An Election Guide

I am taking the second year of EFM where we end each session with a TR (Theological Reflection).

Today's reflection was suggested by the two leaders, who are each strongly in favor of different candidates for President. They felt that the column by Joan Chittister from Sept. 2, 2004 was apolitical and could apply to either political party.

Were we all surprised when one member of the class kept hammering at the rest of us with points from the column that she said were biased:

"The truth is that there are more than enough poor that we as a country no longer count: The unemployed who drop off the welfare rolls, the underemployed who get no benefits, the children without health insurance, the fetuses being disposed of for the sake of convenience, the Iraqi civilians being killed for the sake of macho, the elderly who are facing even more poverty in years to come as Social Security fizzles in the wealthiest country in the world while we go on investing more money in death these days than we do in life?

"I think we better listen, as well, to the cries of the poor of other countries who, because of our economic or foreign policy plans, get poorer every day, fear us more every day and hate us more every day.

"The list goes on and on. Tell me again, who is "pro-life"? Where is the morality of saving life at one end only to starve it in mid-flight or kill it off cavalierly at the other?"

What's funny is that when I read the entire column, I liked it so much that I thought I would post the entire "guide" on this blog. Instead, I realized that I did not consider it to be a biased writing until I heard this other member of our class pick it apart. Since I agreed with Chittister's conclusion that one should vote for someone who has positions supporting the poor, I had not realized other people would feel differently. An "a-ha" moment!

The conclusion is:

"If you want to cast a moral vote, print out one of the many comparative lists of the issues espoused by each candidate. Ask yourself the question, "Will this proposal, this position, affect the poor of this country or the world positively, negatively or neither? Ascribe to each of the items in the platform or on the proposed legislative agenda a plus, a minus or a zero. Now count up the pluses. The program that will bring the most aid to the poor is the moral position. That is the way you and I are really expected to vote this year.

"How do I know? Easy. You see, what God says to Moses at the burning bush after "And I mean to deliver them" is this: "So I am sending you to pharaoh to say, 'Let my people go.' "

"That's the most direct election guidance I've seen so far -- including what we're getting from bishops and campaign committees.

"From where I stand, sending that message to pharaoh is the only real reason to vote."

After four more years of war and worsening economic conditions, this column is even more relevant than it was in 2004.

Go here to read the column!

Bring the Light

Cards by Anne can be ordered from her website.

The American Inquisition?

This week's post by Joan Chittister at her column From Where I Stand at the National Catholic Reporter website is entitled "The American Inquisition?" She writes about the torture that has been conducted in the name of "national security," which President Bush called "enhanced questioning."

"The government says it's about "keeping the American people safe." But from what? From decency, from humanity, from morality, from law? Because by now, the stories of official U.S. atrocities are pouring out from all over the world. Just surf over to this page, skim the headlines. Surely that ought to be enough to tell us that we are up to our necks in tactics too close to sadism to overlook. Tactics that break the minds of innocents and decay the soul of those who call themselves victors."

This fear of safety goes along with John Cory's writing in the post below this: America, Land of Fear?

Chittister compares the way the U.S. has used torture with the way the Church used it during the Inquistion, citing the inquisition and heresy trial of the Knights Templar in 1307 and the maneuverings of PopeClement V and King Philip VI of France. There is an October 13, 2007 newspaper article about this: Vatican to tell true knights' tale.

The article is concluded with:

"But therein lies the lesson: Material gained under torture is simply not credible, a conclusion reached by Eyemeric, the Grand Inquisitor of Aragon himself in 1357, who said, information gained under torture "is deceptive and ineffectual." Which means that the torturer isn't credible either. Or, to put it another way, how can we ever hope to stop the school shootings and gang warfare we abhor while we're doing it ourselves? How do we tell our children that their violence is bad but our violence is good?

"From where I stand, torture is too unreliable an item to build the morality, the credibility, the integrity of a church -- or a nation -- on it. After all, we can't have it both ways. Either the Inquisition was good -- or it wasn't."

I always like the way Joan Chittister expresses herself. Go to her original article and read it!

Ahmadinejad's U.S. visit was a missed opportunity for us

I am still disturbed at how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, was treated at Columbia University last week. It seems that he was invited there to be insulted. Is that how we treat a guest, no matter who that is? Joan Chittister's latest article at the National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe deals with this. I urge you to go here and read it. I will post a little of her article below:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, part of President George Bush's "Evil Empire" came to town last week. The question is who knows and who cares and who knows enough to care anything rational about it anyway? Good questions.

According to the latest Pew Research Center Survey on Religion and Public Life, 58 percent of the more than 3,000 respondents said they knew little or nothing about Islamic practices, but 70 percent of non Muslims said they did know that Islam was very different from their own religious beliefs. (Los Angeles Times, Wed., Sept 26, 2007) At the same time, the numbers of U.S. citizens whose attitudes toward Muslims are unfavorable are rising. What's even more disconcerting is that few Americans even know a Muslim personally. Those who do, the survey found, were more likely to be positive about Islam than those who did not.

Joan Chittister goes on to describe this more fully, also explaining the way decisions are made in Iran. Then she reminds us of past U.S. history (and hospitality):

Then, maybe we ought to look at our own past history and present use of "freedom of speech." This is a country that greeted Nikita Khrushchev in 1960 with a 21-gun salute at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, drove him and President Eisenhower by presidential cavalcade 13 miles through Washington to his residence, treated him to conversations with a host of the highest officials in the country, toured him through Manhattan, San Francisco and Los Angeles and ended his stay with a visit to Camp David. This is the country that met its counterparts with courtesy and, after almost 30 years, finally talked and listened its way, one Soviet leader at a time, to the end of the Cold War.

That was freedom of speech. For us and for them.

We need to stop a moment and ask, "You have to question what we really mean by "freedom of speech." And for whom?"