Simple answer to your question: Yes.

“I know that no matter how I look at this, many people will tell me that I am looking at it the wrong way.”

Well you ARE looking at it the wrong way.
Let’s walk through your proposed scenarios.

1. You and a large number of Catholics leave the GOP and vote third party.
Result= The Democrats win, and the GOP higher ups abandon social conservatives because they would have to change their electoral strategy.

There is no “magical” Catholic party that is going to fall down from Heaven. We are a two party system by tradition and law. Having a pro-life party at the Federal level based upon that one issue would keep us either out of power forever or force us to ally with one of the major parties which would leave you in the same dynamic we have now.

2. You and a bunch of Catholics become independent one issue voters.
Result= Pro-Choice Republicans will have more power at the local level because the Pro-Lifers won’t be involved in the process and social conservatives get ignored. However, some GOP candidates in states with lots of pro-life voters will run as pro-life.

How is this scenario any different than what you already have?

You ignore all of the results achieved in the states by the local GOP. Where do you think most our candidates for House and Senate races come from? The local GOP apparatus that typically pushes state house and senate members to run for Congress.

I compromised last presidential election.  I live in a state where the electoral votes were overwhelmingly for Obama so I voted third party to send a message to the GOP, “Give me someone I can vote for please!  Not some quasi “pro-lifer” that supports embryo destruction.”

I know that in the grand scheme it was nothing, but to me it meant everything to vote my conscience.

I live in Massachusetts, I vote. I just vote blank in many of the races. No matter what I think it’s important to know I actually show up on election day. Many Democrats run simply unopposed, it has been better since Scott Brown won though.

The state GOP runs a socially liberal/fiscal conservative platform, when I’m fiscal moderate/socially conservative. There are a few of those both on the left and right here, but the coalition is small.

I’ve been a non-affiliated (independent) voter for many years, but have recently decided to register GOP because I, too, wish to participate in local primary elections. There are ills with both major parties, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it is better to choose the party nearest to your ideals, principles, and conscience—however slight that might be. Sometimes it may require holding your nose while voting in the hopes that, little by little, better people will get in and the longer-term traditions and goals will prevail. In this respect I kind of like the Tea Party approach: you elect someone to office and strictly hold them accountable to their word. If they don’t produce, then you go back the next election, throw them out and put in somebody else. And you keep doing this until the candidates finally get the message. In order for things to improve at the top, voters at the local, grass-roots level have to become more involved. And sometimes they even have to become angry.

Unfortunately, there really is a lot about the Republican Party that just does not square with Catholic teachings (notwithstanding their tepid support for the pro-life cause). This may sound crazy to some, but I honestly like someone like Ron Paul would be a good person for a Catholic to vote for. He opposes torture and unjust military actions, and he even introduces a Sanctity of Life Act to officially declare that life begins at conception.

I register Republican for the primaries, and then break up with them as soon as the worst person on the ticket gets the nomination.  There’s a term for staying in a bad relationshop with hopes of being a good influence on the other party.  It’s called “missionary dating.”

I don’t know how any Catholic can be a Democrat when that party is not only pro-abortion but pro homosexual marriage and anti-family. It defends everything that is immoral, from pornography to embryonic stem cell research, etc., etc. Yes, there are some individuals in the party who do not advocate these things, but because they will vote the party line in most instances, immorality wins by default.

To me, the If you feel the Republican Party isn’t where you think it should be, then you stay and work to make it better. Many of us get upset with our local parishes because of abuses within the church, but we don’t leave and go elsewhere. We stay and fight to fix things.

If no one tries to reform what is wrong, it will never get better.

what a dumb blog…it should be..IF I BELONG TO THE DEMOCRAT PARTY I AM NO LONGER A ROMAN CATHOLIC…how can one belong to the democrat party that gives a right to kill a baby in the womb and a party that speads the filth of the homosexual lifestyle and still call themselves a roman catholis

The question should be : Can I be pro life and Democrat !! No one can vote for this pro abortion President, Obama. He also continues this war in an area that didnt attack us !! In addition the Pope has said that we can disagree with the stand of the CURRENT Church on the death penalty. BUT cant disagree with the abortion position !!(see below) The Democrats also give us gay marriage laws and failure to do ANYTHING about the proliferation of porn in this country ! Im voting against Obama…..
..............Pope said :“3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia”
http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-07ratzingerommunion.htm

Let us pray that the Bishops Conference does NOT put out pro-Democrat pro-death propanganda for the 2012 elections as they did in 2008-the so-called “seamless garment” has unravelled with Obama and the Democrat allegiance to Planned Parenthood. Last time around the Bishops told us there were two things that were intrinsically evil-racism and abortion; then somehow they twisted it all so that some interpreted it to mean they could vote pro-death pro-Democrat. Now with the clear abortion/black-genocide connection there is no way the Bishops can come out pro-death pro-Democrat.  Or is there?

Great question, important dilemma.  Do we stick with the Republicans, or do we crack away from them.  There is certainly a crackable faction within the party: the “social conservatives”.  They’re debating among the Republicans what to do with us.  Mitch Daniels thinks we should pipe down.  Others (can’t think of a good one off hand) embrace us.  I say: stick with the Republicans for now.  The pro-life “social conservatives” still form enough of the party, even among the candidates themselves, for us to swing the party our way.  It’s a rare opportunity we have here.  I think we are truly in a unique position in this 2012 election to fight for the heart and soul of the party. If it doesn’t work in 2012, though, I think we should give them up.

As long as Roe stands, there will always be “limited success” on a federal level. We must elect a Republican president who will hopefully be able to replace some liberals on the Supreme Court. In order to accomplish that in this fallen world, we must be willing to be clever like serpents. Which sometimes means voting for someone who is somewhat serpent-like.

Yes, I believe that you can be pro-life and be a Republican. The party does indeed have many problems because they try to be more moderate in my opinion rather than truly conservative. But their stance on life is crucial. We need to strengthen and change the party from within.

Good analysis of the problem, Pat.  Perhaps if every pro-life voter stayed away on the next election as a way of reminding the Republican establishment that they need us much more than we need them.  It will also require people not believing all the alarmist rhetoric about how the parties are so far apart on non-cultural issues, which they are not.  The alternative will be yet another round of disappointment as pro-life voters believe Republican pretenses that they are with us only to have those assurances forgotten as soon as we get them elected.  A definition of insanity comes to mind.  It would also be helpful if the bishops spoke with one voice on the evil of voting for pro-abortion candidates.

Thank you so much for asking these questions.  Many of us are in the same shoes as you in regards to political affiliation and pro-life issues.  I look forward to the comments.  God Bless!

In Answer to your blog posting, Mr. Archbold, is, as a pro-life Catholics, we must realize Democrats are a better fit.

You may well be too young to remember this, but a generation ago, the term “Catholic Democrat"seemed almost redundant. If you were a Catholic, few asked about your politics. It was crystal clear. Today, we find a whle new game in which catholics have become a powerful, dependable voting bloc, shilling for the Republican Party.

It’s no secret (especially to you, Mr. Archbold, as you are in the vanguard) that this swift conversion is partially the result of a well-planned, well-execued strategy by polictical conservatives that uses abortion to create a wedge between practicing Catholics and the Democratic Party.

By your portraying the Republican Party (however coy you set this out in your blog) as the “pro-life party,” you and other conservatives (many defecters from Protestant Evangelicalism) have successfully recuited many hapless Catholics who strongly belive (rightly so) in protecting the unborn.

The primacy of the abortion issue, however, is unique to these Catholic voters.

Now, here’s the truth: The political reality is that ending or even limiting abortion is not a priority for the Republican Party!

The polarizing power of the abortion issue is being used by Republican strategists as a tool… and that’s how it’s seen… as a tool only. The last thing the Republican political machine wants is an end to abortion, for so goes abortion, so goes the Catholic vote.

To some the politicaly unsophisticated among us, this might come as a hard truth, but the facts about abortion clearly show that Catholics who vote Republican on this “pure” single issue get zero in return.

On the flip-side, the hard truth for Democrats, is that many of these “Catholics” have fiscal and social conservatives long before they decided to “come home” to our church.

As Pro-life Democrats it’s our mission to seek out those Catholics who have abandoned the party and challenge them to examine whaat the church says about the key social, political and economic issues of our times.

What they will find is that the consistent ethic of life that should be the guiding principle in how a Catholic votes can be found only in the growing pro-life movement WITHIN the Democratic Party.

It’s then up to Democrats to welcome Catholics home!

Because of these issues, a couple decades ago I made a difficult decission. I put my money where my mouth is, and began to strive to TITHE toward change. I vote with my dollars toward more than 100 pro-life organizations… promoting chastity, preserving life from conception, aiding at risk mothers, helping orphans and widows, etc. Sure the Church could distribute my tithes for me, and I trust half to my local Priest and Bishop, but I choose to keep a pulse on many great NGO agents of social charity with whom I want solidarity. I also changed from Democrat to Republican, financially aiding only candidates who are like minded.

The answer to your, in my humble opinion, humble as I am, unnecessarily morbid and depressing question is YES.

Permit me to recall something I often heard on Mark Levin’s radio show about this, or close to this, very topic: “We need to take back our party from the RINOs, the establishment types, and the left of center Republicans.”

I think this speaks directly to your qualms about being pro life in such a “big tent” if you will of a party that houses everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Ron Paul and his buddy Gary Johnson. The answer is, not a depressed “No, my party will never accomodate me *sad face*” nor is the answer a third party run which historically almost always favors the pro abortion Democrats. The answer is, you and Matt and I and all the other true conservatives need to fight to take our party back so we can be proud when we stand and say:

“I’m pro life, and I’m a Republican.”

I reluctantly vote Republican because it feels that their lukewarm opposition to abortion is better than the open support by the Democrats. 
On one hand, I think that a third party vote is a wasted vote.  On the other hand, if everyone thinks this way we doom ourselves to keeping the two party system.

I guess ultimately we have to constantly assess and not become “knee-jerk” voters of one party.  I never knowingly vote for a pro-abortion candidate, so sometimes I feel I have to do a third party vote or a write in if both parties post a pro-abortion candidate.

I support the most prolife candidates in an election.
Contributions go to organization that do not provide for or support abortion.
So many organizations that have charitable reputations are not providing what people think, but are supporting abortion from the embryo state and planned parenthood all over the world.
There is Jim DeMint’s conservative pac, which supports candidates if they are prolife and pro-traditional marriage. It is possible to support candidates who will work and put their careers on the line for life and traditional family values without funding those who don’t.

