Vatican City, Nov 3, 2008 / 22:59 pm
In an interview with Inside the Vatican Magazine’s correspondent Andrew Rabel, Archbishop Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St Louis (MO) and Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura at the Holy See, called on Catholics to cast their vote knowing that abortion is the fundamental moral issue, and praying to Our Lady of Guadalupe to help put an end to abortion in the U.S.
During the interview, Rabel asked the Cardinal-to-be about Archbishop Chaput’s description of Senator Obama as the biggest supporter ever of abortion rights in a presidential race.
“My fellow citizens of the United States of America – Archbishop Burke responded- should be deeply concerned about any candidate for the presidency who supports legislation which permits the destruction of human life at its very beginning, the killing of babies in the womb, or legislation which violates the integrity of marriage and family life.”
“A good citizen –he added- must support and vote for the candidate who most supports the inalienable dignity of innocent and defenseless life, and the integrity of marriage.”
“To do otherwise, is to participate, in some way, in the culture of death which pervades the life of the nation and has led to so much violence, even in the home and in educational institutions,” Burke explained.
Inside the Vatican (ITV) also asked the Archbishop if he believed describing the Democratic Party as one becoming "the party of death" was a fair statement, especially “when you consider that the Republican administration has become involved in an unpopular war?”
“It is not my intention to engage in partisan politics. I wish that both of the major political parties in the United States of America were more coherent regarding the right to life. The Democratic Party, however has, over the years, put forth and defended a political agenda which is grievously anti-life, favoring the right to procured abortion and ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex,” the former Archbishop of St. Louis responded.
“One can legitimately question the wisdom of the decisions taken in the war in Iraq, but war in itself is not always and everywhere evil, as are, for example, procured abortion, human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, and the so-called ‘marriage’ of persons of the same sex.” The Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura went on to explain that the engagement of the nation in a war cannot be placed “on the same moral level as the nation making laws which permit the wholesale killing of the unborn or the artificial generation of human life or experimentation on embryonic human life or ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex.”
Archbishop Burke strongly rejected the notion that emphasizing the issue of abortion would be taking “single issue politics too far.”
“Procured abortion”, he responded, “is the fundamental moral issue in the safeguarding and fostering of human life. To make economics or the environment the fundamental political issue, when life itself, in its most innocent and defenseless form, remains unprotected is morally irresponsible.”
Burke acknowledged that the government of the United States must address a number of critical issues, including the current and most serious economic crisis, “but it must address first its duty to promote the common good by defending the life of every human being, from the moment of its inception, and by safeguarding the integrity of marriage and the family.”
As the interview came to a close, the archbishop said that “the Mother of God, by her apparitions as Our Lady of Guadalupe to Saint Juan Diego, fostered, in a dramatic way, the respect for all human life. Devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe brought an end to the cruel practice of human sacrifice, and brought together into one race the Native Americans and the Europeans who were on the verge of a bloody conflict.”
“I have been praying fervently, through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that the citizens of the United States of America will vote, on November 4th, for the safeguarding of the right to life and of the integrity of marriage,” he concluded.
Read the full interview at Inside the Vatican's website: http://www.insidethevatican.com/newsflash/2008/newsflash-nov03-08.htm
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