Catholic pro-lifers: Get ready to rumble and sue this weekend
Deal Hudson of Inside Catholic reported yesterday that the pro-abortion group Catholics United has sent out an email blast calling on its readers to stop pro-lifers from distributing voter guides before and after Mass this weekend as well as leafletting cars. CU is instead encouraging them to distribute liberal voter guides.
Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life shot a response letter to CU, warning that pro-lifers are prepared to sue, because such circumvention would be a constitutional violation.
Read the CU email and Fr. Pavone’s response on page 2…
CU’s email:
From: James Salt, Catholics United
Subject: Help Protect Catholic Churches from Political Manipulation
To:
Date: Thursday, October 30, 2008, 2:56 PM
Help Protect Catholic Churches from Political Manipulation
Dear ___,
With less than a week to go until Election Day, things are getting ugly. In a final act of desperation, the religious far right is calling on its activists to defy the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ order to keep unapproved election materials from church property by doing a “literature drop” at parishes across the country. The goal of this activity is to convince Catholics that it’s immoral to vote for candidates who don’t subscribe to the right’s narrow agenda.
It’s true. On Monday the partisan group Priests for Life held a teleseminar to train some 3,300 activists nationwide on how to place divisive political literature on the windshield of every churchgoing Catholic’s car this Saturday and Sunday.
Click Here to listen to Priests for Life explain how to distribute partisan literature on Catholic Church property.
Catholics United is spearheading an effort to put the brakes on the religious right’s plans in as many parishes as possible. Here’s what you can do to help:
* Call your pastor and encourage him to instruct the ushers to monitor the church parking lot during the worship service. This sample script lists some ways that parishes can protect themselves from undue political influence.
* Sign up for our parish protection program and join volunteers across the country who will be working to put a stop to the religious right’s efforts this weekend. We’ll then provide you with detailed information on how you can protect churches in your neighborhood.
* Print copies of our values voter guide and “Pro-Life Means All Life” flyer and pass them out at community and political events in your area. Please consult with your pastor before distributing these materials on church property.
The extreme right will stop at nothing to distort church teaching for political gain. It’s time to say that enough is enough. Catholics are tired of our faith being used as a political weapon.
Sincerely,
James and Chris
The Catholics United Team
Fr. Pavone’s response:
James, Chris, and Team,
I received a copy of the email you sent out. I don’t know if you attempted to speak with me before sending this out, but we would welcome such an approach in the future.
Please inform those to whom you communicate that they might also want to alert their pastors that a large number of people are ready to file lawsuits against any individual or institution who tries to intimidate or prevent citizens from fostering the electoral process or informing their fellow citizens about the candidates.
While we are not initiating any such activity, many people have told us they are ready to do so depending on what happens this weekend. Pastors and dioceses want to avoid “legal entanglements,” and the activity you recommend here will get them entangled far faster than mine will.
Obviously, an email like the one you sent below would implicate you in such entanglements as well.
Best regards,
Fr. Frank Pavone
PS — Thanks for the extra publicity! Please be sure to register for the November 5 teleseminar as well.
I just love FP. He’s so smooth.
Pro-lifers can and should distribute voter guides at churches tonight and tomorrow. The voter guides must be nonpartisan, meaning they cannot say who to vote for but should simply compare the candidates’ positions/votes on a range of issues. Here’s a downloadable and printable one by PFL. Here’s one by Family Research Council Action. Here’s a letter describing the legality of distributing leaflets in church parking lots.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
You know you have to give credit where credit is due. The o’bama (pbuh) campaign is the most orgnized affair I have ever witnessed. They have implemented Saul Alinsky’s tactics to the ‘T’.
http://www.semcosh.org/AlinskyTactics.htm
But even with the willing assistance of the MSM, the o’bamanistas are not has numerous, or as influencial or as powerful as they would want us to believe.
