Open Letter to my fellow Catholics in the U.S.A.

[Classical_Liberal]

Open Letter to my fellow Catholics in the U.S.A.
from Robert Thompson

OpEdNews.Com

Dear Friends,

This is, according to the teachings of our Lord, brought down to us by the Church, a proper manner in which to address fellow members of the Body of Christ. When asked to define my religious affiliation, I reply quite happily that I am a committed practicing Catholic Christian, and I make no excuses for being such.

Here in France, it is exceptional for the Church to make any pronouncements of political matters, and the last time that this happened was when the Spokesman of our Bishops' Conference, jointly with the Chairman of the Protestant Federation, the Chairman of the national Muslim representative body and the Chief Rabbi, clearly condemned all forms of discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion. This was in reply to populist statements made by the Front National (the neo-fascist party, the nearest thing which we have to your neo-conservatives) which were highly discriminatory. I feel it perhaps helpful to add here that the whole idea of "right" and "left" in politics comes from the lay-out of our Assemblée Nationale (the lower house of our parliament) where the Chairman looks down from his "perch" on the members sitting in a semi-circle before and below him. Furthest to the left are the Communists, then (in order) the Greens, the Socialists, the Union de la Démocratie Française (U.D.F.), the U.M.P. (the party currently in government, which supports Mr Chirac) and finally the Front National. I am a card-carrying member of the centrist U.D.F., and dislike the dogmatic approach often adopted by the Socialists (democratic left) and the U.M.P. (democratic right), but many Catholics belong to each of these parties, as also do some to the Greens. I do not in any way consider that they are acting against our commonly held beliefs, but I obviously would prefer them to join me in the U.D.F. The Communists are close to becoming a totally spent force, but I worry at any support given to the Front National which regularly shows its enmity towards, and hatred of, essential Christian tenets. In any case, an essential element in our politics is that all the democratic parties leave their elected legislators free to vote according to their consciences when matters of morality come to be considered, which we consider to be normal and correct.

We look across the Atlantic and see what, if it were not so serious, could be taken for a tragi-comic "Hollywood B movie". In the White House, or on his Ranch, we see the archetypal Connecticut Yankee Dude, who was once the Governor of Texas, with a full supporting cast. There we find the traditional characters, the hanging judge, Mr Ashcroft, the sly businessman, Mr Cheney, the slick salesman (and former close friend of Saddam Hussein), Mr Rumsfeld, and the old soldier who seems to have been tricked into serving them all, Mr Powell, with the tentacles of the Mafia-like neo-conservatives winding round, and thereby controlling, all of them......

http://www.opednews.com/thompson_071904_catholics.htm