However, many Catholic clergy have long supported the liberal "social justice" agenda espoused by Kerry and the like and cannot bring themselves to support George Bush who has done more to limit abortion than any President since Reagan.
Regarding social justice, the Priests for Life newsletter for January-February 2004 (first-page) quotes from US Bishops, 1998, Living the Gospel of Life, as follows:
Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the rightness of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community.
The same article quotes Pope John Paul II, 1988, The Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World (Christifideles Laici), n.38) as follows:
Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights--for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture--is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.
The article also says: It is difficult to go wrong when we are quoting our own bishops and Pope!
I'm saving this article to use as a good comeback when fellow Catholics try to justify voting for pro-abortion politicians by insisting that, although personally opposed to abortion, they don't want to vote on one issue only.