This is why I read you, Matthew, you haven’t confused Roman Catholic with Republican, you know how far apart they can be at times.  I resigned my party affiliation years ago and vote independent now.  I don’t vote for pro-abort candidates of either party, and have been known to support pro-life Democrats.  In my state you don’t need a party affiliation to vote in a primary, so it was an easy decision for me (although each election is hard, there really are very few candidates for anything who embrace ALL of Catholic social teaching).  If I were in your state, I would probably stay in the GOP and work to fix it.  God bless you.

Sorry, Patrick, I’m on my first cup of coffee.  Obviously, I love reading both of you!

People who care about ending abortion, in my opinion, can best serve the cause by getting involved in their local Republican Party organizations, running to become precinct committeeman (or whatever local equivalent you have), and influence your local and state party to become more pro-life by recruiting and supporting pro-life people in the party.

Pat, FWIW, I spent a LOT of time and energy thinking and writing about this in the last election, over at Jimmy Akin’s blog, in a six-part post series on elections and voting.

In my series I argued against Obama advocacy, on the grounds that (a) the right to life is fundamental to all other rights, and (b) abortion, while not the only life issue, is the most important. I also argued for a qualified McCain advocacy.

To defend this, I articulated and argued for the moral proposition that it is always morally acceptable to support and vote for the candidate you deem to be the least problematic viable candidate. It is not morally necessary to vote for the least problematic viable candidate—one may reasonably choose, for a number of reasons, to vote for a nonviable candidate, and there may be reasons for finding this preferable—but it is never simply immoral to vote for the least problematic viable candidate.

So, one cannot (almost without exception today) be pro-life and vote Democratic. One can be pro-life and vote Republican. This does not mean one has to, or that it is necessarily the best way to vote in any particular election.

Dear Patrick,
Registering in either party so as to participate in its primary elections is a requirement in many jurisdictions throught the US. Party affiliation by formal registration has become, at minimum, an indication of one’s desire to actively participate in the electoral/governmental activity of our nation. It need not indicate any more than that minimum.
One may register affiliation with the Republican Party and not “be” Republican. One need not provide finacial or sweat-equity support to the Party. One need not provide intellectual/philospohical/rhetorical support to the Party or its candidiates. Registration can be (and I sense that it is most often) merely the price of admission to the Party’s primary processes.
Benedict says something along the lines of “Christianity proposes, it does not demand.” This is perhaps a very good way to understand one’s relationship to one’s Party. The Republican Party Proposes, it cannot demand. (Curiously, this does seem to be so much the case in the Democratic Party) You are a Republican if you think of yourself as a Republican and undertake actions as one. The Republican voter registration card in your wallet does not make you a Republican.
I am perhaps an extreme example of what I set forth above:
I am a paleo-conservative, a devout Roman Catholic, and a committed culture conservative and culture warrior/defender. AND I am a registered, card-carrying Democrat.
You see, I live in Washington, DC, so overwhelmingly and distortedly a single-party town that the mayoral and city-council elections (the District’s equivelent to Gubernatorial and State Senatorial elections) are fully decided in the Primaries. In DC, one may only vote in a Party’s primary election if one is registered as a member of that party . I am no Democrat and everyone knows it. My voter registration card indicates my official Democrat Party membership and gets me exactly two things: 1) ability to participate in the de-facto elections of my representatives and 2)loud howls of disbelief at cocktail parties when friends ask to see it.
Be a committed Christian conservative and vote in support of the greatest advance of your well-formed and closely-held principals. And keep pounding out the great work - IT is what establishes your affiliation.

Posted by John on Wednesday, May 25, 2011 9:45 AM (EDT):

“In Answer to your blog posting, Mr. Archbold, is, as a pro-life Catholics, we must realize Democrats are a better fit.”

LOL. You and the party you shill for are a sick joke, John.

I consider myself an independent. A “Roman Catholic pro-life independent”, to be exact. All the labels “Republican” and “Democrat” mean to me is that someone has decided to follow someone else’s agenda other than the Church’s. That said, the Democrat Party has absolutely NO CLAIM to the votes of Catholics who truly a culture of life. The Democrats seek to undermine the culture of life at every possible moment - they were even willing to let Obamacare die and shut down the government rather than allow pro-life victories in those instances. Abortion-on-demand is the raison d’etre of the Democrat Party, soon to be joined by same-sex marriage. The days of the Catholic Church as the “Democrat Party at prayer” are LONG GONE.

In my previous comment, that should say “the Democrat Party has absolutely NO CLAIM to the votes of Catholics who truly desire a culture of life”.

You might want to read up on the Civil War, Pat.  Similar problems back then— the answer was not a third party.

results at the Federal level may be low in overturning Roe V. Wade but there are two things to remember:
1) Lack of advances on the federal level are because of dissident Catholic leaders in the Democratic Party who vote for death of the unborn.  If they would vote with Pro-Lifers abortion in this country would be illegal.
2)  At the federal level much is actually accomplished when a Pro-Life person is in office:  1)  The quadrennial debate about the Mexico City Policy; 2)  All the regulations and enforcement of laws is done with more of a pro-Life eye.; 3)  Almost all appointments to the judiciary adn executive branches are pro-Life; and 4) Conscience protection for pro-lifers are not being maintained by the Democratic Party which has sold out to the far left..  These are not small things considering the example of the Obama administration which has filled every position as though there is a pro-death litmus test.

That said in the state of NY where the Republican party seems to generally take all the vices of the Party without being very Pro-LIfe I have held out in registering for that party.  But please don;t say that Republicans do little at the Federal level for pro_life.  They do a lot and our current Planned Parenthood lackey in the WH proves it.

Let’s face it: if you DON’T vote Republican you’re probably electing a Democrat who pushes for abortion, embryonic stem cell research, forcing the Church to allow Gay parents to adopt, etc.
I vote on issues, not for parties; so if you can find a Democrat who hasn’t pledged himself to kill babies and persecute the Church, vote for him.  But good lick finding him.

Should I remain an American citizen, or should I become something else?  America has so many immoral problems, and the churches aren’t really standing up and fighting them head on anymore - they’re caving in and don’t even talk about sin.  And half of the people going to some churches profess to believe in God as the giver of life, but turn around outside church and support pro-abortion groups and parties.  I just don’t know if I can be more effective being a citizen of some other place.

To “still believe”-Good, Serious question-where do we go? Costa Rica? Poland? St Marys Kansas? I’ve asked your question and I’ve looked around-and I haven’t yet found a place where the people and the government are God-loving, God-fearing, mostly Catholic or at least mostly good. Anyone know where to go where tax money doesn’t fund evil?

