Africa Dispatch
IF IT AIN'T ONE THING, IT'S ANOTHER
The previous 2 weeks saw us bouncing between outages. For a good portion of the first of those two weeks we had no electricity; summertime has arrived, and that means heavy rain and lightning. The rain is very welcome, and lightning also puts nitrogen into a form that plants can use, but it also knocks out the electricity. Still, water is more important than electricity. Because this is the summer, it starts getting light around 4:15AM (no daylight savings time here) and one does not need the candles too much in the morning. After a couple days the electric company restored, power, and we had both utilities for a spell. But then the guys made another attempt at patching leaks in the filtration tanks, and the water went out. They finished their work, opened the floodgates again, and we had both water and power. Another thunderstorm struck, and the power was knocked out (this time on a Tuesday). The power was out until Friday afternoon-which would not have been so bad, except that the water guys made a THIRD attempt to fix some cracks in the filtration tank, which meant the water went out on Thursday. We went one more 24-hour period without either utility. This was a real challenge--we purify our water by boiling. When the water is out we have to use dirtier water and it is unnerving watching the stocks of boiled water run out and not having an easy way to replenish them. To make things more interesting, our candle stocks were low and our propane gas tank started sputtering like it was about to run out. By Friday afternoon both electricity and power were back, and they've both been back since then. The final episode with both utilities lasted only one day, but it seemed like a long time. Maybe it's some psychological dynamic, where frequent and unpredictable deprivation of basic services causes some sort of "time dilation" of the experience. Once again, it makes me appreciate those two fundamental services. It makes me wonder, looking back, how the neighborhoods in which I lived growing up, with all those houses and all those people using water, were so steadily supplied. Where did all the water come from? How did they make it so that, at around 6AM when everyone was taking long showers, the water pressure in all the houses stayed the same? And how was it that even when I saw the flash of lightning outside and heard the crash of thunder just seconds later, the power in the house went out but a moment and then returned?

NIGHT RANGERS
The second time the water went out, I resolved to follow the water pipe as far as I needed to in order to find the problem. I was glad to have Grace or Cub come with me for the company and for their exercise. Neither of them wanted to go, but Kit (3 years old) did-very much. The thing is, my left knee has made it almost impossible to carry heavy loads very far. Kit can walk, but not very fast. If Kit came with me, I'd have to carry her, and that (for the above reason) was out. I broke it to her as gently as I could (she had already run off to get her sneakers) and she took it as well as she could; she seemed to understand, but she did start to cry. I looked to Ruth for some support, but she just shrugged her shoulders and gave me a grim smile; we both knew there was no way around it.

Or was there?

The girls, and all the other kids in the compound, absolutely love wheelbarrow rides. It is a real challenge, when moving dirt, to keep them from climbing in. I don't like giving wheelbarrow rides, because I end up trying to push about 200 pounds of kids up the little hills around the houses! Today, though, a wheelbarrow ride sounded like a good idea. I whispered the idea into Ruth's ear, and she said "Sounds like a great idea; Kit would love it". After I announced she and I would go check the water system with her riding in the wheelbarrow, Cubby said she wanted to go too. Ah, now it's a different story! Nope, just Kit-for being so eager, she gets the longest, sweetest wheelbarrow ride on record.

Off we went, going about as fast as I would by myself. I pushed her as often as I could, but she got out and walked on the really steep parts and on the part in a little forest where sticks on the ground made moving a laden wheelbarrow very difficult.

All along the pipe, we found no water. We got to one bp tank (I have no idea what bp stands for, but that's what they're called) where we get water, and found none. We went uphill to the next bp tank and found none. I scoped out the next bp tank, but between the steep path and the falling sun, I know we'd reached the end of the wheelbarrow's effectiveness. If we wanted to check that bp tank and the rest of the line, it would have to be on foot, and it would have to be fast. "Ah", I rationalized to myself, "it's a short trip and Kit's pretty light". We stashed the wheelbarrow behind a big boulder and I put Kit on my shoulders. No water at the next bp tank. I scoped out the big tanks just down and up one more set of hills. We were so close, and I really wanted to know all I could. Somehow, just knowing why the water isn't flowing is a comfort, even if you can't fix it. But the sun had set, and time was definitely against us. If we went on to the tanks, we'd be coming back after the sun was quite down. Providentally, however, it was a full moon; we'd have moonlight. We pressed on.

