Catholics on why they’re supporting Obama

An eloquent op-ed piece which just appeared on Newsweek’s website, from several very prominent Catholics:

Is Obama the perfect pro-life candidate? No. Is he preferable to the self-proclaimed "pro-lifer" McCain? Yes, because promoting life in actuality beats McCain's label and all of Weigel's elegant theorizing and hand-wringing. The Republican alternative familiar to Weigel is simultaneously self-righteous, easy and ineffective. The Democratic path is practical, anything but easy—as no act of bona fide love of neighbor ever is—but inviting of a life-affirming outcome.

Weigel may also wish to stay tied up in knots over the fitness of Catholic politicians to receive holy communion, rather than practically asking how to be of help to a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy. But as we read the American bishops, they have invited Catholic officeholders to promote life as much as is politically possible (never conceding any life as expendable). The notion of using the sacrament as a political tool we find divisive, deeply offensive and contrary to the Gospel.

Weigel may also wish to engage in a theoretical debate about hypothetical public support for the funding of abortion, and whether that results in improper moral complicity with an evil act. That is a worthy seminar topic, but we recommend he start by asking the same question of himself in terms of coerced taxpayer support for an unjust and unjustifiable war in Iraq costing over $10 billion a month and thousands of Iraqi and American lives, which Weigel aided and abetted with his vocal support, contrary to the express prayers of the Holy Father he called "a witness to hope."

There is no more audacious embrace of hope than faith-based action that honors all of life.