John, let me congratulate you for putting into words what I’ve long suspected, and tried to say, (but not as well as you have.
  ” . . . Now, here’s the truth: The political reality is that ending or even limiting abortion is not a priority for the Republican Party!
. . . . The polarizing power of the abortion issue is being used by Republican strategists as a tool… and that’s how it’s seen… as a tool only. The last thing the Republican political machine wants is an end to abortion, for so goes abortion, so goes the Catholic vote.”
  If the GOP really cared about ending abortion and making it a solid-oak-plank in their party platform, would their self-proclaimed “pro-life” House “leadership” have—with straight faces—allowed the dog n’ pony show farce of the Pence Amendment (which they knew was going nowhere!) be tacked on to their horrific budget cuts of so many valuable programs so badly needed by many pregnant young mothers—many of whom are single and left to fend on their own by their disowning and shamed parents, their babies’ weasly “fathers,” and extended family members? And would this so-called “prolife” and “family values party” have scheduled the debate over Pence’s tag-along-amendment late on a Friday night when most people wouldn’t even think of CSPAN, much less deliberately choose to sit and watch that spectacle last winter?
  If the GOP really cared about ending abortion it wouldn’t have cut $700M out of the WIC and other child and young mother nutrition programs. If it was serious about saying we place a value on these children and want them to know they have a future in this country, would it have gutted Head Start, Pell Grants and other necessary educational programs?
  These issues have been raised before in the Register lately and I couldn’t seem to make a dent. And I’m sure as hell wouldn’t make a dent in the mind of anybody’s with one like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s! Oh, he’s a stalwart prolifer member of the family values party. Just yesterday, when so many families in Joplin, MO are reeling from the shattering loss of their dear ones, their homes and neighborhoods, (a hospital as well!) ... what does this smug Virginian do when the topic of federal emergency funding came up? He stiff-arms the Missourians by saying in so many words, “Sorry, unless I can get the money out of somebody else’s programs or districts, Joplin’s on its own.”
  Rep. Cantor, on your way to Washington, I’m sure you’ve gone past a huge sprawling grayish looking building called the Pentagon. Even the Republican Defense Secretary Bob Gates says there’s fat for trimming. Find out what he can spare. No doubt Sec. Gates would scalp many programs in a heartbeat to help Joplin if it could be done that quickly. But the every proudly penurious Cantor all of a sudden has a skipping heart beat and a “senior moment” when it comes to knowing and immediately promising help to Joplin the day after it was hit far worse than some of Germany’s cities during the first years of our daylight bombing raids.
  Did I just use the word “senior”? Guess who Cantor thinks would make a great president? None other than his budgetary hatchetman, Paul “Eddy Munster” Ryan, the “bold and courageous” genius who came up with his ever-noble intention of “saving Medicare” by destroying it first. You have to go back to the Vietnam War to find that kind of logic held in vogue by government officials. Hell, I would’t allow that myopic bean-counter to put a bandaid on a small cut much less let him get his hands on Medicare. Fret not about a “President Ryan,” he’s tanking at home and as another famous Congressional Irishman learned years ago, “All politics is local.” Ryan will eventually learn there are fewer things more “local” than a constituent’s checkbook when they go to pay their medical bills.
  What has the “party of family values” got to show for itself when the long and sad record of one budgetary flop, unfunded war and unfunded tax break giveaway to the people who need it the least ... all these things ... including their cockamamie unfunded Rx Medicare prescription plan gets tossed into the “items to consider” basket? It’s not a pleasant picture.
  The GOP’s leadership claims we’re “broke and have a spending problem.” True, but only half-true. We’re spending too much on at least one war we were gulled into believing would be paid for by proceeds from Iraqi oil revenues. Still waiting on that. Unfortunately the president gave in (which to his credit he’s now expressing public regret and disgust at the blatant in-your-face-greed of the wealthy who are demandng more UNFUNDED tax breaks. As Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders loudly pointed out in his one-man mini-day/long-filibuster last December, “How much do they need? ... How much is enough!?” Somebody’s paying for that largesse that’ll never come back to reinvigorate the economy in some trickle down fashion. Excuse me, it does trickle back, but it flows rolls and roils like the mighty oceans separating one tax haven from another. More money went out in tax breaks to people who didn’t need or deserve them than what went out in TARP bailout payments to keep our system from completely collapsing.
  C’mon, tell me “government money doesn’t create jobs” because if it’s saving them as did for our banking industry and auto manufacturers and defense manufacturers, that’s saving more jobs thus employing more people who would otherwise have either lost their jobs or complete hope in the system altogether. What happens when hope goes—coupled with the gutting of programs needed to help our young get off to a good start? People become more expendable. That’s right, and you know what happens then.
  Alan Grayson’s record on abortion is prochoice, but he may well have been speaking for all of us when he castigated the GOP ideas for those the bean counters in its favorite institutes adjuncts, Heritage Foundation, AEI, Cato, et al, have deemed expendable. “They want you to die.”
  If the same party could produce leaders that worked together to bring the Soviet Union to its demise without firing a shot, how is it that it couldn’t produce enough willing legal eagles to put an end to Roe? As John pointed out; it didn’t want to. There’s nowhere near the “political capitol” in solving a domestic issue that’ll always be a great voter draw. Good Heavens! What’ll they have to come up with next after solving the abortion legal riddle? It’s far easier for a select and well-placed, not to mention perennially well-funded, few to take the mentally, morally and spiritually lazy way when it comes to ridding us of a vexing problem. Never mind the convenient cliche of kicking cans, our “prolife leaders” in Washington seem to be hoarding them for future use, much like a smart politician always leaves his axe ever so conveniently half-buried.
  Think of all the money sent in to the big sachems of Washington’s respective Prolife Tamany Halls. What’s to show for all that funding they’ve received? Oh, sitting on it and waiting for the “next Republican administration” to get in and “finally” get the Supreme Dream Team to overturn Roe? Look at the guys who don’t want to even run for the general manager’s job next year. There’s only one “serious” guy left and he’s got more questions than answers (or even hair in his great mane.) Then of course, there’s the others, more capable of providing yuks (i.e., Bachmann, Palin, Pawlenty, Cain) than substance. Yes, there’s also that serial marryin’ guy with a bling problem, too.
  Oh, they’re all “prolife” too, until ... you see what else they support, or more significantly, what they don’t support or won’t pay for.
  Last November I rather dejectedly disenrolled from the Democrats. Dejected because I felt the party let me down too often. Then I only had to watch the new circus come to town, with the Tea Party leading the supposedly “establishment conservative” Speaker John Boehner by a chain inked to a ring in his nose. Talk about a wake up call and a reinvigorated call to duty.
  I also discovered that while we should never give up the fight for the unborn, we can’t win it from outside. Period. Third parties go nowhere. Even Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman (CT) who are registered as Independents (with Sanders clearly identified himself more or less “Democratic Socialist”) have to caucus and vote with one party or another and Lieberman stuck with the Democrats, although he supported McCain. We have to be practical and realize what we’re up against.
  Having said that, it doesn’t mean we sit back and allow the same old same old people who haven’t produced a thing in almost 40 years keep calling the shots on leading the prolife cause (and it’s not just about abortion.) This riles the hell out of the single issue folks. Sorry, but ... where has your singularity gotten you, or more importantly, the unborn, the mothers and families who would’ve kept these children or been allowed to place them for adoption. Now what are you going to do that courts across the country are making it increasingly difficult if not legally impossible to purposely place children in hetereosexual homes, notwithstanding doctrinal teachings against homosexual conduct?
  The Republicans won’t be of any help in this regard. They’re full of libertarians. It was the homosexual Log Cabin Republicans who filed the legal action that finished off Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
  Allow me to play the “devil’s advocate.” How many supposedly prolifers are willing to go on public record as saying they’ll abide with children who weren’t aborted being placed in same sex households? Maybe there’s been a policy statement issued about this and I’m not aware of it, but I wouldn’t venture to bet on many. It only takes a slight deviation from the “party line” in any of Washington’s “cause” or “issue” related political/religious circuits or cliques and down comes the big WHUMP and the threat feared most in that city: loss of funding.
  Even for good reasons, Chuck Colson, found out almost 20 years ago how sudden the fortunes can turn when he joined up with the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus to form Evangelicals and Catholics Together. Prison Fellowship almost had its funding completely yanked from Colson’s Protestant side, no less! And just look at what that flaming hypocrite Eric Cantor pulled on Newt Gingrich when the latter voiced his questions about Ryan’s “bold and courageous” Medicare nonsense.
  If the GOP leadership truly wants to end abortion or put such a kabosh on it that Planned Parenthood will have to file overnight for bankruptcy protection (losing $300M won’t cause that) ... surely, after almost 40 years, it must have some people in mind who’ve been eagerly awaiting for the right moment to just file the papers and get the job done.
  Hell no: the politics of winning elections, and all the fun stuff that comes with spending all the money that flows in that bidnez, all the ego massaging, etc. ... and of course, all the bogus promises by the candidates that they’ll appoint the “right people, ahem, who are also strict constitutionalists” will always beat out doing the right thing.
  The Democrats aren’t perfect. None of us are. But at least they’re a lot more consistent and genuinely, to use a horrifically overused cliche, “transparent.” I’ll let God take care of the “accountability” end for the GOP and “Religious Right” that’s done all the talking while consistently losing at the table of one of the most important political games in DC: Life.
  More lives will be saved by the spending of tax dollars to fund WIC, Head Start, etc. than all the boodles of tax breaks shoveled in the direction of pro-abortion Helen Walton (WalMart) and other undeserving oligarchs.
  Guess I’ve gotta pay a visit to my town clerk’s office. No way in hell will I ever get conned into joining the GOP again and one has to be practical and work with the people who can effect the most change, even if they seem to be the most unlikely folks.

Pat,
I understand your dilemma.  In my opinion, the problem with your position is that it fails to take into account just how the two-party system functions at the earlier stages of making a law at the legislative level. 
I worked in government at the state level for several years.  One thing was VERY clear.  In a 2-party system, only the two parties have the ability to direct change, because only the two parties have any effect on which bills get heard.  Popular vote within the respective chambers means nothing unless the bills get out of committee! And only the MAJORITY party schedules which bills are heard in committee.  The MAJORITY party has almost total control of what bills become law because the MAJORITY party basically determines which bills are presented on the floor of House and Senate.
Let me provide an example.  We had an informed consent bill and we were pretty sure that, in the House, we had enough votes to get it passed (albeit by the slimmest of margins).  The Democrats were in the majority but we had a few good Democrats that were willing to vote with us on this particular issue.  If I remember correctly, a couple of them even had the nerve to sign on (at great risk to their political careers!)  We tried to get the bill scheduled in committee but, the Democrat’s refused to schedule it.  We started to drum up constituent pressure to get the bill scheduled for a hearing.  Finally, the committee chair was forced to schedule us… on the last day as the last item on the docket.  The chairman of the committee (NOTE: also a Democrat because the D’s were the majority party, for those unfamiliar with how that works)delayed proceeding as long as she could.  We took a private head count and had the support to go for a vote and ge the bill out of committee and onto the floor.  The chairman slammed down her gavel and declared an end to the session, in essence declaring the bill dead in committee.  We had popular vote.  We had all the support we needed to get the bill passed through the House.  But, because we did not have majority, we had nothing at all.
I understand the philosophical struggle for pro-life people (like myself).  However, in a two-party system, one must also understand how essential it is, not only to be a member on one of those two parties, but also to be IN MAJORITY.  Individual votes for the position you hold is important but, in the end, if the party they represent is opposed to your values, it is the party’s will that will prevail.  To vote for a pro-life independent over a marginally pro-life Republican may guarantee a Democrat majority - and that is to guarantee a pro-abortion.  Where pro-lifers have made headway at the state level, Republicans have had majority.
Bottom line: until the Rebublicans have majority in the legislature (both houses), and until we get a Republican president who will make pro-life appointments in the Supreme court, we will make no substantial gains at the federal level.  I’m saying this as one who often disagrees with Republican policy but, if pro-life issues are paramount to you, then you need to vote FOR THE PARTY which is most likely to support that position because, it is the PARTY’S POSITION - and not the individual’s - that will form policy, sad as that may be.

Good grief! The Catholics for Obama appear to be working overtime in the White House basement. Because I’m not a Republican, I won’t defend the GOP. But neither will I sit by while the minions of the party of abortion-on-demand castigate the GOP for “not really being pro-life” because it’s allegedly not in GOP’s political interest to see abortion end. If you DemoCath hypocrites would hold YOUR OWN party accountable for making abortion its raison d’etre, instead of always seeking to deflect blame on those “divisive social conservatives”, we could end abortion in this country and deprive the GOP of that particular wedge issue.

But you won’t make waves in the Democrat Party because you know you’d be marginalized so fast by the pro-abortion majority in your party that it wouldn’t even be funny. No, it’s much easier to go along and get along with the pro-abort crowd, and make up for it by claiming Democrat policies reduce the so-called “need” for abortion. Ending abortion altogether isn’t even on your radar screen.

I just hope the Republicans keep putting guys like this Rep. Rob Woodall up as one of their “rising stars.” He’s a sight to behold on CSPAN, with more oily moves than a mix of a used car salesman and backwoods preacher. But take a look at this video folks. This is hypocrisy galore. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/25/rob-woodall-health-care_n_866859.html
  And when you all get a chance, take a look at his “Fair Tax” proposal that’d wipe out the IRS and replace income taxes with a national sales tax. If you think your state’s or local muncipality’s a bit high, you’d better hold on to your wallets if he succeeds in getting his 23 percent sales tax passed. He wants to “help” people cut back on unnecessary spending.
  What’s Woodall going to tell former store owners whose businesses went belly up because they lost all those customers he tried to help?
  Looks like the only guy he’s helping is a certain Republican: himself when it comes to taking Congress’ health care plan. “It’s free.”
George Washington Plunkitt couldn’t have put it any better, “We’ve seen our opportunities and took ‘em.” LOL
  This was too good not to share.

You mention that there are no third parties that espouse Catholic Teaching and yet we have the Constitution Party, in my opinion a very viable Third Party

http://www.constitutionparty.com/

I just don’t get it. If the party doesn’t support a major issue for you, why do you want anything to do with it?

As a Christian response: what would Jesus do? (I hate this as a cliche, but it is a great question.) I’m pretty sure he’d simply stand up for what’s right. Period.