Vote your conscience and bring at least two other registered voters with you to the polling place on Tuesday, who will do the same. Every vote should be counted and every vote should count for only one live voter who actually cast the vote himself.
yor bro ken
Two people came to a costume party I was at last night dressed as McCain and Palin. I walked up to Palin and said, “How could you hurt those itty-bitty polar bears and those cute ‘lil moose and those adorable ‘lil baby wolves.” The best part was I was sober. I like the fact that I have the right to say nonsensical cute rants without truthseeker shooting me, and I will gladly protect others right to freedom of speech.
Our family got a rather tasteless mailing from a conservative catholic magazine, as did our neighbor who has a lesbian family member. Both houses are members of the same catholic church, so we reasonably suspect that someone was targeting liberals for harassment based on political and theological ideas.
People of strong ideas should be strong enough to attach their names when using faith as their personal pulpit to intimidate others. Then again, our local bishop is rather long in the mouth, but very short on character, so such tactics are almost to be expected.
Jess said: “I have the right to say nonsensical cute rants”
As long as you recognize that that’s what all of your posts are.
Yo La Whatever said: “Our family got a rather tasteless mailing”
I wonder exactly how it was “tasteless”. It probably asked you to vote against the continued killing of innocent children, or something equally tasteless.
Jess,
Did you ever see what these cute animals do to each other? Let me see, a male polar bear stalking a mother and her cubs, eating the cub that collapses from exhaustion….
Animals are very cruel to each other.
John – your comments are rather inflammatory for someone who does not know me or my family. Please seek a more dignified outlet for your anger.
Jess at November 1, 2008 12:45 PM
Jess – you weren’t dressed as a moose or a wolf – right?
Chris: she went as a Big Mac!
Sign up for our parish protection program and join volunteers across the country who will be working to put a stop to the religious right’s efforts this weekend. We’ll then provide you with detailed information on how you can protect churches in your neighborhood.
Protect them from what? the truth?
Catholics United -> you work for the devil.
Yo La — I suggest that you do the same.
Yo La Who Cares, your comments are inflammatory against MY family, and that family includes every single orthodox, devout Catholic who actually cares about what the Church teaches and doesn’t bash the bishops for preaching the Word of God because it clashes with my own idiotic “values”.
If your family claims to be Catholic is offended by pro-life or pro-marriage literature, then they deserve to be offended.
Yo La,
Our family got a rather tasteless mailing from a conservative catholic magazine, as did our neighbor who has a lesbian family member. Our family got a rather tasteless mailing from a conservative catholic magazine, as did our neighbor who has a lesbian family member. Both houses are members of the same catholic church, so we reasonably suspect that someone was targeting liberals for harassment based on political and theological ideas.
People of strong ideas should be strong enough to attach their names when using faith as their personal pulpit to intimidate others. Then again, our local bishop is rather long in the mouth, but very short on character, so such tactics are almost to be expected.
What magazine? What was tasteless about it? How would a Catholic magazine know your family and neighbor’ personal lives?
Did you family and neighbors think it was tasteless? If so, why do they still belong?
I believe that the magazine was the Wanderer.. I don’t know. It just got a quick laugh and then recycled along with a letter from the church pleading for money so they can underfund their school and harass liberals with their money instead.
My parents are still catholic because they believe in a Jesus that is bigger than politics. Because the Bishop is just a cross that they feel they have to bare. Some people have cancer, they have the bishop. Someone’s gotta be there when the guy comes to his senses to say “lets let bygones, be bygones We forgive you”. Because the bishop deserves at least the charity afforded to the poor he never visits. Staying in the church is providing the bishop with a compassionate place to get over his spiritual D.T.’s. When he sobers up we’re pretty sure he’ll be a stand up guy.Thats why they stay – a funny mix of humor, pity and compassion.
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
I wrote this after attending Pope Benedict’s Mass at Nationals Stadium and after John picked Sarah as his running mate.
Before Pope Benedict came to America to celebrate Mass in New York and Washington, it was revealed that as a young boy in Germany he had had a cousin with Down Syndrome. One day a Nazi doctor came and claimed his cousin for the Third Reich. Taken to be “cared for” at the “hospital” young Joseph Ratzinger never saw his cousin again: one of the host of “useless eaters” marked for extermination by that brutal regime.
