Social Values and Catholics’ Politics

Re “Like Values? It’s Catholic vs. Far Right,” Opinion, April 21:

Paul Ruffins makes a common mistake in his interpretation of the U.S. Catholic Conference’s “Political Responsibility, Reflections on the 1996 Elections.” He assumes that Catholics have a laundry list of issues that are all equally important. This is simply not true, as can clearly be seen from Pope John Paul II’s recent encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” in which the pope forcefully restates the Second Vatican Council’s definition of abortion, together with infanticide, as an “unspeakable crime .J.J. a most serious wound inflicted on society and its culture by the very people who ought to be society’s promoters and defenders.” Add those words to the fact that the Catholic Church imposes its most serious sanction, automatic excommunication, on all who are responsible for an abortion, and it becomes very clear that the church definitely considers abortion one of the most grievous evils facing us today.

No political party lines up 100% with the Catholic Church’s teachings. It is up to us, as thinking Catholics, to decide (along with the guidance of our church) which issues are the most important when we go to the polls. President Clinton’s unbelievable veto of the ban on gruesome partial-birth abortions makes it very easy for this Catholic to decide which party deserves my support.

ANN GRIVICH

West Covina