The Republican party does not see pro-life issues as a “priority”.  They throw it in their platform so that they can get people like you to vote for them, that’s it.  This will never change.  So, vote for the pro-life candidate of your choice and work on preventing abortion in your community.  If there is no demand for abortion than there will be fewer abortions, start the process of fixing the problem rather than looking for a man in the government to make a difference.  I don’t understand why people think they can do the same things and expect a different result.  It’s not going to happen, change your plan.

They didn’t have political parties as we know them in Jesus’ time. Nor were they any better because they didn’t have them, either.

The Bible provides many practical suggestions, ideas and admonitions for improving one’s individual, family life on a daily basis. Likewise for how we conduct our external business matters. Some lessons concerning how to avoid the dangers of rashness, injustice, economic exploitation (lots of lessons on how to handle our finances! because they touch on character-building exercises, etc.) ... but we still have to rely on our Church’s teachings which offer at our disposal 2,000 years worth of excellent teachings. And unlike the Bible, the Church’s Teaching Tradition, as worked on and passed down from the Magisterium (and even shared/promoted/used by some Mainline Protestant denominations on some topics), the so-called “Bible Christianity” mode of applying the Bible and only the Bible to daily life. carries with it considerable limitations and very little flexibility.
  As a whole, when it comes to Clerical contributions, nothing’s topped what Rome has steadily produced for 2,000 years when it’s come to teachings on the ways we can all contribute to the improvement of our countries, regions, states and municipalities. Because the Catholic Church is not bound by a rigid Bible only approach, She is able to employ a level of liberality of thinking many Protestant denominations would immediately frown upon. When I use the word “liberality,” I’m not referring to today’s common political lingo.
  Oddly I notice that many of the so-called “constitutionalists” (be they members of specific parties or acting on their own, tend to approach the Constitution in a much stricter fashion. The Constitution, as well as some parts of Tradition must be seen as LIVING documents; Tradition for it reflects the will of the Living God; our nation’s laws because they reflect our ever growing and changing needs. That’s not to say therer aren’t any absolutes. On the other hand, it’s very unreasonable to expect a runner to put in a mile in the dead of Summer if he’s also expected to wear a colonial gentleman’s waistcoat or heavy woolen robes of Jesus time.

Sue,

I don’t think I failed to take into account the necessity of Majority.  In fact, I went into some detail on this point as it is a key deciding factor.

Ron Paul is not an option. He is as prepossessing as the now long-dead Guinea Pig my daughter used to have.

Paul is ok with abortion if voters in each state decide they desire it.

Your vote does not count. Period.  All one has to do is just return to the days prior to The SCOTUS imposing its religious views on America with the Re V Wade ruling.

Did you vote for that decision?  Well, then, there ya go.

Did you vote to impose the anti-white legislation called affirmative action?

Did you vote to have some nitwit tell you you had to rent-out the apartment in your garage to a homosexual or else be subject to the corrupt Christ-denying legal system?

Did you vote to have the smartest person ever, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, start a THIRD illegal and unjust war?

Did you vote to turn-over The Treasury to the usual usury bastids on Wall Street and the Banksters?

I could go on and on and on…..

Seriously, what IS it about voting that makes you think you have one damn thing to say as to what happens in this God-Abandoned country?

I do not propose to have “The Answer”...
However, I DO know what the answer is NOT.
Abandoning ship. Just this month the Presbyterian (USA) General Assembly succeeded in amending the ‘Rules of Order’ to make room for Gay and ‘non celibate’ single Leaders. How did the proponents of this “Change” succeed? Many Faithful Stalwarts grew weary of fighting and left the denomination.
The obvious result: Those that stood on Gods Word grew weaker in numbers and those that would advocate a Licentious Gospel grew stronger giving them the percentages they needed. Those that left assured victory to the opposition.

There are pro-life democrats as well and we are trying to change from inside. because abortion is really a choice and the death penalty is not in any sense and because none of us is infallible we all need to work for life everywhere we can.

Dear Mr. Dennison. That vote was a suicide and I wish more and more false religions would commit suicide. When a false religion commits suicide it loses its ability to keep the scales on the eyes of its adepts.

And once they can see, they have the opportunity to see The Holy See.

That vote was a wonderful event.

To Steven D. Greydanus:

If we are to believe you are really telling us what you believe (and not just fronting for the Grand Old Party’s right-wing branch), then you are showing us just how far beyond a real understanding of how our political system in America works.

Fact: It’s very possible the Democrats will sweep the board in 2012. They will be the party to reckon with. With our nation continuing to suffer the burdens of recession, war, and (because in part of wedge-makers) political discord, it will be time to call on all people of good will, and the leadership of both parties, to uphold the social justice tradition of the Catholic Church you cose to join. It will be a time to safeguard the hard-won social and economic gains of the last century, and to protect the well-being of all Americans, especially the poor and the unborn, who have rarely been more vulnerable.

If you are sincere (and I pray you, along with Mr. Archbold, are) isn’t it time to pledge to pray and work for an end to divisive and obstructionist politics for the sake of all under God’s mantle? Isn’t it time to support candidates who advance the common good in the rich tradition of the Catholic Church, across the spectrum, since as we do we will alleviate abortion?

Steven says, ” . . . Now, here’s the truth: The political reality is that ending or even limiting abortion is not a priority for the Republican Party!”

Now, here’s the facts: the only thing stopping the Republican legislators and presidents from ending abortion-on-demand remaining the law-of-the-land are the Democrat legislators and presidents; AND the church-going, Profession of Faith reciting, Our Father praying, Holy Communion receiving, Democrat Catholics who keep voting for them.

@mary joan roarke

“There are pro-life democrats as well and we are trying to change from inside. because abortion is really a choice and the death penalty is not in any sense.”

Mary, do you vote for the Democrat Party candidates even if they are pro-abortion?

Dear Stillbelieve..and when the Stupid Party controlled the POTUS, The Senate, The HOR, and had put more Republican Lawyers on The SCOTUS then the Evil Party had, then why didn’t they stop abortion?

Steven and others: Take it from someone who know the political board because he’s worked the political board, one who simply not just a political pundit: If Catholics throw in with the Republican Party, instead of working within the system, they’ll be left twisting in the wind the way all those far-right evangelicals were when they supported Jimmy carter in 1976.

That’s the truth that you may find hard to take, but it’s the truth, nonetheless.

Pat, my friend, you are NOT going to find a political party that meets 100% of your personal criteria. If you want to call a political party your own, you have to clarify for yourself what your top priorities are, and then find one that comports with them. Having said that, if you feel there is a party that is close to meeting your high standards, but that you think needs to move further in some direction, standing on the outside lamenting the situation isn’t going to help you or the party. You are right in your observation that to help change a party you must be within the party. But, that goes beyond registering your affiliation and then moaning. You have to be seriously active if you want to make an impact. If you can’t commit to that because your energies are being spent in what you feel are more productive endeavors, then it may be better to not affiliate.

@Vermont Crank

“Dear Stillbelieve..and when the Stupid Party controlled the POTUS, The Senate, The HOR, and had put more Republican Lawyers on The SCOTUS then the Evil Party had, then why didn’t they stop abortion?”

Be specific.

@John

“Steven and others: Take it from someone who know the political board because he’s worked the political board, one who simply not just a political pundit: If Catholics throw in with the Republican Party, instead of working within the system, they’ll be left twisting in the wind the way all those far-right evangelicals were when they supported Jimmy carter in 1976.

That’s the truth that you may find hard to take, but it’s the truth, nonetheless.”

What “far-right evangelcals” are you talking about?

I’m in Western New York - a state that boasts Republicans who would often be Democrats in other states. My Republican Catholic Congressman accepts abortion under some circomstances. But his focus, like that of many other local Republicans, tends to be on economic, not social, issues. I’m a registered “blank:” Not in any officially recognized party (I registered “Right to Life Party”) When poeple ask my party affiliation I simply say “Catholic.”

I’m in Western New York - a state that boasts Republicans who would often be Democrats in other states. My Republican Catholic Congressman accepts abortion under some circumstances. But his focus, like that of many other local Republicans, tends to be on economic, not social, issues. I’m a registered “blank:” Not in any officially recognized party (I registered “Right to Life Party”) When people ask my party affiliation I simply say “Catholic.”

John, I’m actually in your corner on this. You brought up excellent points and to any degree of hardness of accepting the facts of the GOP’s cynical manipulative behavior, there’s a handsome looking building kitty-corner across the street from a subway stop just a feet downhill from the House of Representatives. We can leave a big basket of blame for this right at its doorstep. Bet you dollars to donuts they’ll hire a courier to send it over to their opposites at Dupont Circle. At least the Democrats won’t play putsie about it.
  As to all the third-party seekers, don’t waste your time. Some them have shady fellow travellers and others just have ideas that are nothing more valuable than handy instant conversation stoppers. The moment somebody starts borrowing the phraseology of the Constitution Party when it comes to social security and other long-established parts of the social safetynet, recent budgetary controversies notwithstanding, they’re talking about the programs keeping mom n’ pop away from the poor farm and no person who wants to be taken seriously in Washington or any of our state capitals wants to be viewed as an off-base extremist, especially involving programs helping our elderly live out their retirement years with the dignity they deserve. It only takes one broken hip.
  It’s just mind boggling to think of how low the GOP has stooped in recent decades concerning domestic policy matters. It used to be the party that promoted Civil Rights and in fact, gave LBJ the votes he needed to pass the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act(s) during the Sixties. Then along came Nixon and hardball politics. No wonder Ike rolled his eyes and sniffed more often than not at Nixon’s back alley approach towards domestic politics. Nixon passed a lot of progressive laws, and got the environmental movement going. But ... we know the rest.
  I personally saw the effects of this hardened approach and turnabout by the (hard) right on Civil Rights during the Boston Busing Crisis, while working as a deputy clerk for the same Federal District Court which handled the case. (Not assigned to work for Judge Garrity, though.) Sure, MA Democrats played their role(s). Did they ever! But underneath it all, not just in Boston, but in many other places, esp. down South it was the GOP’s brass-knuckle underling “strategists” (ward heelers) like Atwater that changed things too. John, I think they were setting up the evangelicals and Jimmy Carter at the same time back in ‘76. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit, but since you brought it up, I couldn’t help chuckling and wondering, “What did I miss that was right in front of my nose?” LOL. Thanks.
  Busing morphed into ‘bortion for the next hot-button issue to really crank up. Later during the early Eighties, I was fortunate to have interned at the National Journalism Center and to his everlasting credit, the founder and then head, columnist M. Stanton Evans wouldn’t have tolerated any shennanigans by his interns with this Joe O’Keefe character. We were there to learn how to become better journalists and let our published works speak for themselves so the public could determine if we were truly “fair and balanced.” Fairness and balance can’t be packaged, especially when it comes to sensitive issues like abortion. Thankfully my interests then centered mostly around the so-called “nuke freeze” and student loan programs. In fact, I only became interested in the abortion issue after I became a father nearly a year my wife and I married.
  There’s nothing like that kind of activism to get a person’s attention. And there’s nothing like the kind of concern a father of a now mature young man worried that what he’s paying into the social safety net programs will still be there; which of course leaves one thinking, “Did anybody in my ever so damn smart-as-whips ‘Baby Boomer Generation’ give thought to what lonely and cold years they’ll be living because they had to have it all when they were younger and couldn’t bring themselves to share their blessings with a new generation to come?”
  When Pence’s Amendment, a tag-a-long debacle (but great drama for CSPAN viewers) was on the tube, I couldn’t help wondering and waiting for just one, just one politician, Republican or Democrat to say, “Hey, you folks really have a clue to what’s bleeding Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and eventually Obamacare?” No Republican would DARE to defend the safety net and I haven’t a clue to why even those few Democrats who did cross over on the amendment didn’t bring this up. Fear is an equal opportunity killer in today’s ideologically visceral poltical scene.
  So is clumsiness, as we’ve seen lately when Rick Santorum tried to bring to light this simple demographical fact to light. Santorum, however, has a hard time getting around his ego, perhaps only excelled in size by the state he used to represent in the Senate.
  Well, I’ve given more than enough pieces of lumber for other writers to toss on the flames of the auto da fe they’re going to stage after reading this. Hey guys, at least let me have what Jimmy Buffett would sing to ahead of my final immolation: A BBQ’d taste of the “Cheeseburger in Paradise” awaiting me up in Margaritaville. Yeah, I know they think I’m heading in the opposite direction. But I just remembered it was on top of my “bucket list.”

