Catholic Sensibility

Out to lunch ... and I've got company A parishioner invited me out to lunch today. I welcome these opportunities to get to know people outside the church premises. You'd be amazed at the number of parishioners who smoke, drive interesting cars, and have good to medium taste in restaurants. Since my parish inventory report is due Wednesday, I jumped at the chance to get off the computer and get some human contact. You would not believe where I was escorted. You would not believe it: a lunch meeting for a Political Action Committee. Imagine that: a Catholic flaming liberal in a room full of Catholic flaming Republicans. If they only knew, I would not have had so many smiles returned when I waved and smiled at them. If they only knew, the microphone wouldn't have turned up anywhere near me during the question/answer phase. (Don't worry, I was polite to my escorts and chowed down on chocolate cake instead of asking the tough questions.) I think I did notice the news guy turning the tv camera away from me when I didn't applaud for our thief-in-ch -- oops, our president and his God-guided policies. Nice grilled chicken salad for lunch, but I think Michael Moore and John Kerry were more grilled than the fowl on my plate. Why I felt I was in St Blog's, amazingly enough. Did you note Archbishop Burke is in the news again? (Do a Google search or something and find the article yourself, if you really need to be brought up to speed on it.) On another blog, someone was in a quandry: what if they don't give you a clear-cut choice and you have two pro-abort politicians to vote for? Is your moral obligation to abstain from voting at all? I have bad news for those who think that good citizenship and faithful Catholicism means believing everything bishops and politicians feed you. Very bad news. Are you ready for it? It comes on the heels of my stirring experience of a Republican PAC pep talk. Are you really ready? If there is no pro-life candidate on the ballot, a good Catholic must run for elective office herself or himself. No kidding. If you have a well-formed moral conscience, you are well-informed on The Issue, if not the issues, and are fully aware that the Party -- oops, I mean the two parties -- don't give you a pro-life choice, you really do have to provide your own choice, get off your duff, and go for it. I saw a handful of good Catholic Republicans running for state and national office today. A few of them were even sitting at the non-reserved tables with the spies--I mean the good ordinary citizens like me. Some even had their small children in tow. Nice people, I think. Nice just like you. Run for office and this way you heap burning coals on the heads of your ignorant immoral Catholic friends who will smirk at you and say, "The Republicans are just as pro-choice as the Democrats, so I can still vote liberal and go to Communion, nyah, nyah, nyah." (Trust me, some liberals still use the word "nyah.") If you give them the choice of Democrat, Republican, or you, they will have to vote for you. They will have to. The alternative, of course, is to attend luncheons like I did and expand your sensibility beyond the annual trip to the voting booth and the nightly dose of "news" from our corporate masters at ABCESPNNBCCNNMTV.com. Of course, one still has to look for the lighter side of life. And after a lunch like that, I have an urgent need to see a certain film documentary to get my head back on straight. Anybody want to catch a matinee on Friday?