{"id":7118,"date":"2004-06-22T10:02:55","date_gmt":"2004-06-22T10:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/more_grist.html"},"modified":"2004-06-22T10:02:55","modified_gmt":"2004-06-22T10:02:55","slug":"more_grist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/more_grist.html","title":{"rendered":"More Grist"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Sidney Callahan:<\/a><\/p>\n

I voted for George W. Bush and I\u2019m heartily sorry now. My support was motivated by prolife convictions, but so is my present dismay. I opted for Bush in 2000 because I thought he\u2019d try to protect embryonic life in and out of the womb, and also support faith-based social initiatives. As for foreign policy, Bush\u2019s promises of \u201chumility\u201d were reassuring. Humility is, of course, a central Christian virtue, and Bush\u2019s seemed to reflect his avowed identification with \u201cChrist\u2014because he changed my heart.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Bush, too, appears superconfident, now promising to \u201crid the world of evildoers.\u201d He has had more than one Rasputin assuring him that his critics can be dismissed as enemies of the faith. Should those with the right stuff listen to weak sisters? True believers may be more dangerous than those who fake it. The mounting costs of a disaster can be interpreted by them as a test of courage. As the president declared in his State of the Union address, \u201cWe will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory.\u201d (Sacrifices consisting of the lives of other people\u2019s children are always easier to endorse.) As casualties and \u201ccollateral damage\u201d increase, it can become harder to admit error. In 2004, the Republicans will be a prowar party led by a would-be crusader.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party and John Kerry will remain rigidly and dogmatically proabortion. In this sad dilemma I think the Catholic prolife agenda of peace and social justice for all is best served by a vote for Kerry and the Democrats. At least Kerry, a Catholic veteran and antiwar protester, will be committed to work for a foreign policy of international cooperation aimed at peacemaking. Protecting fetal lives is an all-important prolife goal, but every day my local paper runs pictures of young U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, and who\u2019s counting the Iraqi civilian lives destroyed? <\/p>\n

Another reason to urge an anti-Bush vote by prolife advocates arises from reading the signs of the times. From my \u201cfeminist for life\u201d (prowoman, prolife) perspective I can see that it takes much time for education and moral persuasion to gradually change abortion laws. But from the perspective of peace and war, the world can get much worse fast. Disastrous miscalculations and conflict can enkindle violent wildfires. I am now ready to sign up for a \u201cProlifers against Bush\u201d campaign. The Catholic vote in 2004 should support the church\u2019s imperative call for peacemaking abroad and justice for the poor at home. As Jesus says, all those who cry \u201cLord, Lord\u201d (however sincerely) may not be doing God\u2019s work. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Sidney Callahan: I voted for George W. Bush and I\u2019m heartily sorry now. My support was motivated by prolife convictions, but so is my present dismay. I opted for Bush in 2000 because I thought he\u2019d try to protect embryonic life in and out of the womb, and also support faith-based social initiatives. As…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nMore Grist - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/more_grist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More Grist - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From Sidney Callahan: I voted for George W. Bush and I\u2019m heartily sorry now. My support was motivated by prolife convictions, but so is my present dismay. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}