There is no other responsible choice than to be a Republican.  The Democrats are the party of death.  There is no other alternative.  Libertarians are a waste of time because they will never have any influence.  There is no viable third party.

More than the Democrats or Republicans, I hold the Catholic Church and the USCCB to be specific, accountable for the increasing use of contraception, continuation of abortion, and now an even faster moral decline on things like IVF, euthanasia, assisted suicide, embryonic-stem cell research and gay “marriage”. Where were they when Obama was running for president with his abominable abortion record?? Where are they in dealing with these “Catholic” schools and Colleges that are no different or worse than Public schools in promoting Planned parenthood, abortion and gay-marriage? If the Bishops actually spoke up many Catholics would not have voted for Obama. If the Bishops were doing their jobs in obeying the Pope and following and TEACHING what the Catholic Church actually believes we wouldn’t be where we are today. Unfortunately the Democratic Party is NOT the party it used to be but many Bishops/ Priests and religious continue to support it (hiding behind their “Seamless Garment” sham and confusing “Voter Guides”) and do nothing to correct heretic “Catholic” politicians like Pelosi, Biden, Kerry, Sebelius, Cuomo, Guiliani, and the Kennedys to name a few. So, the Democratic Party has become the party of death plain and simple. Instead of voting for bills that promote life, traditional marriage, etc, Democrats vote against them…...then they come to Communion and the Bishops (except for a few ) don’t say a thing!

You say the Republicans have done little but the House (Repub. majority)  just passed the defunding of Planned Parenthood, but the Senate (Democrat majority) defeated it! Who do Obama & the Democrats try to get into the Supreme Court and other Judge positions?.....radical anti-life and anti marriage believers! The Republican Party may not be perfect but I can honestly say I feel I am promoting the pro-life cause and traditional marriage when I vote for most of them. I am in contact with my Representatives (all Republican and pro-life) to remind them of the pro-life cause and I am watching their votes…..which we all should be doing.
I am Catholic and Republican!

How can any Christian be a republican?  The party that teaches, “Every man for himself.” The party that preaches hatred, intolerance, and that material wealth is the key to happiness.

30 or 40 years ago this could be a serious question but today it’s such a no-brainer,just look at the judges appointed at all levels by republican presidents since Reagan and the radical leftist judges appointed by Clinton and Obama…....  also, there really is no such thing as pro-life democrats in elected office anymore, Bart Stupack proved that, he had many of us in Michigan fooled untill last year when he supported Obamacare with the backdoor funding of abortions ........

Pat Archbold, I contend that the clearest and most emphatic direction Pope John Paul II ever gave to the Church to follow, concerning the so-called “life” issues, is the correct coarse to take in making the decision you are “struggling” with, a decision which many sincere Catholics stumble on.  It is as valuable now as the day he said it. 

“Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights - for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture - is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination….” (1988, Pope John Paul II)

ALL other “rights” are “FALSE AND ILLUSORY” if THE RIGHT TO LIFE…IS NOT DEFENDED WITH MAXIMUM DETERMINATION.”  51,000,000+ unborn babies have had their RIGHT TO LIFE ended because of an unjust Supreme Court decision, in a case that was a lie from the beginning. 

The reversing of that wrong decision and the establishment of a new Constitutional Amendment protecting the right to life of all future innocent unborn human beings necessitates building the strongest political organization possible.  Several years after the Roe v Wade decision, that movement was given a home in the Republican Party, not by political kingpins but by the major of Republican activist who, at their National Convention, adopted a Right to Life Constitutional Amendment as part of their Party Platform.  It was adopted at a time that the whole mass media was lined up in support of Roe v Wade, and vehemently opposed a Constitutional RTL Amendment.  They were so oppose that they stopped using the name we gave ourselves, “prolife,” in their articles, a name we coined to counter the pro-abortionist calling themselves “pro-choice.”  They gave us another name, “anti-abortion,” while continuing to use the name the pro-aborts called themselves, “pro-choice.”

We have been swimming up stream ever since Roe v Wade.  The Democrat Party embraced Roe v Wade from the beginning and have been given a ride by their mass media friends ever since.  The Democrat Party and the U.S. Senate Democrats in particular are the ONLY reason we have not been able to get the jurist on the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v Wade.  And the U.S. Bishops Conference did not help us when they decided to adopt Cardinal Bernardin’s expansion of the definition of “prolife” to include “social justice” issues - issues that Pope John Paul II was speaking about.  Those social justice issue were added to “prolife” by Cardinal Bernardin, head of the Archdiocese of Chicago,  for political reasons as much as any other.  In the favorable biography, “Cardinal Bernadin - Easing conflicts - and battling for the soul of American Catholicism” by his friend of 30 years, Eugene Kennedy, Bernardin thought, “A more cohesive and consistent position that recognized a spectrum of prolife issues, ranging from peace through capital punishment, would energize the priests, clergy and laypeople in direct contact with he Catholic population in a positive way.  Not only would this move gain greater support from Catholics and others BUT IT WOULD KEEP THE PROLIFE MOVEMENT FROM FALLING COMPLETLY UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE RIGHT WING CONSERVTIES WHO WERE BECOMING ITS DOMINANT SPONSORS.”

Now, who could he have had in mind in wanting to keep the prolife movement from falling “completely under the control of the right wing conservatives?”  Could it be he was thinking about the Republican Party?
This definition change of prolife by the U.S. bishops came near the end of President Reagan’s first term, and a lot of Catholic Democrats had voted for Reagan, so many that they were called, Reagan Democrats.  When you look at the subtitle of the biography, “Cardinal Bernardin,” it becomes even more clear why Bernardin wanted to add other issues to the original understanding of prolife: “Easing conflicts” (what conflicts - maybe those is Democrat Catholic circles, including the clergy and laity in Chicago and elsewhere, perhaps?) - “and battling for the soul of America Catholicism.”  (What battle was going on?  And what is meant by “the soul of American Catholicism?)

Pope John Paul II tried to get the Church back on the correct and responsible prolife track with the quote above from “his 1988 apostolic exhortation, ‘The Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World.’”

I registered out of the Democrat Party, my party from “birth,” which occurred on the Southside of Chicago, in an Irish Catholic pro-union, blue collar Democrat family.  I registered out of the party because of the party’s pro-abortion position.  I could not register as a Republican because of all the things I was told about them by the Democrat Party.  Because of that, it was too emotionally difficult to “wear” title of Republican (just read how some writers on this forum describe Republicans).  I registered Independent.  But a couple years later, when I heard on the news one Sunday that the Republican Party added a Right to Life plank to their party platform, I said to myself that, “If they are that principled to add a Constitutional RTL Amendment to their party platform, contrary to the mass media’s and Democrat Party’s position, then I am going to give them my name identification in support of their principles.” 

I have found volunteering in working for the election of prolife congressional and state legislators, all of whom just happened to be Republicans, that the Republican common people were nothing like I was made to believe they were by my past Democrat friends and leaders, and the mass media.

And as far as the social justice issues that were amended into the U.S. bishops’ definition of “prolife,” I have found there is no difference in what Republicans and Democrats want as outcomes for those issues; their only difference is - the best way to obtain the desired results.  And as far as that goes, I’m convinced that the Republican ideas produce far better results for the common good of the people than the Democrat ideas have ever produced.

The GOP did not end abortion during the brief period it controlled Congress and the White House for one simple reason:  Roe v. Wade.  There is not a majority on the High Court that would vote to overturn Roe, and until that is changed, we will continue to have abortion.  President Bush gave us two good anti-Roe Justices.  Now President Obama has given us two bad, pro-Roe Justices.  Neither changed the balance of the court much.

“Pro-life” Obama supporters must account for the fact that they supported a candidate who could have ended Roe and brought a real debate about abortion to our country, but who instead very predictably worked hard to maintain the anti-life status quo.

The GOP has not yet ended abortion.  But things change.  And they change because people change them.

If you want the GOP to end abortion, as I do, get involved, as I have.  Bring other pro-lifers with you.  Work your way into the leadership of the party, learn the people, the relationships, the history, the politics, and then influence them.  So much goes on between elections!  It will not happen in a single election cycle.  But if you refuse to get involved, why should it happen at all?

The GOP is not Wal-Mart, longing for the opportunity to give you what you want in return for your vote.  Rather, the GOP can be your vehicle to make over the political landscape of this country to one in which the right to life is respected and protected in law from the moment of conception.  But if pro-lifers don’t get involved and use it for their ends, rest assured that others WILL get involved (have already gotten involved) to use it to further their own ends.

