Root Cause

We generally find something worth cutting out and saving from the Register. Your Sept. 1 editorial (“Dialogue and Common Ground, or Truth and Unity?") is an example. We agree with your thesis wholeheartedly and we submit what, in our humble opinion, is at the root of our demoralization.

Our great fall from grace begins with contraceptive use. When man says in effect: “God, you don't understand our situation. We will assume control over how many, when and if we shall bring children into the world,” our faith is effectively pitched out the window. It takes a constant exercise of faith in married life to trust an all-wise God to give us the number of children according to His plan and give us the means to take care of them.

In summary, until contraceptives have been removed from the marriage “triangle" and our God is enthroned once again in that “triangle,” marriages are sick; they have a malignancy, and no program, no dialogue will be successful.

Conversion begins with repentance. The uncontrite should stop referring to themselves as Catholics and the contrite, guided by the Holy Spirit, should accept an educational program from which unity and missionary zeal will flow naturally.

Virginia and John Lee Port Townsend, Washington

Voter's Choice

In your Sept. 22 issue, the headline, “Catholic Alliance Loosens Ties To Christian Coalition,” introduces a short account containing the following paragraph: “The alliance has drawn criticism from a number of Catholic bishops who believe the Christian Coalition differs from Church teaching on a number of issues such as welfare reform, immigration, and other programs aimed at aiding the poor."

Insofar as more than 40 years of theological study have informed me, there is no “Church teaching" which could be remotely described as controlling “a number of issues such as welfare reform, immigration, and other programs aimed at aiding the poor." These issues are political, and so require of each voter the prudential decision of an adequately informed conscience. This is primarily a lay responsibility, one not foreclosed by the political preferences of the USCC, of the NCCB or of the editorial offices of whatever Catholic publication.

You would do your readers a service by explaining that it is only inherently evil actions, condemned as such by the Church, which cannot become matters of a moral public policy, and which therefore cannot be moral political options open to the voter's approval. Slavery, understood as involuntary servitude not imposed upon a convicted criminal by due process of law, is an evident example of an insult to human dignity which is not a political option nor can be. Another example, equally obvious to all but the willfully obtuse, is that killing of the innocent which is direct abortion. Other examples of inherently evil actions which can never be matters of public policy for a moral society are not far to seek. Failure to approve the Democratic policies instituting the welfare state, or the Republican rejection of those policies, are not among them. This does not mean that the Catholic voter need not consult his conscience when determining these matters. It does mean his conscience, as informed by Church's prohibition of actions which are always and everywhere morally evil, is not determined by the political preferences of anyone at all.

Donald Keefe, S.J.Yonkers, New York

Party Line

Regarding your news story “Catholic Alliance Loosens Ties to Christian Coalition" (Sept. 22), some bishops criticize the Alliance because it “… differs from Church teaching on a number of issues such as welfare reform, immigration and other programs aimed at aiding the poor." I am unaware of any Catholic doctrinal positions on specific political programs in the United States or elsewhere. Too many bishops think they speak for me regarding welfare reform and federal aid to the poor. They evidently equate the political pronouncements of USCC/NCCB with speaking for the Catholic Church. I speak for myself on all political matters.

The slavery we have imposed upon poor people with our welfare programs must end. The scandal of spending $8,000 per pupil in public schools only to produce graduated seniors who can barely read their diplomas must end. Support for the unions which try to destroy our Catholic schools must end. The hierarchy seems out of touch with the difficulties of wage-earning Catholics in America.

If the Alliance is subsumed into the USCC/NCCB, I will join the Christian Coalition directly, independent of the Alliance. There is no contradiction in remaining a faithful Catholic and supporting organizations which promote my political and moral views—decency in public policy and behavior of public officials; school choice for parents; ending abortion; reduced tax burdens on families, and the like.

Social morality, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If the Catholic hierarchy speaks something other than the Democratic party line, there will he no need for a Catholic Alliance of the Christian Coalition.

R. Emmet Harrigan Mundelein, Illinois

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