My wife and I operate St. Joseph’s House, a daycare and respite care home for handicapped children. As it happened one of the children we care for, a wheelchair bound young lady, was chosen along with three other handicapped folks to carry the gifts up to the altar before the consecration at the Mass at Nationals Stadium in Washington D.C. on April 17, 2008. One of these was James, a 30ish man who works in the Officer’s Club at Andrews AFB. James has Down Syndrome. He was chosen to carry the large host which would become the Body of Christ lifted up before the assembled. As James with great ceremony advanced toward the Pope, his native enthusiasm overcame his reserve and he started to run. Simultaneously the Holy Father leapt from his chair and walked towards James with his arms outstretched. We have a picture of this moment which I cannot look at without tearing up. What did he see as he gazed so lovingly at James? I believe he saw his cousin. I believe he saw the face of Jesus. And I believe that his great prayer as he elevated that host on that impossibly beautiful day was “As long as you did to these the least of my brethren, you did it to Me.”
The next day April 18th, a boy was born to of all people, the Governor of Alaska. They named him Trig.
Dan LaHood @10:06 — that’s beautiful. Thank you.
The pretend “Catholic” groups, misnamed so because they really do not stand for Catholic teachings, are often front groups for liberal activist individuals or organizations. Catholics United is funded in part by George Soros. The Frances Kissling group Catholics for Choice received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. The combined membership of the two groups probably numbers less than one average congregation.
Yo La–That a Catholic publication gets a mailing list from a Catholic parish should not be a surprise. That a conservative publication is against abhorent practices such as abortion and upholds traditional church teachings on marriage and sexuality also should not be a surprise. You cannot seriously suggest that you and your neighbor were targeted for intimidation because of your beliefs.
i think I read about Dan on American Papist blog.
Yo La,
Yes, we certainly all have our crosses to bear. Pray for your Bishop, and pray for me. I will remember you in my prayers.
EWTN had great coverage on the pro-life issue this weekend, and Fr. Pavone provided some excellent responses on Raymond Arroyo’s show. Very simple, but amazingly powerful counters to pro-choice reasoning.
Chris,
I’m sorry I missed it. I miss EWTN since it isn’t on my cable anymore. Listening on the computer just isn’t the same. Isn’t Raymond Arroyo THE BEST?
Dan LaHood,
What a wonderful story! God bless you for all you do for LIFE.
Jerry,
CFFC has a new President; Jon O’Brien. It isn’t Kissling anymore. Either way, they are horribly evil, in some ways worse than Planned Parenthood…
Oh and Janet; you just HAVE to get a dish. I don’t know how people can live without EWTN once they’ve seen it. I know I won’t be able to.
Bobby,
Oh and Janet; you just HAVE to get a dish. I don’t know how people can live without EWTN once they’ve seen it. I know I won’t be able to.
My yard isn’t big enough and my neighbors would be, umm, not too happy about it. I’m sure I have other options, like to pay more, but it’s the principal of the thing!!!! Maybe I’ll give in and pay the extra fees.
Yo La–That a Catholic publication gets a mailing list from a Catholic parish should not be a surprise. That a conservative publication is against abhorent practices such as abortion and upholds traditional church teachings on marriage and sexuality also should not be a surprise. You cannot seriously suggest that you and your neighbor were targeted for intimidation because of your beliefs.
Posted by: Jerry at November 2, 2008 4:56 PM
That our name has been sold by the parish is not something my parents signed up for when they joined the church. It’s a violation of the privacy of our information. We do not have a subscription to The Wanderer, but rather we were send one article in the mail in a rather ominous way.
Hi Yo La,
Did you receive ONE ARTICLE, a mailer, or the whole magazine?
I’m confused. What was the “ominous way” it was sent?
Your parents should ask friends if they received it too, if you are really concerned about it.
I don’t know how people can live without EWTN once they’ve seen it.
Ha! Bobby, you rock.