And hey, if you think you can make an impact on the Democrat side, give it a shot.  But voting Democrat while criticizing Republicans for not doing more to end abortion is nothing but hypocrisy.  Look at the Democrat Party and you’ll see people who are SO PROUD that they have stopped the GOP from ending abortion that they buy TV ads to boast of it.

In response to stilbelieve re: Justices on the Supreme Court

The fact is that, since the early 1960s, the majority of justices on the Supreme Court have been apointed by Republicans.  That means there has been a majority of Republican appointees since Roe v. Wade (including the Court that decided Roe v. Wade).  From 1975 to 1991, there were only 2 Democratic appointees on the Court.  In 1991, that was reduced to 1 when Justice Thomas replaced Justice Marshall.  Since 1993, there have been 4 Democratic appointees, and 2 Republican appointees, givng us a present 5-4 split between Republican appointess and Democratci appointees.

The point is that the Republican Party has dominated federal judicial appointments since before Roe v. Wade was decided (I don’t have specific numbers for the lower federal courts, but I have read statistics that support his assertion).  In addition, the Republicans have, for significant periods of time, especialy dueing the Bush II adminsitration, controlled the White House and both houses of Congress.  And yet, Roe v. Wade is still the federal law of the land.

In my opinion, electing the “right” candidate, especially in federal elections, is never going to rid us of abortion.  I think the tide has turned, not because of elections or appointment of judges, but because of the grass roots efforts of people locally who are bringing the light of life to those contemplating abortion.  It is those efforts which will eventaully lead to the culture of life prevailing over the culture of death.  And that can be accomplished without compromising on life issues other than abortion.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a Democrat to make sense.

@ Thomas: Which part of my analysis do you disagree with and why?

When the GOP controlled DC it had the opportunity to file beaucoup cases in the Supreme Court to end abortion (or at least demonstrate it cared enough to listen to the voters.) The voting public understands that a lot more than inaction when it comes to the crucial life and death or matters concerning national security, civil rights, privacy rights and economic workplace justice, etc.
  My my, how fast the GOP’s legal eagles, marching on behalf of their billionaire backers’ orders, managed to speedily rise up to push forward that Citizens United sham of a “First Amendment” case so the big guys and gals with the abyss-like (but very filled) pockets could buy unlimited free speech rights for corporations because they managed to convince the Supreme Court into buying into the bullcrap notion that corporations are “persons.”
  Not long ago during a Town Meeting held by Bernie Sanders and radio host Thom Hartmann up in Vermont, the owners of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Co. got up and introduced themselves saying something to the effect that while their name was on the product they were not corporations but persons. Got a big laugh. But we know who’s having the last laugh, and it’s not prolifers, nor even the Democrats who hate this decisin with a visceral passion (and for good reason) ... it puts electoral politics completely up for sale to the highest bidding bully who’ll buy whatever and how many pols’ publicity he and or his secret pals want.
  Sure, the pro-life David Koch bankrolled this move, but that’s no reason for celebration because the same ruling could be used by a pro-abortion rights supporter like George Soros.
  Isn’t it telling which was more important for the so-called conservative money bigwigs (some with actual pronounced prolife beliefs like David Koch)were more interested in backing a lawsuit designed to put our democratic republic’s electoral system almost completely in the hands of the oligarchs and worse yet, contributors, even overseas contributors, whose identities do not have to be revealed?
  Think on this when you visit a cemetary this Memorial Day Holiday and you see all those flags fluttering in the wind. Some of those flags are flying over the bodies of so many young veterans who gave everything to preserve our freedoms and way of life. They never intended to die to see us lawyer away to oligarchs what we should all hold so precious as American citizens, from the right to be born and to live as free men, women and children ... away to the highest bidders with the lowest motives.
  Ask the GOP oligarchs and their apologists what their real motives are underneath all their flag-waving bloviations.

@Bob B

“In my opinion, electing the ‘right’ candidate, especially in federal elections, is never going to rid us of abortion.”

Bob B, the goal is to end abortion-on-demand remaining the-law-of-the-land; it is not “to rid us of abortion.”  If the Supreme Court were to say murder, for any reason, is legal, do you not think that more people will be murdered as a result of legalizing it?  Of course!  Legalizing abortion by disregarding the Constitutional right to life opened the flood gates to murdering unborn babies in America.  Returning Constitutional legal protection to the unborn will save millions of future human lives that we Catholics profess to believe every Sunday in Mass to be created by God.  It will dramatically stop 99% of abortions.  That is much more doable in a shorter period of time than trying to win the lives on babies one at a time.  The latter is noble and worthy work that will always be necessary, but right now we have to win the war that has resulted in 51,000,000+ murdered babies.  That will only be possible by forcing the pro-abortion party to abandon their opposition to a Constitutional Right to Life Amendment.  Such an Amendment will then have to be passed by 3/4ths of the States.  This will only happen if those Catholics who support the pro-abortion party with their name and votes, supposedly for “pro-life” reasons, listen to Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation and believe him when he says, and I’m paraphrasing a bit, “ALL other ‘rights’ are ‘FALSE AND ILLUSORY’ if THE RIGHT TO LIFE…IS NOT DEFENDED WITH MAXIMUM DETERMINATION.”

Do your want to be co-responsible for the murder of the unborn because of your “belief” in something that is “false and illusory?”  I don’t see how any person, especially a church going, Communion receiving Catholic who says they are prolife, can give their name and votes to the Democrat pro-abortion Party and think they are not contradicting what they, themselves, profess to believe and pray for in church about God being the giver of life, and praying in the Our Father for God’s “will to be done on earth and delivered from evil.”  Such a contradiction in what one professes to believe and pray for is not defending the right to life with maximum determination.  And “Maximum Determination” is what is required to win this 38 years of war AGAINST God’s greatest gift to his greatest creation - the gift of life to human beings.  Satan and the Democrat Party have been winning that war only because of that 50 to 55 percent of Catholics who continue to give their names of endorsement and votes in every election to the Democrat Party for something Pope John Paul II calls “false and illusory.”  Maximum determination on their part only requires removing their names from the Democrat voter registration rolls and boycott voting for any Democrats until they remove their support for abortion from their Party Platform, followed up by voting for a Constitutional Right to Life Amendment.  If Catholic Democrats did that and the Party refuses to support a Constitutional RTL, then the Democrat Party will self-euthanize their existence.  No Catholic has to become or vote for a Republican.  All they have to do to win this war is to boycott the Democrat Party.

Why not stop abortion by going to the people having abortions?  You are wasting your time fighting within a political party.  The standards and morals of our government have nothing to do with the reality of what is going on.  If Oprah can convince millions of people not to eat meat without running for president, than the Catholic Church can convince millions of people from not having abortions. You all seem so smart, but you’re not doing what you need to do to solve problems!  Walk out of Mass and get your hands dirty.

@Steven

Your Seventh and Tenth Commandment sins of stealing and coveting thy neighbors’ goods are showing again.

@ stilbelieve

“the goal is to end abortion-on-demand remaining the-law-of-the-land; it is not ‘to rid us of abortion.’” 

I respectfully disagree.  The goal is to limit, ideally to eliminate, abortions.  And if the goal is tgo end abortion-on-demand, my point is that the Republican Party has had sufficient control of the federal government, and certainly appointments to the federal judiciary, for wuite some time to bring that change about.  But they haven’t.  And at what point do we realize that voting for someone just because they are anti-abortion (most of them are really not “pro-life” in the complete meaning of that term) is not providing the result we expect?

So then the question is, what do we do at that point?  Not vote at all, vote in other races but skip this particular race, or look to other issues to inform our vote.  I don’t know the answer to that question, and I think that is a very personal decision that we each have to make with an informed concious.

Bob B, it’s the easy thing to do.  Just vote Republican and than go home and say you did all you can do for abortion.  Voting is only 2% of the problem in my books.  I agree with you.  They’ve spent 40 years trying to vote abortions off the books.  Hasn’t happened yet!  Why do the same thing and expect different results? 

Don’t Catholics believe: Psalm 118:8-9 “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”.

If you continue to put your faith in the Republican Party you will never solve the abortion issue.

Psalm 146:3 “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help”.

Lifenews has some interesting prolife developments in state and federal legislation that is directly related to the shift from prochoice to prolife majorities.  It does so happen that the shift was also from democrat to republican control.  But that does not mean that all republicans are prolife or push prolife legislation if they say they are prolife.

It is the person, not the party that matters.

Check it out here: http://www.lifenews.com/

“The GOP did not end abortion during the brief period it controlled Congress and the White House for one simple reason:  Roe v. Wade.  “

They had the authority to stop funding for planned parenthood and they could have restricted the right of The SCOTUS to hear even one more abortion related case. And that is just for starters.

The could, collectively, HOR and Senate, as The Legislative Brance have taken a decision to declare the ruling of the SCOTUS unconstitutional or The POTUS, as The Executive Brance, could have declared the SCOTUS, The Judicial Branch, in its Roe v Wade decision acted Unconstitutionally and if you do not think that is the case then you do not accept the separate but equal powers of government and you may as well keep throwing-away your votes on the Stupid Party .

Who knows, maybe you think The SCOTUS is the rule of law in America and that it has plenipotentiary powers over the other two, putatively equal, branches of govt. If so, ditch the other two branches and just admit that nine black-robed bastids run this God-Abandoned Country and you can save a lot of money just by letting them run everything

Steven, Bob, Archbold and friends: So, you’ve come to take our bodies back, yes? Well then, smash Planned Parenthood. Protect the State’s right to choose. Your version of America. Not ours!. You are the Republican Party and sex offenders against choice!

@ Lizabeth: No one has the right to kill another member of the human family in the name of choice. Especially the weakest and most defenseless of all.

I’m a registered Republican, but have almost no party loyalty. I have voted for Libertarian candidates and Democrats in certain races and will continue to do so. Those, like Nate above, insist on blind devotion to the party because of the horror of Democrats never stop to think how many Pro-life and Catholic friendly Dems were run out of power or treated with disdain because of such head-in-fundiment thinking. I don’t agree with the Democrats on most economic issues, but when it come to life or death issues such as war, abortion, torture, and law enforcement then I will vote for whoever is going to best lead us to justice, no matter what letter is by their name.

Another quick point, politicians love blind devotion. As Obama and Chicago politics teaches us, certain Dems could never vote for somebody who wasn’t a democrat so they can violate each and every political principal they swore by. They’ll get elected because everyone just shrugs and says, “Well, who else is there?” Re-elected, they have more power and continue to violate the principals they swore to uphold in their oaths and campaign promises. The solution looks a lot like solutions in the free market: vote with your feet and people will follow.

