Voting goodbye TWC and hello to a new president

First, my thanks to Marty Foos for offering me the opportunity to be a “poster” for our club blog. Marty said he was trying recruit bloggers from a variety of backgrounds in order to fully represent the make-up of the entire Notre Dame Club of Dayton. I guess I represent the over-50, computer impaired group.

Time-Warner. Thanks to the dropping of WDTN from the Time-Warner programming list, I’ve switched to Dish-TV. As it turns out, we will be spending less money for more stations. I’ll let you all know how it works out for us.

The Big (Catholic) Read. I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a Big (Catholic) Read discussion of the book The Catholic Vote—A Guide for the Perplexed at my home parish of St Luke in Beavercreek. The book, co-authored by Clarke E. Cochran and David Carroll Cochran, purports to illuminate a statement by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops entitled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States. The series is being encouraged by the Cincinnati Archdiocese so hopefully some other club members have participated in these discussions in their home parishes. If so, I would love to hear your thoughts on the series. If not, and your parish is sponsoring the discussions, I would highly encourage you to look into it!

The purpose of the bishop’s statement is to provide a succinct summary of Catholic social teaching and how a faithful Catholic should look apply Catholic social teaching to specific policy issues. The bishops delineate seven “key themes” in the Church’s social teaching. These include:
- The Right to Life and the Dignity of the Human Person
- Call to Family, Community, and Participation
- Human Rights and Responsibilities
- The (Preferential) Option for the Poor
- Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers
- Solidarity (the “oneness” of the human family)
- Stewardship of God’s Creation

The bishops go on to apply these themes to specific issues. Some of these connections follow with crystal clarity such as the Right to Life = Abortion is always wrong. Other applications require a bit more discussion such as the Call to Family = Parental Choice in Schools. In short, the bishop’s statement leaves the Catholic conscious with a fair amount of latitude it sorting out the issues. It is clearly neither a Democrat nor a Republican document. It is a “must read” for any Catholic voter, however, prior to November 4th.

Unfortunately, the accompanying Big Read text is not quite so non-partisan and this opinion seemed to be the consensus in my group. Without going into a book report, I found the book to be quite left-of-center. I will defer further comment pending discussion from any readers who may have come to a different conclusion. I believe a thoughtful person will have a satisfactory understanding of the Church’s position by reading the bishop’s statement (link above) and foregoing the Big Read “amplifying material”. The real value of the Big Read is in the discussion with fellow parishioners. Be aware that the discussion material is completely issue-based and there is little to no discussion of the weighing of issues versus the candidate’s character and value system. I know when I hire a new employee that the individual’s character and value system (as their past associates and references will testify to) is at least as important as their experience.

Again, if you have the opportunity to participate in a voter discussion group at your parish, I’d love to hear from you!