Greg Sisk: "All of us as Catholics are responsible for John Kerry."

In what appears to be a final post on the topic (since his moderator's requesting the group-blog "Mirror of Justice" change the subject), Greg Sisk explains why "We are all responsible [for John Kerry]:

When one of our own, someone who claims to be one of us and in communion with us, rejects the foundation for any good society or concept of social teaching – the preeminent right to life – we have a moral duty to speak up without equivocation or apology. That duty is an inescapable and nondelegable one for each of us. As we have learned so painfully, if a priest abuses one of Christ’s little ones, we all in the Catholic communion are responsible. If the catechism of our children is so ineffective that the sanctity of human life could be misperceived by any congregant as a “doctrine of faith" to be dismissed as unimportant to public life, we all in the Catholic communion are responsible. If a professing Catholic seeks high office while repudiating the Church’s witness to life as the primordial right in any society, we all in the Catholic communion are responsible. All of us as Catholics should be ashamed.

A thoughtful law student who corresponded with me puts the point in this way: How racist would a candidate for President have to be before Catholics, even of the same political party and ideology, abandoned his campaign in disgust? I think we all know the answer to that: not very much. If John Kerry or George W. Bush were to betray even the slightest evidence of racist attitudes, suggesting that one or another ethnic group was less than equally human or lacking in equal dignity and character, good Catholics of conscience from all partisan and ideological perspectives properly would be united in condemnation. Well, then, how pro-abortion would a candidate for President have to be before Catholics similarly would be united in rejection? Sadly, as the essays and op-eds by Catholic apologists for Kerry seem to indicate, that point could never be reached. It is difficult to imagine a candidate for office who has been more addicted to the abortion license as a political issue than John Kerry, or who has served more loyally as a foot-soldier for the abortionists. And yet even he is not without those who would extend to him religious, even Catholic, cover, however much they sincerely may wish and hope they are doing otherwise. All of us as Catholics should be ashamed. . . .

Imagine for a moment what could happen if, instead of justifying a vote for an inexcusably repugnant record, the Catholic apologists were to expend the same energy and eloquence in explaining clearly to John Kerry and the national Democratic Party that while they want desperately to vote for him for so many reasons and because of his position on so many other issues, they simply cannot because he utterly failed the preliminary test of standing up for innocent life. Consider the impact that might follow for political campaigns and for the national culture if we all were to stand on principle and make plain that we will not apologize, we will not equivocate, we will not accommodate to intrinsic evil, we will not condone abandonment, especially by one of our own, of the most vulnerable among us. What if we all were to say, united together as Catholics in giving voice to the voiceless unborn, that we simply cannot countenance voting for anyone who has betrayed communion with our Church by persistently working to expand abortion-on-demand, undermining judicial nominations that might undo the absolute license to abortion, facilitating every request of the abortion industry, and refusing to take a courageous stand on the most fundamental issue of our time. Now that is a message worth hearing, and one that could not be ignored. Until that happens, we all as Catholics should be ashamed.

Read the whole thing, and then thank Greg for lending so eloquent a voice to convey the sentiments of faithful Catholics across the nation.