For Immediate Release

Contact: Rea Howarth 301-699-3443 X 128
May 17, 2004

Today the Quixote Center released a full-page signature ad in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, speaking out on issues many Catholics consider important for the common good.

“The war in Iraq, the treatment of war prisoners, the manipulation of our Congress and our fellow US citizens that got us into this horrible situation in Iraq, and diverted us from tracking down Bin Laden and Al Quaeda—these are incredibly important issues in this election year,” says Rea Howarth, codirector of the Quixote Center and coordinator of the Center’s Catholics Speak Out program.

The ad lists 15 social justice issues that Catholics think are important concerns during this year’s election campaign. They include the war in Iraq, the USA Patriot Act’s abrogation of civil rights, universal health care, massive poverty, and the environment. (See attached.) The ad lists nearly 1,300 signatures, including 36 Catholic organizations.

The publicity campaign aims to bring the voices of progressive Catholics into the election fray . Howarth and other Catholics— progressives and conservatives—disagree with single issue interest groups who argue that abortion trumps all other issues in this year’s political campaigns.

“Catholic bishops and and single issue groups who say that Catholics can support only politicians who are prolife on abortion, despite their positions on other issues, violate our right to freedom of thought and the primacy of conscience,” Howarth says. “They are politicizing Holy Communion. Now that is a scandal.”

In November 2003 the bishops issued their “Faithful Citizenship” guidelines for Catholic voters. It says: “ A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility to towards the common good.” Most of the issues listed in the guidelines are included the Roll Call ad.

“That means we Catholics and Catholic politicians should make our decisions in context of the times, and the situations that we confront as a nation. Insisting that abortion is the only issue we care about is fundamentally a distortion of Catholicism that imperils not only freedom of conscience, but separation of church and state,” says Howarth.

“Most Catholics who vote simply do not agree with those who advocate such an extreme point of view. It is bad citizenship and wrong for us to impose our religious beliefs on the entire US population,” she continued.

A Belden, Russonello, and Stewart survey commisisioned by Catholics for a Free Choice in October 2000 found that 66 percent of Catholic voters believe abortion should continue to be legal, and 70 percent didn’t believe that Catholics have a religious obligation to vote for a pro-life candidate.

The nonprofit Quixote Center, a peace and justice organization, was founded in 1976 whose mission is to work for structural change in the Roman Catholic Church and in society. Catholics Speak Out was established in 1987, to give ordinary Catholics a way to express their views as adults in the church. The Quixote Center is located in Brentwood, MD.