can religion bend the election
If there is a latin word for Chutzpuh, Pope John Paul II should be using it to descibe current president George W. Bush's efforts to get the Vatican to support the Republicans in the upcoming election. According to the Vatican officials, when Bush went to see the Pope in Rome last June, the president ' Complained that the U.S. bishops were not being vocal enough in supporting Bush on social issues like gay marriage and abortion'. Bush asked the pope's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, to 'push the bishops to beomece more activly involved" in promoting those issues that are part of Bush's social agenda. The offical added that ' It was the Vatican's interpretation that Bush wanted the bishops to get involved in time for the campaign'.
President Bush may have been encouraged to make his overture by top Vatican Cardinal Francis Arinze's call to priests to deny communion to Cathloic officeholders who support legalizatied abortion. Senetor John Kerry is a pro choice Catholic. Thus far he has not been denied communion, but the Cardinal's admonition had been used by Bush supporters to urge Roamn Catholics to vote against Kerry.
Where does the President come off lecturing the Vatican about getting tougher on abortion, gay marriage, or stem cell research? The pope should have pointed a finger at Bush and said " Are you not aware of the Vatican's stance on the Iraq war? Do you know we regard it as a unjust and unfair war and we deem the Commander in Cheif who started it a sinner?" What about the Vatican's stand on the Death Penalty? Bush has run for the death penalty for a long time, starting as governer of Texas. He actually presided over more executions than any other governer, including sending innocents and mentally ill people to that punishment. In this regard, and his continuing campaigning for the capitol punishment in his office as Commander in Chief, is in violation of the teachings of the church?
" What about your tax policy?" W claims that Jesus is his favorite philosopher, but when was the last time he read the teachings in the bible? If he did, he would find that Jesus favored the poor over the rich. In speech, you claim that your base is the ' Haves and Have Mores".
The Vatican should stay out of the US presidential elections for several reasons. First, it should have no perffered candidates, since each opposes something important Vatican positions and favors others.
Second, America is built on the ideal of separation between church and state, which should not be breached by any church.
Finally, the Vatican will suffer if it favors a candidate that loses, and Bush may well lose next month, with or without the support of the Vatican.
In fact, the Vatican should make it clear that it resents Bush's efforts to use its good offices for partisan political purposes, and that it neither endorses a particular candidatenor take positions on how an elected representative of all Americans should vote on divisive political issues. Many Americans- Catholics and non-catholic alike- shoild be appalled by Bush's attempt to play the pope card in order to increase his voting base amoung American Catholics.
These issues have come around before. In the 60's, JFK, a prominent Roman Catholic, said that he would not take orders from the Vatican, and voters were willing to vote because of that. In a speech to ministers in Houston, canidate Kennedy asserted that no priest, minister, or Rabbi should tell an elected official what to do or tell a citizen how o cast his or her ballot. IT follows that no public official should tell a pope to support one canidate or another.
Is Bush getting a little worried? IT appears so. There is no way he could ever pull another political manuver like he did in Florida four long years ago. As Bush's support starts to run dry, is this what it comes down to? To try and pull favor withthe religious folk? It is true that everything Bush has done in the past four years has been bad, but the worst of it reflects in the faces of Catholics. And now he asks...no, TELLS, the pope what he should be doing.
Chutzpuh is right...it has to be, or supreme stupidity.