"Response from Senator Casey"

Your Excellency:

As per Archbishop Charles J. Chaput's recent address at Notre Dame,

• "if a citizen fails to bring his moral beliefs into our country’s political conversation, if he fails to work for them publicly and energetically, then the only thing he ensures is the defeat of his own beliefs.....


• "abortion is the foundational human rights issue of our lifetime....no human rights are secure if the right to life is not....


• "Politics is the exercise of power; and power—as Jesus himself saw when Satan tempted him in the desert—can very easily pervert itself by doing evil in the name of pursuing good ends. But this fact is never an excuse for cowardice or paralysis. Christ never absolved us from defending the weak, or resisting evil in the world, or from solidarity with people who suffer....We need to fight for what we believe."

In a Q & A following the address, Ann Carey of the Catholic News Service reports that the archbishop "gave a frank response when asked why there is so much disunity among Catholics on the question of Catholics in political life standing clearly with the church on major moral issues such as abortion....

• 'There is unity among the bishops about abortion always being wrong, and that you can't be a Catholic and be in favor of abortion -- the bishops all agree to that -- but there's just an inability among the bishops together to speak clearly on this matter and even to say that if you're Catholic and you're pro-choice, you can't receive holy Communion'....


• "Archbishop Chaput said he and others have been trying to move the U.S. bishops' conference to speak clearly on this issue for a number of years. However, there is a fear, he said, that if they do so, the bishops might somehow disenfranchise the Catholic community from political life....


• "The strategy clearly has failed, he continued, 'So let's try something different and see if it works. Let's be very, very clear on these matters,' and he asked the audience to 'help me to convince the bishops on that subject.'

As you know, Senator Robert Casey, Jr of Scranton voted to allow continued funding of Planned Parenthood. I am forwarding a copy of his recent email, in which he bizarrely identifies himself "as a pro-life public official." I believe that Senator Casey's record and continued insistence that he is "pro-life" is giving scandal to Catholics and others in Pennsylvania.

Sincerely,