Sen. John McCain / Archbishop Charles Chaput
Posted on 07/30/2008 1:01:17 PM PDT by NYer
.- Senator John McCain is paying his second visit to Colorado in less than a week and on this trip he is taking time to meet privately with Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver.
After arriving in Denver on Tuesday, Sen. McCain spoke at a 6:25 p.m. fundraiser at the Cherry Hills Village home of investor Charlie Gallagher.
At 9:30 on Wednesday morning, John McCain and his wife Cindy met with Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput. The archbishop described the meeting as private and told CNA that no comment would be forthcoming.
Following his meeting with the archbishop, the Republican presidential contender toured the Wagner Equipment Company in Aurora, CO.
Last week McCain was in Colorado to speak at the American GI Forum convention. He also stopped in Aspen and met with the Dalai Lama, who was there for a forum on Tibet.
Ping!
Any feedback from this yet?
http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/dnc_conventional_wisdom/archives/2008/07/mccain-meets-with-chaput-1.html
by David Montero
“”Sen. John McCain met with the leader of Denver’s archdiocese this morning for what McCain officials called “a private meeting.”
The meeting happened prior to McCain’s visit to a Caterpillar sales company in Aurora. The Chaput meeting could be the reliving of a nightmare for Democrats in Colorado. In 2004, Chaput made it clear in a New York Times interview in 2004 that voting for Kerry was “cooperating in evil.”
He told the interviewer that if a Catholic were to vote for Kerry, they’d have to go to confession before receiving communion. This left Catholics conflicted and was considered a key in delivering the state to President Bush in 2004. Kerry is Catholic and encountered resistance by some bishops who took issue with his stance on abortion.
The linchpin for Chaput is abortion. McCain touts his pro-life record and Obama is pro-choice. There is no indication in the meeting whether Chaput plans to be as active as he was in 2004, but McCain is riding a recent tide of good news on the religious conservative front. Just the other week, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson said he could support McCain months after saying he wouldn’t vote for the Arizona senator.
The archdiocese would not comment on the meeting, other than to say it was private.””
""“Using arguments from history as well as the wisdom of the world’s greatest thinkers, Archbishop Chaput urges Catholics to live our faith without compromise and to use our faith as the foundation for renewing American society in the twenty-first century. His tone is one of ‘now or never,’ and his presentation is crisp, intelligent, and accessible to a wide audience. This is an important book for Catholics to read and consider if we are truly to make a difference in the public square. Archbishop Chaput has made a unique and significant contribution to the Church and the nation at a time when voices like his are needed to be raised and heard.”
—Very Reverend David M. O’Connell, C.M., President, The Catholic University of America
“At a time when the ‘faith and values’ vote has never been more important, Archbishop Charles Chaput deftly explores the intersection of morality, reason, and politics. This isn’t just a book for Catholics, but for anyone who cares about the state of America’s soul —and how that concern might shape the 2008 elections.”
—John L. Allen Jr., NCR and CNN senior Vatican correspondent
Product Description
“People who take God seriously will not remain silent about their faith. They will often disagree about doctrine or policy, but they won’t be quiet. They can’t be. They’ll act on what they believe, sometimes at the cost of their reputations and careers. Obviously the common good demands a respect for other people with different beliefs and a willingness to compromise whenever possible. But for Catholics, the common good can never mean muting themselves in public debate on foundational issues of human dignity. Christian faith is always personal but never private. This is why any notion of tolerance that tries to reduce faith to private idiosyncrasy, or a set of opinions that we can indulge at home but need to be quiet about in public, will always fail.”
—From the Introduction
Few topics in recent years have ignited as much public debate as the balance between religion and politics. Does religious thought have any place in political discourse? Do religious believers have the right to turn their values into political action? What does it truly mean to have a separation of church and state? The very heart of these important questions is here addressed by one of the leading voices on the topic, Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver.
While American society has ample room for believers and nonbelievers alike, Chaput argues, our public life must be considered within the context of its Christian roots. American democracy does not ask its citizens to put aside their deeply held moral and religious beliefs for the sake of public policy. In fact, it requires exactly the opposite.
As the nation’s founders knew very well, people are fallible. The majority of voters, as history has shown again and again, can be uninformed, misinformed, biased, or simply wrong. Thus, to survive, American democracy depends on an engaged citizenry —people of character, including religious believers, fighting for their beliefs in the public square—respectfully but vigorously, and without apology. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the nation’s health. Or as the author suggests: Good manners are not an excuse for political cowardice.
American Catholics and other persons of goodwill are part of a struggle for our nation’s future, says Charles J. Chaput. Our choices, including our political choices, matter. Catholics need to take an active, vocal, and morally consistent role in public debate. We can’t claim to personally believe in the sanctity of the human person, and then act in our public policies as if we don’t. We can’t separate our private convictions from our public actions without diminishing both. In the words of the author, “How we act works backward on our convictions, making them stronger or smothering them under a snowfall of alibis.”
