Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

Re: 'Why vote for Trump' [Village News, Letter, 09/03/20]

Recently, a letter by Orolie Gubser answered the question “Why vote for Trump?” in great detail. Her reasons are my reasons and then some. One reason she mentioned was “I am voting for every unborn soul that Democrats want to murder.” This statement should be much more specific, and it is also made much more powerful when it is focused on the Democratic Party’s standard bearer, Joe Biden.

Biden has said on many occasions that he is a “practicing” Catholic. Very recently, at the Republican Convention, Lou Holtz indicated that Biden was “a Catholic in name only.” Holtz, who was a very successful football coach at the University of Notre Dame, as well, as a number of other high-profile universities and a notable contributor to many charitable causes and notable TV personality, has since been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Donald Trump.

Since the right to life is common to all humans derived from nature – natural law – rather than from the rules of society, or positive law, which lies deep in the basic tenets of the Roman Catholic religion, as well as in the tenets of many religions of the world, how can he as the Democratic standard bearer claim to be a “practicing” Catholic and a believer in the natural law when he supports abortion and the right to abortion as part of Democratic platform, which he promises he will support, if voters elect him?

The president of the University of Notre Dame, the Rev. Peter Jenkens, in an attempt to distance the university from Holtz’s statement said that while we can “...judge the moral quality of one’s actions, one can never question the sincerity of another’s faith.”

That statement is somewhat of a paradox, since Biden’s actions seem to speak for themselves and clearly identify his faith as being Catholic. To be truly honest with himself, to call identify himself a “practicing” Catholic on the one hand and to go out campaigning and making many statements which accept and promote abortion on the other hand is duplicitous and dishonest.

Biden may indeed be sincere in his faith, but he certainly is not in his actions and his actions speak his faith louder than his words, which do not indicate that he is a Catholic. One cannot say one is Catholic yet deny the natural law and the Catholic teaching on the right to life.

Biden owes it to the American public to clarify or reconcile his support of abortion and being a “practicing” Catholic. In the absence of this action, he will not get my vote nor that of Orolie Gubser or any other citizen who really wants to fully understand what they are voting for.

Edmund White

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 
Rendered 03/29/2024 02:33