Dear Lizbeth. Good…

1st Corinth. 6   Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body.

and evil….

“So, you’ve come to take our bodies back, yes?”

is set before you, thus you have no basis to complain your right to choose is threatened; that is, unless you are completely a slave to Satan.

@Bob B

“most of them are really not “pro-life” in the complete meaning of that term.”

Sorry, Bob B, prolife ONLY means anti-abortion and nothing else.  It was coined to mean that and nothing else.  It was our name to counter the pro-aborts calling themselves “pro-choice.”  The mass media even changed our name from “prolife” to “anti-abortion” in reporting and writing articles about the us.  The war is against those who want the legal right to murder unborn babies and those of us who want the right to life.  It is the ignorance of the U.S. bishops that added other “rights” to that word that Pope John Paul II called “FALSE and ILLUSORY.”  If you want to believe in something that is “false and illusory,” go ahead, but realize your beliefs are causing the murder of unborn babies to continue legally. 

You challenged what I said the goal is in the prolife movement; saying instead “The goal is to limit, ideally to eliminate, abortions.”  If you think abortions will ever be “eliminated” by mankind, your idealism is delusional.  The best we can hope for is to end their legality which will “limit” the number of abortions substantially.  You can continue to try to end the rest of them after they are made illegal, but how will you know where to go to stop them?  It is foolhardy to think you can stop sin.  Even God doesn’t make that statement.

You said, “And if the goal is tgo end abortion-on-demand, my point is that the Republican Party has had sufficient control of the federal government, and certainly appointments to the federal judiciary, for wuite some time to bring that change about.  But they haven’t.”

You are wrong, again.  You obviously are not reading or comprehending what others have correctly written here about the efforts made by the Democrat Party elected officials to block Republican efforts to get the Roe v. Wade decision overturned by the nominations of strict Constitutional judges to the Supreme Court.  Judge Bork was President Reagan’s second appointment to the bench.  His first what the appointment of the first woman to the bench.  Normally, Supreme Court nominations receive a Senate hearing within 18 days of the nomination, that is the longest delay in such a hearing.  The Democrat controlled Senate held off Judge Bork’s nomination hearing seventy days, that is 70 days, to do opposition research on Judge Bork to be able to kill his appointment, which they did.  The vote was 58 against to 42.  Fifty-two, that is 52, Democrats voted NO, and 6 Republicans joined the Democrats to make the 58 No votes.  Forty-six Republicans and two, that’s 2, Democrats vote Aye.  Of the fifty-four, that’s 54 Democrats in the U.S. Senate, that at least half of the church-going Catholics in their states voted for, fifty-two, that’s 52 voted no on Judge Bork’s nomination.  That means ninety-six percent, that’s 96%, of Catholic supported Democrat U.S. Senators voted AGAINST a respectable, honest, law-abiding judge for one reason – his writings lead the Democrat Senators to believe, correctly, that he would give the four prolife jurist on the court the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.  The Democrat Senate voted on Judge Bork in 1987.  The Democrat Senators behavior to that Supreme Court nominee was so vicious, vile and dishonest that a new word was coined to describe the character assassination of a political figure – he was “Borked.”  The sad thing is the Republican Senators would never treat the Democrat Supreme Court nominees in the same manner as the Democrat Senators started treating Republican nominees beginning with Judge Bork.  You see, Republican Senators are civil and respectful of human beings.  They think a nominee for the court may be wrong in their legal philosophy, but unless their character reveals serious biasness in their decision making, Republicans will vote for Democrat nominees as they have proven to do over and over, to the disappointment of people like me.  Republicans think Democrats are wrong; Democrats think Republicans are evil. (Just read on this site what Steven has to say about Republicans, you’ll see what I mean.  Democrats are raised to believe that stuff giving them justification to hate Republicans, just like Islamist are raised to hate the Jews)  If the Democrats are going to dish it out, our side should return the “favor.”  Unfortunately, our side’s elected officials are too civil and respectful of human life to do that.  Reagan’s next nominee was conservative, also, and would have been a good prolife vote on the court, but he admitted to smoking pot several times earlier in his life, and became an embarrassment to the President Reagan as he present his new nominee as a law abiding man.  The court had gone over 4 months without a 9th jurist.  Reagan’s next pick was “conservative enough,” and that was how Anthony Kennedy got on the Supreme Court in 1988.  Catholic Anthony Kennedy has been a pleasant surprise at times and a disappointment at other times for conservatives.  He will be the swing vote on the constitutional right of homosexuals to marry when California’s Proposition 8 reaches the Court.  You all ought to be praying awfully hard that Kennedy will get it right or our country will really be going to hell.

Court historians are in agreement that had Judge Bork got on the Supreme Court, Row v Wade would have been overturned.  And I have gone on long enough about this fallacy “that the Republican Party has had sufficient control of the federal government” to have overturned Roe v Wade.  Such thinking ignores the anti-life power of a determined pro-abortion Democrat Party.  Catholic Democrats are the main reason we still have abortion-on-demand remaining the-law-of-the-land because they are the largest, single voting block that keeps electing the pro-abortion party’s candidates, contradicting what they profess to believe and pray for in church on Sundays, and ignoring what Pope John Paul II says about “the common outcry…of human rights” that are “false and illusory if the RIGHT TO LIFE , the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with Maximum Determination.”  But it makes Catholic Democrats feel good about themselves to let those “false and illusory” so called “rights” to be equal to or trump the right to life – the first and ONLY reason to use the word – PROLIFE.  Even the mass media recognizes that “prolilfe” ONLY means anti-abortion.  I find it ironic that that I have to turn to the mass media, which has never given prolife a break in their reporting, to prove to Catholics what “prolife” really means.  But that is only because Cardinal Bernardin convinced the “Church” that She needed to be “consistent” in Her “defense” of “life” in order to enlarge the movement by adding (“false and illusory”) rights to bring others along with Her, when in reality, Bernardin did it mainly to save the Democrat Party because of his sympathy for Catholic Democrats who did not want to give up their Democrat identity.  That is as true then as it is now.  Catholics Democrats can not face the truth that they are the reason the murder of 51,000,000+ innocent, unborn babies has occurred, and is continuing.  But they believe they are “prolife” because they are against torture and capital punishment, etc, as if that has saved a single unborn child created by God, so they say.

@magda

Thanks for the link to LifeNews.  I would have liked to have known what percentage of those surveyed were church-going Catholics.

Steven: Have you ever known anyone personally who was impregnated due to a rape?

@Rick

“How can any Christian be a republican?  The party that teaches, ‘Every man for himself.’ The party that preaches hatred, intolerance, and that material wealth is the key to happiness.”

Where did you learn that?

I must have missed those classes when I registered out of the pro-abortion party and became a registered Republican a few years later after working in elections with Republican volunteers who I found were nothing like I was told they were like by my Democrat leaders and the media, or like anything you said.  They were decent, caring people who wanted the best for the people’s common good.  And one thing that really stood out is that they didn’t think they were better than everyone else.  As an easy illustration, just look how Catholic Nancy Pelosi (D) ran the House of Representatives as Speaker compared to Catholic John Boehner (R) who is Speaker now.  Boehner treats Democrats with respect and allows them to have a voice.  Pelosi locked Republicans out of meetings and calls them evil things.  Both are Catholics, one a Democrat, the other a Republcian.

Those who wedge our contry apart bust up the santity of our exceptionalism. It’s all about reaching across not about cutting off nose despite the faces!

@Fr. Peter

“That said in the state of NY where the Republican party seems to generally take all the vices of the Party without being very Pro-Life I have held out in registering for that party.”

I salute your “courage” and respect your judgment.  I also want to thank you for your reminding the readers what positive prolife actions have happened because of prolife leaders at the highest levels of government.

I have a question about the clergy that you may be able to offer some insight on.  I live in Orange County, CA, one of the most Republican counties in the state, and nation for that matter.  About 11 years ago I was curious about how many clergy were registered to vote after a priest urged people during Mass to register to vote and vote in the upcoming election.  I went to the County Registrars Office with a current diocesan directory and sat down at one of the numerous public commuters to check registration rolls.  I found less than half of the priest were registered to vote.  Of those who were registered, more than half were registered in the Democrat Party.  Why would Catholic priests, of all people, give their name identification to the pro-abortion, Democrat Party?

Also, a couple years before that, I was talking to the pastor of a nearby Catholic Church about a friend of mine who was the Republican candidate for Governor, a Catholic, prolife Congressman who more recently was elected to two terms as the CA Attorney General.  His Democrat opponent attacked him on his prolife support, but CA still elected him.  I asked the pastor if he would support my friend for Governor; his opponent was a pro-abortion Democrat.  The pastor looked at me oddly and said, “I’m a Democrat, I can’t vote for him, he’s a Republcan.”  I was surprised and asked, “What about abortion?”  His reply stun me such that I couldn’t even speak.  He said, “I’m not worried about the babies – besides, they’re in heaven.”

In addition, I heard a Catholic newsman interviewed a couple yeas ago on a radio program about the U.S. bishops conference the month after the 2008 election.  His opinion talking to a number of bishops was that about half of the bishops at that post election conference voted for Obama.

My question is, why are Catholic clergy registering and voting for the Democrat Party?

@Trent

“Those who wedge our contry apart bust up the santity of our exceptionalism. It’s all about reaching across not about cutting off nose despite the faces!”

Huh?

