Bishop Gumbleton on Bush and the Culture of Life

Here is an op-ed (worth reading alongside Archbishop Chaput's, below) by Detroit's Bishop Gumbleton, called "President's Policies Are in Opposition to a Culture of Life." (Thanks to Amy Welborn for the link). Gumbleton states:

How are Catholics to deal with [the] split between [President Bush's pro-life] rhetoric and reality? Ours must be a prophetic voice. We must call on Bush to account for a deeply troubling record. And we must also challenge Democrats to embrace the entire culture of life, not just a selective economic and social agenda. The sad reality of American political life is that no candidate or party embraces and advances a "culture of life" in the fullest sense of the term.

Yet responsible citizenship calls us to cast our vote Nov. 2. How do we choose amongst imperfect candidates? We must each consult our conscience and consider the entirety of church teaching. And, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' voter guide, Faithful Citizenship, encourages, we should measure "all candidates, policies, parties and platforms by how they protect or undermine the life, dignity, and rights of the human person, whether they protect the poor and vulnerable and advance the common good."

What we will not do is vote for a candidate just because he uses words that we like to hear; remembering, as scripture tells us, that we must be "doers of the Word and not hearers only."

Rick