortion-on-demand or against it? Since we are speaking hypothetically, you needn’t concern yourself with any other issues of the interpretation of the Constitution. Or the right to privacy—an argument that was acknowledged to be false in the personal diaries of the very Supreme Court Chief Justice who had handed the abortion-on-demand decision down just months before. Just base your answer on the one thing that isn’t hypothetical—your Catholic or Christian faith. Your belief in Jesus Christ. Your full knowledge that you will one day stand before him and render an accounting for what you did in the body—whether good or evil (2 Cor 5:10). How would you have voted?
The answer to that question will tell you whether you are Catholic or not. It will tell you whether you are Christian or not. It will tell you whether you believe in God—the Giver of life—or not. It will tell you whether you believe in the Fifth Commandment or not. Are you—hypothetically—going to condemn millions of unborn children to a horrific death in their mothers wombs? But more importantly—and more certainly—are you willing to stand before God as one who supported such an intrinsically evil act?
Six months ago, I was convinced that the Republican Party and Democratic Party had colluded to eliminate abortion from the November ballot. I was certain that we would have to choose between two pro-abortion presidential candidates on the November ballot. I was wrong. In fact, I was so wrong that the November ballot is exactly the opposite. The November election is nothing short of a national referendum on abortion.
In 1973, the Supreme Court short-circuited the democratic process and took the abortion issue out of the hands of voters and put it into the hands of abortionists, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and others who have, time and time again, shown that they treat human life like any other political issue. This year, for the first time since 1973, the American people will have the opportunity to vote on whether they agree with Roe vs. Wade or not.
John McCain has thrown down the gauntlet to America. His pro-life voting record and his naming of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential candidate has completely eliminated any doubt about where he stands on abortion and even what he is willing to do as President of the United States to back up his stance. Conversely, the same can be said of Barak Obama and Joe Biden. Their stand on expanding and extending abortion goes beyond what even the most virulent pro-abortion organizations like NARAL and Planned Parenthood require to give a candidate a 100% voting record.
You need not pretend you are one of the nine Justices handing down a decision in 1973. If you vote—and even if you don’t—you will be, more importantly, casting your vote before God. By voting for the Political Party of Death, you are voting for the continuation and expansion of abortion, euthanasia, the destruction of human embryos, the undermining of marriage and all the consequences that entails, the stripping of the rights of parents to educate and protect their children, and countless other immoral and even unlawful consequences. These aren’t possibilities. They are simply the track record of Democrats over the past 30 years and, moreover, they are the campaign promises made by Barak Obama and Joseph Biden.
The mortal sin of voting for the two pro-abortion candidates and further empowering their Political Party is not hypothetical. It is something for which you will answer to God.
Voting for pro-abortion candidates and further empowering their Political Party means that you will have exercised the fullest expression of participation in government that our political system gives its citizens to contribute to the deaths of even more unborn children. There is little more that you can do politically to be accountable for continuing and expanding abortion—except support the campaigns of pro-abortion candidates with lawn signs and bumper stickers and campaign contributions. Think about it: you are going to stand before God and tell Him that your conscience told you that gas prices were more important than life? That higher taxes to fund bigger government was more important than life? That the class warfare that is being incessantly waged is more important than life? I don’t think that a single pro-abortion legislator has ever performed an abortion, but they have directly enabled tens of thousands of abortionists to commit tens of millions of abortions.
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said it is a poverty that a child must die that you may live as you wish. It is a poverty that so many Christians are voting as if there is no God. If we daily entrust the souls of the infants who were murdered by abortion to God’s Mercy, then to whom do we entrust those who took their lives? Jesus said, “Blessed are those who show mercy, mercy shall be theirs” (Matthew 5:7). May your vote in November be a vote of mercy for the unborn.
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The obedient are not held captive by Holy Mother Church; it is the disobedient who are held captive by the world!