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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 28, 2008 / 27 Menachem-Av 5768

Losing faith voters

By Cal Thomas


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | DENVER — Democrats have made it a priority to lure more evangelical and Catholic voters from the Republican camp into their own, but the likelihood of success is becoming more problematic given pronouncements by two Catholic archbishops and a decision by the editor of an evangelical Christian magazine.


Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, the archbishop of Denver, said Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden should avoid taking Communion because of his support for abortion rights.


In 2004, the Archbishop of Boston, Sean O'Malley stood by a statement he had made the previous year that pro-choice Catholics are in a state of grave sin and cannot take Communion properly. Around the same time, then-Cardinal (now Pope Benedict XVI) Joseph Ratzinger, in a private memorandum, told American bishops that Communion must be denied to Catholic politicians who support legal abortion. The memo and the statement by O'Malley were thought at the time to be directed at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who is Catholic. Kerry and many other Democratic and Republican Catholic politicians have mostly ignored such directives and taken Communion anyway.


Appearing last Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried some theological hair-splitting. She described herself as "an ardent, practicing Catholic," but then said the church had only held its pro-life position for the last 50 years and that during the previous 2,000 years it had reached different conclusions about when life begins.


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In an unusual public rebuke of a leading political figure, Washington, D.C., Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said Pelosi was "incorrect" in her statement that the church had differed over the years about when live begins. Wuerl added, "We respect the right of elected officials such as Speaker Pelosi to address matters of public policy that are before them, but the interpretation of Catholic faith has rightfully been entrusted to the Catholic bishops. Given this responsibility to teach, it is important to make this correction for the record."


Wuerl said the Catechism of the Catholic Church has been clear for 2,000 years and he quoted from it: "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. ... Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."


Pelosi's office at first had no comment, but late Tuesday Pelosi's spokesman, Brendan Daly, issued a statement quoting the Speaker as saying she was raised in a "devout" Catholic home, but that "not all Catholics believe that life begins at conception." That comment is worse than the first. It makes Catholic teaching a matter of personal preference, not objective truth. This exposes the Democrats' "outreach" effort to "people of faith" — and you can pick whichever faith you like as long as you vote for Democrats — as a fraud and an attempt to add just one more interest group to the Democratic Party's constellation.


The third item of bad news for Democrats, who thought they could fool serious Catholics and evangelical Christians, may not have the impact of the previous two, but it reveals another crack in the foundation Democrats are trying to build in their party for religious voters. Cameron Strang, 32-year-old editor of the "edgy" and "hip" Relevant Magazine, pulled out of delivering the benediction on the Democratic National Convention's first night for fear it might be construed as an endorsement of Barack Obama.


Democrats have worked hard to bring more religious voters into their fold. As part of their strategy they have promoted a dubious and debatable doctrine that big government should be doing the work of God on Earth. But Democrats want to pick and choose what they like about God and what they don't (Republicans sometimes do this as well in such matters as wealth and materialism).


While government has a role in addressing certain issues that can be considered biblically-based (such as justice and poverty), Democrats see no role for government in helping to restrict sinful man when he wishes to kill the unborn, or allow — even promote — any and every relationship but traditional marriage.


It is in its failure to address these premier moral issues that the Democratic Party has unmasked itself as a party that cares less for God's agenda and more for its own, as it pursues the White House.

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JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.

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