First Thoughts

Barack Obama's recent selection of Joe Biden as his vice-presidential running mate for the 2008 election got me thinking about what it means to be Catholic. . .  So much so that I created this blog.  I make no guarantees and will post my thoughts only when inspired.  The only limit that I currently place on this blog is that somehow any/all posts will be related to my Roman Catholic faith.

Back to the initial inspiration:  Joe Biden.

His selection has re-sparked the debate regarding Catholic politicians that support abortion and, perhaps more to the point for me, whether a practicing Catholic can or should, in good conscience, vote for a politician that is pro-choice.  This issue is certainly worth discussing.

I do not profess to have any answers and am, in fact, still undecided regarding the upcoming presidential election.  I am well aware of how awful abortion is and do not want to stand up and be counted with the pro-choice (pro-death?) people in America.  Yet, the Republican platform, which is nominally pro-life, has plenty of its own positions that are cause for revulsion.  My current plan is to think and pray long and hard before casting my ballot in November.

However, one point I would like to make is that it seems to me that there is an awful lot of grand-standing and judging that goes on in the debate over these issues.  I humbly submit that our Lord would frown upon his followers taking potshots at others and manning the moral high ground so often staked out by the Pharisees in His time.  The passage regarding tending to the beam in one's own eye before pointing out the splinter in the eye of another comes to mind.

Anyway, the issue of abortion-- or more specifically, of Catholics that mistakenly believe they can be "pro-choice" and Catholic--  is one that must be addressed with love, not rhetoric and vitriol, if any true progress is to be made.