FR Kevin Ryan (Real Life, CL 5/9/10) asks: “Where does the ordinary church-goer get advice on how to think or vote when prominent figures argue?”
The best and safest source is a Church leader whose advice is in harmony with the mind and heart of Catholic Church teaching.
Cardinal George Pell aptly referred to The Greens as “sweet camouflaged poison”. (A friend of mine calls them “gangrenes”).
With complete truth and justice, the cardinal has courageously exposed the cynical double-standards in their “appealing” yet sick policies.
According to Fr Ryan, Jesuit Father Frank Brennan, on the other hand, alleges that The Greens have some closeness to the Catholic Church when he tries to separate their policies on the environment, public housing, human rights and income management from their stance on abortion, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage and funding for Church schools.
Here Fr Brennan expresses a serious, self-contradictory flaw through his seeming unawareness that abortion is a brutal, direct violation of human rights.
Furthermore, as prominent United States Church leaders Fr Frank Pavone, founder of Priests for Life, along with Archbishops Raymond Burke and Charles Chaput have so truthfully, powerfully and courageously stated: “If you are pro-abortion, all your other policies are irrelevant.”
This truth alone should be enough to assist the “ordinary church-goer” to be suitably advised on thinking and forming a strong personal conviction on how to vote in elections.
PETER PHILLIPS
Springvale, Vic