Vivid, provocative, clear, and compelling, Render unto Caesar is a call to American Catholics to serve the highest ideals of their nation by first living their Catholic faith deeply, authentically.""
Very interesting! Thank you for posting that piece of information regarding his book. Surely, it gives us some insight into how the conversation went. Why, do you suppose McCain chose to meet with the Archbishop? It’s all conjecture, I realize, because the article affirms the fact that no statement is forthcoming.
John McCain's Remarks on Abortion in Speech to National Pro-Life Convention
McCain campaign plans ‘very aggressive’ outreach to Catholic voters
Great! Thank you!
Winning the votes of Catholics will be key. It is important for McCain to make clear where both he and conversely his opponent stand on life issues.
The only necessary statement was made when he agreed to meet with John.....and he did.
A good-as-gold campaign move by the Senator.
Leni
I am sure that McCain is hoping for a public criticism of Obama’s shocking pro-abort record. No credible bishop would endorse a Presidential candidate, but they can do as Chaput did in 2004.
Yed the Archbishop announced taht he will not accept McCain's offer of the VP slot. (Just kidding, we know the Archbishop wouldn't run anyway)
Correction: we know the Archbishop is forbidden by Canon Law from running for office.
Rally and vigil to pray for the unborn to feature black pro-lifer
By John Gleason
On Aug. 25, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., will lead a peaceful prayer vigil and candlelight rally in Martin Luther King Park, located one block west of a new Planned Parenthood clinic in Denver.
Archbishop Chaput will be joined by Alveda King, director of Gospel of Life Ministries and niece of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King. The event is being promoted by the Respect Life Office and the Office of Black Catholic Ministry of the Archdiocese of Denver.
King will address abortion as the civil rights issue of today and how Planned Parenthood is targeting their abortion services toward African American and Hispanic women. Mimi Eckstein, director of the Respect Life Office said pro-lifers are excited at the prospect of King coming to Denver to participate in this event.
“Dr. King’s ministry is one of life,” Eckstein said. “She travels around the country addressing issues that are of great concern to the black community. She talks about fatherless families, poverty, AIDS and abortion. She comes to expose abortion for what it is.”
Eckstein went on to say that Archbishop Chaput and King want to raise community awareness about Planned Parenthood, specifically to this clinic and what it bodes for the black community.
“The community needs to know what this organization is doing,” Eckstein said, “and how it damages our city to have it in our midst.”
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States, where three out of four clinics are in minority communities. Although blacks make up 12 percent of the population, they make up more than a third of the abortions performed in this nation. In 1993, a study by Howard University revealed that African American women over age 50 were almost five times more likely to get breast cancer if they had had an abortion compared to women who had not had one.
In 2006, in an open letter to African American leaders, King, borrowing a phrase from Pope John Paul II, said a culture of death has been unleashed in this nation.
“Our children commit violent acts against themselves,” she said. “Because we have committed over 40 million legal murders in our history, our children can’t discern between what is good, what is legal and what is right.”
Of the 40 million babies aborted since 1973, 13 million were black.
“This is an appeal to all people of good will,” King said. “Especially to African American leaders to stop the violence, save the children and restore the culture of life to America.”
In a separate pro-life speech, King declared that she “joined the voices of thousands across America who are silent no more; who can no longer sit idly by and allow this horrible spirit of murder to cut down and cut away our unborn and destroy the lives of our mothers.”
The rally and prayer vigil will take place exactly one month after the 40th anniversary of “Humanae Vitae” (“Of Human Life”), the encyclical written and promulgated by Pope Paul VI on married love and procreation. The document reaffirmed Church teaching that artificial contraception is morally wrong.
“'Humanae Vitae’ is the document of the Catholic Church in which Pope Paul VI courageously and accurately predicted that the widespread use of contraception would prove to have dire consequences for women and men in our society, “ noted Eckstein. “He accurately predicted that there would be a breakdown in family life, a breakdown in respect for women and their unique gifts, and that abortion would be used as birth control. Planned Parenthood embodies these predictions like no other entity in our American society today.
“Every day,” she continued, “unborn children are aborted, women are provided with sterilizations and contraceptive methods that place their health and life in jeopardy, and teenagers are encouraged to be sexually active regardless of their age and without parental involvement.”
The prayer vigil will start at 7:30 p.m. in the park located at East 38th Avenue and Newport Street in Denver. Following the vigil, a prayerful candlelight rally will take place around the perimeter of the Planned Parenthood Clinic at 7155 E. 38th Ave. For more information, call 303-715-3205.
Even if he wasn’t I honetly don’t think he would.
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