We\u2019re speaking on the night Barack Obama is delivering his
\nacceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Let me ask
\nflat-out: Do you believe a Catholic in good faith can vote for Obama?<\/strong>
\nI can only speak in terms of my own personal views. I certainly can\u2019t vote for somebody who\u2019s either pro-choice or pro-abortion.<\/p>\nI\u2019m not a Republican and I\u2019m not a Democrat. I\u2019m registered as an
\nindependent, because I don\u2019t think the church should be identified with
\none party or another. As an individual and voter I have deep personal
\nconcerns about any party that supports changing the definition of
\nmarriage, supports abortion in all circumstances, wants to restrict the
\ntraditional understanding of religious freedom. Those kinds of issues
\ncause me a great deal of uneasiness.<\/p>\n
What about the wing of the church that says a party that supports the Ryan budget also ought to cause concern?<\/strong>
\nJesus tells us very clearly that if we don\u2019t help the poor, we\u2019re going
\nto go to hell. Period. There\u2019s just no doubt about it. That has to be a
\nfoundational concern of Catholics and of all Christians. But Jesus
\ndidn\u2019t say the government has to take care of them, or that we have to
\npay taxes to take care of them. Those are prudential judgments. Anybody
\nwho would condemn someone because of their position on taxes is making a
\nleap that I can\u2019t make as a Catholic. … You can\u2019t say that somebody\u2019s
\nnot Christian because they want to limit taxation. Again, I\u2019m speaking
\nonly for myself, but I think that\u2019s a legitimate position. It may not be
\nthe correct one, but it\u2019s certainly a legitimate Catholic position; and
\nto say that it\u2019s somehow intrinsically evil like abortion doesn\u2019t make
\nany sense at all.<\/p>\nThat said, do you find the Ryan budget troubling?<\/strong>
\nThe Ryan budget isn\u2019t the budget I would write. I think he\u2019s trying to
\ndeal with the same issue in the government I\u2019m dealing with here
\nlocally, which is spending more than we bring in. I admire the courage
\nof anyone who\u2019s actually trying to solve the problems rather than paper
\nover them. I think a vigorous debate about the issues, rather than the
\npersonalities, is the way through this problem. It\u2019s immoral for us to
\ncontinue to spend money we don\u2019t have. I think that those persons who
\ndon\u2019t want to deal with the issue are, in some ways, doing wrong by
\nputting it off for their own political protection or the protection of
\ntheir party.<\/p>\nReligious freedom has become the signature issue for the bishops\u2019conference. Was the \u2018Fortnight for Freedom\u2019 a success?<\/strong>
\nIt was a success in the sense that it brought this issue to greater
\nawareness in the lives of many Catholics. In terms of really changing
\neither the church or the national situation concretely, we have to yet
\nto see its effects. The history of the world demonstrates that if we
\naren\u2019t always on guard about religious freedom, we\u2019ll lose it. It
\nhappens everywhere, and it could happen in the United States.<\/p>\nChurch officials in Europe, bishops and cardinals, have told me that
\nthey\u2019re astonished there is an actual threat to religious freedom in the
\nUnited States. They\u2019ve always seen us as embodying religious freedom
\nmore clearly than any other government or country in the history of the
\nworld. It\u2019s also surprising to me. I would never have thought, even ten
\nyears ago, that we would be dealing with it so quickly. What opened my
\neyes was my service to the United States as a member of the Commission
\non International Religious Freedom. I saw things in Western Europe that
\ndisturbed me in terms of limitations on religious freedom, mostly for
\nnon-Christian groups such as the Muslims. I thought that if Western
\nEurope could do this, it could happen in the United States too.<\/p>\n
Also tonight, Cardinal Timothy Dolan is delivering a
\nbenediction at the DNC, after having done the same thing for the
\nRepublicans. In 2008, you didn\u2019t offer a benediction for the DNC when it
\nmet in Denver. Had you been invited, would you have accepted?<\/strong>
\nI was safe from making that decision because they didn\u2019t invite me. It
\nwould have been very hard for me to have done it without saying things
\nabout abortion and the meaning of marriage. If they would be willing to
\nlet me be myself and say something about my convictions in my prayer,
\nthen I would have prayed. If they would have restricted my freedom about
\nwhat I thought should be said, I wouldn\u2019t have accepted.<\/p>\nBoth U.S. Senators in Pennsylvania and the Governor are Catholic. How are your relationships with them?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m committed to on-going relationships with them because I\u2019m the
\nCatholic bishop here. For the first time in a long while, we have three
\nor four men who could be executed under the death penalty law in the
\nstate of Pennsylvania. I\u2019m communicating formally with the governor
\nright now and the state legislature on this matter, because the church
\nis opposed to capital punishment and I\u2019m certainly opposed to it. <\/p>\nAre you optimistic?<\/strong>
\nI certainly am. We haven\u2019t executed anyone in Pennsylvania for a long
\ntime, and there\u2019s just no reason for anyone to be committed to doing
\nthat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Archbishop of Philadelphia, who is a member of the Capuchin order (a Franciscan). He recently gave an extensive interview. We have excerpted what he had to say about politics, values, and voting. Chaput in Philly swims against 'nostalgia and red ink' Politics We\u2019re speaking on the night Barack Obama is delivering his acceptance speech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":806,"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/life-net-bf3c43.ingress-alpha.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}