Faith Being Abused as Cover for Violence

In response to secular news reports saying that a recent letter of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger allows Catholics to vote for pro-choice candidates, Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, who was himself an Official at the Vatican, said this morning that Cardinal Ratzinger's letter is being misquoted, and that the faith of millions of people is being abused as a cover for violence.

"Cardinal Ratzinger explicitly states the opposite of what some are saying, namely, that we can elect pro-abortion candidates just because we like their other positions. Moreover, the Cardinal explicitly declares in the same letter that other issues do not carry the same weight as abortion.

"More to the point, however, it is a classic abuse of religion that people will invoke a religious authority to justify violence. There is no act of violence more brutal, or claiming more victims than abortion. It kills 4000 children daily in the United States alone. Practitioners admit under oath that they dismember and decapitate these babies. If people try to equate that with other issues by misquoting a Vatican Cardinal, they are guilty of the most shameless type of abuse of religion -- the same kind of abuse used to justify burning people at the stake. Only this time, we're talking about babies."

Fr. Pavone concluded by saying that Church leaders who fail to point out the difference in seriousness between abortion and other issues should resign their positions, because "they obviously lack the most basic capacity for moral judgment."

More extensive commentary may be found at www.priestsforlife.org/elections/ratzingerletter.htm