@Still Believe. Wow, to think you’d hold me to such low esteem as to put me in the catagory with the oligarchs and other fattened cats. What a summer this is gonna be! Envy and robbin. Gee, I thought that’s what the wealthy are very good at, esp. when they sic their foxes out into the public to create bogus “issues,” (especially the ones where resentment’s easy to gin up, i.e., immigration, welfare, SS, SSDI, academia ... but nothing like open-ended contract sweetheart deals for mega-defense contractors, Halliburton, et al.) Hey, it’s the foxes that stir up the envy and all because I want to make the wealthy pay their FAIR SHARE, I’m tossed in with the robbers. C’mon, how ‘bout giving me at least a pay raise by tossing me in with the hedge fund managers (or society’s secret cabal of glorified global bookies.)
  My biggest beef with you StillBelieve doesn’t tough on class warfare. Nope: It’s over tactics when you suggested that all prolifers need to do is “boycott” the Dems. Why not scare the living hell out of them by getting prolifers to register en masse as Democrats, show up at local town Dem. Party Cmte. meetings and not lose heart over any cold shoulder and stick it out. The more numbers you build, the more numbers they can’t ignore. Old fashioned “all politics is local” business of taking the party over town-by-town, county-by-county ... you get the rest.
  At one time the Democratic Party was the party of the more socially conservative, and yes, Catholic blue collar working folks who didn’t care for all the fancy-schmancy stuff pushed by the eggheads who’ve come to dominate the party since the days of that uber-bore-and-proto-egghead, Adlai Stevenson. Yes, he’s from your state, but my gawd, look at what he brought into the party and what it became as a result. It used to be the party of Chevy owners, went Studebacker under Stevenson and straight to hell in ever-so-trendy Swedish bolt baskets ever since.
  I know this because I’ve seen it happen in my college town area up here in New England. Was Barack Obama originally the heir of FDR, Truman, LBJ or even Humphrey ... or Adlai Stevenson? The Obama of 08 was much more Stevenson and this has that bookwormish wing very antsy. Even though we know that the Executive Order he signed outlawing federal spending for abortions in the new health care reforms wouldn’t hold water…to hear from all his liberal pals, you’d think he personally told NARAL, PPF and the rest to jump in the Potomac Rapids.
  See where I’m going with this? A good (late) friend of mine was criticized once for a stand he took on a local issue by a woman representing the local League of Women Voters, that stalwart and ever so unbiased good government club for the original kind of tea party ladies. He flummoxed these local “goo-goos” by joining them. You can imagine how many cups rattled in their saucer when he pulled that. And he was a past Grand Knight. This man, whose Scandinavian roots were obvious to the world, also joined the local NAACP when he got their unsolicited opinion on some issue. (BTW, while he was a successful local businessman, he never forgot his humble roots and always bought an American-made car, a Caddy. Not out of a “look at how well I’ve done” spirit, but as a statement of faith in the quality of American workmanship. In the meantime the local academics who thought he had some troglodyte coursing through is veins, were drivng Volvos, Saabs and other foreign-maker vehicles ... before their manufacturers started building them here. So much for solidarity.
  The way to get the Democrats to come back to their roots isn’t to boycot them. IT’S TO CONQUER THEM FROM WITHIN. They can’t prevent you or I from joining them. They can at first make like a cold and unforgiving hell ... until you and I and others start bringing along more friends who want to warm up the room temp during these meetings and also raise the ideological IQ higher than the cold temps we originally encountered upon joining.
  But who can they dare to ignore and give the cold shoulder to when you’ve brought enough prolifers back into the party so as to make them thing more than twice before cutting you and I out of the real action: candidate selection and funding.
  THe old godfathers were right on the money when they taught it’s better to keep your friends close and enemies closer. And LBJ was right about a possible wandering bigshot when he said it would be better having the guy peeing out from inside the tent than doing the opposite.
  Geesh, just maybe we could get more Democrats to buy American-made pickups instead of Swedish station wagons. Remember, the Goths oonquered Rome from within and only out of frustration for the fact they were clearly taken over the coals during their alliance with the Latins agains the Huns. Rome would’ve loved for Alaric to just boycott the Eternal City.
  It’s time to take the city (the Party back), not boycott it. After all, wasn’t the GOP the more pro-PPF party during the years leading up to Roe? Especially within the RINO-Heimat (homeland) New England?
  There’s nothing like a Shay’s like Rebellion of true Blue Collar Democrats with socially conservative values to scare the living hell out of the DINOS who are royally messing up our once strong two party system and too blind to see that their favored “reproductive freedom” cause is killing Social Security and Medicare day by day faster normal old old age.
  Even the makers of Swedish cars know that if there’s nobody coming into the show room ...

@Steven

“...and all because I want to make the wealthy pay their FAIR SHARE, I’m tossed in with the robbers.”

I rest my case.

@Steven

“Why not scare the living hell out of them by getting prolifers to register en masse as Democrats, show up at local town Dem. Party Cmte. meetings and not lose heart over any cold shoulder and stick it out.”

Who would want to be subjected to the abuse they’d get We all saw what happened in Wisconsin.

@StillBelieve ... ah, when you have the numbers, it’ll be THEIR turn to squirm. The key is to not grow faint and weary before the numbers come in. Make them grow faint n’ weary and as Sinatra said, “Great success is the best revenge.” Success in this case would be retaking the party or a hell of a good chunk of it for them to do NOTHING BUT drop the all-or-nothing stand on abortion that’s made more Republicans than all the elephant mating seasons of the past one or two centuries.

@Steven

“ah, when you have the numbers, it’ll be THEIR turn to squirm.”

If 51,000,000+ murdered babies on their hands isn’t enough to make them
“squirm” already, nothing is going to make them squirm other than losing, 15,000,000 to 30,000,000 registered voters.  And if all of them sent a postcard to the state or national Democrat Party Chairman telling them what they did - you’d get the party’s attention! Such a campaign should start with the clergy and religious, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Of course I can. The question is can you be DEMOCRAT and pro life?

The writer of “Can I Be Pro-Life and Republican,” Pat Archbold, says, “I have been giving this question much thought: Is it better to stay within the Republican party and try to reform it from within, knowing that by doing so I will be associated with their miserable failures on life issues….”

LRoy answers the question this way, “Of course I can. The question is can you be DEMOCRAT and pro life?”

Here in lies the problem – what are they talking about?  Pat’s talking about “life issues,” LRoy is talking about “pro life.”  “Pro” means – “for.”  “Pro-Life” means for life.  “Life issues” means, what, - life issues?  What are “life issues?” 

I know what “pro life” means.  It means “anti-abortion,” which is what the mass media decided it means soon after the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, and those of us opposed to the decision started calling ourselves “Prolife.”  The name, “prolife,” was a word coined to counter the pro-aborts calling themselves “pro-choice.”  It worked very well even after the media refused to identify us by our name, calling us “anti-abortion” instead, while they continued calling the pro-aborts by the name they gave themselves – “pro-choice.”  We prolifers got used to the media biasness early on.  So, what is Patrick talking about when he says “life issues” in the Republican Party are “a miserable failure?”

You’d have to ask him specifically to know what he was referring to, but I would guess, coming from a thoughtful modern Catholic that he is – he’s probably talking about the issues that were inserted into the abortion debate to inoculate the Democrat Party against the attacked as the party of baby killers.  This was done, not by the Democrat Party; it was done by none other than the Roman Catholic Church of the U.S. at the direction of the head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin., some ten years after the word “prolife” was born.  The word “prolife” has never been the same in the Catholic Church, and that has created unnecessary problems for thoughtful people in the Catholic communities.  The “Prolife” meaning stayed the same in most of the Protestant churches, and in all of the pro-abortion groups.  It was just in the Catholic Church did it metastasize causing the discomfort that Patrick is having to contend with today.  It is a shame the bishops went along with Cardinal Bernardin’s change in the definition of “prolife” because millions of unborn babies have paid the price for it.  Cardinal Bernardin saved the Democrat Party from becoming defunct by giving Democrat Catholics (the Party’s single, largest voting block) reasons to remain Democrats – he gave them “issues” that Democrat propaganda machine, with the help of the fawning media, perpetuate.  Those “issues” trumped the lives of the unborn as evidenced by how those Catholics continued voting and registering.  I know what those propaganda issues are; I was a liberal Democrat, but after the Party’s position on abortion hardened, I left the party and eventually immigrated into the Republican Party, which I couldn’t do the first couple years because of what I knew about Republicans from Democrats.  When I did become a Republican, it was because they adopted a prolife plank for the Party Platform, and meanwhile I found the people I volunteered with in elections were nothing like I was told,  I found the people far more open minded, fair, less bigoted, and have a sincere concern for people and the common good, and happier.

So, not only did Bernardin seal the fate of millions of unborn babies, past and future, he and the bishops created unnecessary dilemmas such as Patrick has to deal with today, 38 years after Roe v. Wade.  And for many Catholics, being a Democrat is far more important than what they profess to believe and pray for with their own words.  Those Catholics don’t even care what Pope John Paul II had to say about those “life issues” some three years after they were made part of the U.S. Bishops’ “prolife” line-up.  He said that they are “false and illusory” if the right to life is not fought for with MAXIMUM DETERMINATION.  It would be nice if the bishops would define “fought” and MAXIMUM DETERMINATION.  As for me, I find the Democrat Party’s concern for “those issues” to be “false and illusory” anyway - with or without prolife.

StillBelieve ... on that last post, you carried the house, with all four aces! Although I happen to be with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on a lot of other Dem issues (economics mostly), I have supreme confidence this woman will have hired competent (non-ideological) essential personnel to handlel what would be the DNC’s mother of all nightmares. Imagine the thumplike effect of millions and millions of cards with babies names and properly coordinated birthdates, etc. (okay, that’d be a stretch logistically-speaking) on the DNC. Emails won’t do the trick. Good old fashioned postcards, with all of ‘em addressed by hand from volunteers, mothers who’ve had abortions and deeply regretted them, and so forth.
  Remember that scene in “Miracle on 34th Street”?
  How ‘bout somebody out there with the logistical smarts to pull off ...
“A Miracle at Dupont Square” when Ms. Wasserman-Schultz graciously says, “It’s time we finally listened.”
  A dream? Yes. Impossible? Hell no. Waiting on the GOP to get its act together on abortion to force the legal changes? We’ll have to wait’ll hell freezes over for that.
  Hmmmm, how many clerks WILL it cost the DNC to handle all those postcards?

You are so right it is definitely a dilemma.  I to could never vote Democrat.  I am from the south, 63 yrs old and grew up a Democrat and proud of it.  But after the Jimmy Carter debacle, I came to my senses.  I am a very active Catholic.  I’ve been involved in prolife since 1979.  My husband and I met outside of an abortion clinic. We founded and ran a shelter home for homeless pregnant women and their already born children as well.  Mother Teresa took over our work when our own family was growing.  I had an out of wedlock pregnancy but never ever considered abortion.  The father wanted me too but I was flaberghasted that he would even suggest.  What a woos.  Anyway, I won’t vote for any candidate that is against life at any stage.  I think part of our answer is to pray, pray, pray without ceasing as St. Paul tells us.  Padre Pio said “Pray, hope and don’t worry.  Worry is useless.  God is merciful and will hear your prayers.  Prayer is the best weapon we have. It is the key to God’s heart”. So, I am folling His guidance.  Thank you so much for your blog.  I love your thoughts.  God Bless you and your brother

I have a book recommendation, “The Party System” by Hilaire Belloc and Cecil Chesterton (G.K.‘s younger brother who was killed in WWI). 

http://books.google.com/books?id=-QRMAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f;=false