Being a pre-Vatican II Catholic who still treasures the teachings of the Church, I can commiserate with a sense of loss of our culture.
The Catholics in the Archdiocese of Baltimore are about to experience a new low. Senate Bill 116, which redefines marriage, has elicited an Action Alert from Maryland Catholic Conference. The Conference’s alert pleads with everyone to contact your senator, to express your concern for the principles that are the foundation of our families. They also direct people to a letter written on traditional marriage by Archbishop O’Brien, “Irresistible Promise of Happiness”. In his letter written in mid-January, the archbishop clearly articulates the benefits of traditional marriage, and goes on to state, “we can ill afford further efforts to undermine marriage”.
This failure to protect traditional marriage in SB 116 will add insult to injury to traditional Catholic culture when one considers our state’s funding of abortion and embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).
It is unfortunate that we don’t have a political party or candidates who are against state funding of abortion, and ESCR, and for protection of traditional marriage. Well, we did. The political party is the Constitution Party of Maryland, and their candidate for governor was Eric Knowles.
Maybe the Catholic Conference should have issued an action alert back in November. It could have called the attention of church members that the Constitution Party’s Eric Knowles, was the only ballot access candidate who answered the Catholic Conference’s survey in agreement with our church on all three issues. Maybe the Archbishop should have demanded that his Catholic Review (C.R.) print at least one declarative sentence in their eight page Election Supplement, to acknowledge that Knowles was the only ballot access candidate who agreed on all three: against state funding for abortion and ESCR, and for protecting traditional marriage.
I can only guess that a sentence stating this agreement in these non-negotiable issues may have been deemed to be too political. I am not sure, because the Archbishop has not responded to my written attempts to answer this. With the C.R.’s election supplement giving a full page, plus, on each of the two major candidates for governor, it calls to question the importance the hierarchy actually places on these non-negotiable principles.
Recognizing that the CR’s circulation in 2009 was noted at 120,000, some would think that a sentence stating Knowles’ agreement might go a long way to helping this third party to achieve 1% of the vote for governor, needed to maintain ballot access.
As the Constitution party scrapes to gather 10,000 signatures for ballot access, the old adage; “you get what you pay for” proves true. If you give free print and exposure to candidates who are pro-choice, pro-state funded ESCR, and, or weak on defending traditional marriage, while at the same time ignoring candidates who represent our interest, we loose.
