Letters

[Read "The Catholic Factor," by Andrew Greeley.]

I am a Catholic in the state of Michigan lead by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, also an active Catholic. We witness here the phenomenon that Andrew Greeley mentions when he makes the argument that Catholics tend to vote Democratic by nature. While our bishop in the archdiocese, Cardinal Maida, routinely launches stinging campaigns against Granholm's positions on pro-choice and sets the official tone of a hostile church toward her governorship, ordinary churchgoers are much more sympathetic to the complicated choices she has to make as a competent and responsible official.

Though our leadership and popular culture would have us vote against our own purely on the litmus of one issue, the real pride I have in being Catholic is that we are a lot more sophisticated than conventional opinion allows for. A significant portion of us may even be ahead of the curve as progressives go. The sad part is witnessing the knee-jerk reaction against our best leaders by dour bishops (read here: stupid white men) who feed off certain hot-button issues to the exclusion of all else that the Gospel and reality confronts us with.

-- Edward Sweeney

Fr. Greeley's reliance on his colleagues Brooks and Manza to support the contention that Catholics "from the available data ... continue to be left-of-center" is news to us Californians. My family (formerly Democratic pre-Reagan) is solidly Republican because of the abortion issue. Let's see, that's one matriarch, six children, five spouses, three sons-in-law and eight grandchildren who vote (from Riverside to San Luis Obispo) solidly Republican. My sister-in-law is Chicana and my son-in-law is Salvadoran.

We Catholics are communal all right, but for parish and family and friends. You know, humans of all types, sizes and colors. Including those nascent, as yet unborn ones.

Fr. Greeley is a thoughtful man (the Catholic Imagination remains one of my favorites). However, to paraphrase a recent dissent of Justice Scalia's: Sociological studies do better with strictly logical thinking, but (out here in California, at least) the daily life of us Catholics often does better without it.

-- Jonathan Kinsman

My decision to vote against President Bush is definitely influenced by his vocal alignment with Evangelical Protestants. I grew up Catholic in the least Catholic diocese in the country (east Tennessee), and while I don't practice now, the factors cited by Fr. Greeley (Have you been saved? Ya'll worship Mary, right? Well, you're not really Christian) have always driven me up the wall. I am very pro-separation of church and state, not because I have a problem with religion in public places, but because it would be the Evangelical Christians coming after me and telling my kids they were condemned to hell.

I do appreciate Fr. Greeley's point that Catholics think more communally, because social justice and community service was very much a part of my education, in the tradition of good works as one means to achieve salvation. I had never seen it articulated that way before.

In Alabama, where I live now, we had to vote on a tax increase last September. Many Evangelical Christians preached against it, saying that "government doesn't belong in the business of caring for poor people -- that's for the charities." They seemed to view current laws and codes as a priori and immutable, and never seemed to think that we could easily structure our society so that there wouldn't be as many "poor people" to begin with. There is also a strong racial element involved with it.

My mother always thought that one should lead by example, and Paul himself says, "They will know we are Christians by our love." I have no use for the hypocrites who stand on the street corner and pray so that everyone can see them, while their actions only benefit themselves.

So I will vote for John Kerry, not because he is Catholic, but because he chose to put himself bodily on the line, and then came home and spoke up against the wrongful policy that put him and thousands of others there -- though I've no doubt his Catholic upbringing influenced him to make both of those decisions.

-- Andrea Rossillon

[Read the Associated Press coverage of Sen. Zell Miller's latest attack on President Bush's critics.]

"It's obvious to me that this country is rapidly dividing itself into two camps -- the wimps and the warriors," Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., said. "The ones who want to argue and assess and appease, and the ones who want to carry this fight to our enemies and kill them before they kill us."

Wimps and warriors?

I have a question for Sen. Miller: How many of his relatives are in the U.S. military? Or, for that matter, for the president or Mr. Cheney or Ms. Rice or anyone else in the current administration: Are your children in the military? Exactly what can this war cost you, personally?

My eldest son is a Navy Reservist. He is not active -- yet. Many other mothers and fathers in the United States have sons and daughters who are on active duty. I cannot imagine what they go through each time they hear that another car bomb has gone off in Baghdad.

Our all-volunteer U.S. military is made up primarily of two groups of people, with a great deal of overlap between the two groups. Some of them are men and women who have chosen to serve our country as a career, or for a time, out of conviction: They want to keep America free and strong. Some joined because it was their best economic option. Either way, they have chosen to restrict their own freedom in order to preserve the freedoms we all enjoy. The least we can do for those who choose to serve in our military is to hold their lives dear. This mother wants to ask Sen. Miller, who's the wimp? Where is your child, your grandchild?

A warrior is not someone who sends other people, and other people's children, off to die for a pack of lies. A warrior is not a fool who sets off on a fool's errand. A warrior is not someone who plays dress-up for photo ops. A warrior is someone who actually fights.

Pardon me, Senator, but in my book, you and your friends are wimps. You are worse than playground bullies: You send other people to take your risks. I am the proud mother of a man who has chosen to serve America. Every time I listen to the news, I ache for the other mothers who dread the news. Every time I listen to the news, I wonder how these self-proclaimed "warriors" can look at themselves in the mirror. Every time I listen to the news, I ache for America.

-- Ruth Adar

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