Turned out that the water resource guys had closed the pipe again in order to patch holes in the filtration tank (as explained above). I called Ruth and I called S. Mamba to tell them the situation, then Kit and I headed back. I must admit, I felt like a little kid again, outside playing after dark. Kit and I had a great time, wheeling on through the silvery moonlight along foot and cattle paths and dirt roads, as she explained scenes from one of the "Lord of the Rings" movies we've allowed them to watch VERY BRIEF portions of. My big concern coming back was homestead dogs coming out to try to rip our legs off; dogs here are not terribly friendly, as they are trained as guard dogs. We had only one near incident when a dog barked at us as we passed a homestead. But he sounded like an older dog, and he never (judging by the sound of his bark) made any advance from where he was. We got home about 7PM, sweaty (with no hope of a bath) and in the dark (with no knowledge of when the lights would come back on), but enriched for the experience. The next day, both those utilities were restored. MAN was it nice to sleep clean the next night!

THINK LIKE A BUG
My dad worked for Westinghouse Electric for most of his working life, first as a salesman and later as a sales manager. One product in Westinghouse's electrical equipment line was watt-hour meters. The meters had to keep insects out, yet also allow some airflow for the "health" of the meters. How to keep the bugs out but let the air in? "Think like a bug" became a sales slogan for the type of filter Westinghouse made. One must look at the meter the way an insect would in trying to gain entry. Seeing things from a "bug's eye view" would increase one's ability to block such entry.

This slogan came to mind last week (or was it the week before? Time really flies in Africa) as I worked on the fence. Some young people had lifted the fence and crawled underneath. Obviously, that bit of fence had to be mended, and it was. But the question is, where would they try to gain entry next? Think like a bug-they would simply move down the fence and lift another portion. So I nailed the whole 12 yards of fence down. My suspicion, using the "Bug's Life" paradigm, was "They'll work on the part of fence facing the school garden next". Sure enough, they did. So I tacked that down, and have poles for tacking down the other 10 yards of fence on that side. Think like a bug.

ESCALATION
Some of you remember the Kevin Costner/Sean Connery movie "The Untouchables" from the 1980s. I never saw the movie, but for some reason a clip from the trailer sticks with me. Connery's character spoke to Costner's, saying "Capone puts one of your boys in the hospital, you put one of his boys in the morgue. See THAT'S the way you fight Al Capone". After spending 6 hours putting down poles to keep young people from going under the fence, they have decided to climb over using a post in a distant corner. Our response? Let's speak in Connery's dialect: "He lifts the fence and craws under, you lash 6 foot long, 50 pound poles to the fence posts and nail the bottom of the fence to the poles. He rips holes in your bird nets to snatch your peaches, you lace barbed wire around the fence post he uses to climb over the fence; then you paint that post with used diesel engine motor oil and dump cow manure, rotten papaya skins, and worm-infested peaches on the ground outside the fence where he has to stand in order to get up. See THAT'S how you block peach thieves". Those are, in fact, the steps we have taken. Yet just this morning Ruth saw that someone had gone over the corner again. Next step? Long term, blackberry bushes outside the fence: they can eat all they want, but blackberry stems are notoriously prickly. Short term, I've toyed with the idea of construction cleats (I'm not sure that's the name); these are things carpenters use to connect lumber together in making roof trusses. They are rectangular pieces of iron, and on one side the metal has been pushed through the other side in triangles to form numerous exquisitely sharp points. These could be placed in particularly inconvenient places, namely potential footholds and handholds. My intent is to discourage; that is, I want this young person (I suspect a boy; girls have enough sense to know when the possible loss and injury outweigh the possible rewards, while guys will keep going just for the challenge) to eventually look at the task before him and say "There's got to be an easier way to get something to eat". After Ruth's discovery, another student came to me with the name of the primary thief; the name has been passed on to the deputy headmaster (vice-principal) and she will, beginning Monday, call him and a bunch of other students out from assembly for a talking-to. By mixing in the peach thief in with the other kids, he will not be sure if she knows who he is, and the others will not be sure who the thief is. We have entered the psychological operations (psy-ops) phase of the contest. Overall, though, the loss of peaches is less than it has been in previous years; between greater harvests and putting the perpetrators off-balance, I think we are making progress. I do, however, have a grudging respect for our opponent; in the words of another screen favorite of mine (Bugs Bunny), "Guy's got lots of stamina".

"THIS IS WHY WE FINALLY LEFT MOZAMBIQUE"
K.C. Dlamini, longtime teacher at Nsukumbili, has made his way into this newsletter more often lately. This week the form 5 (senior) biology students took their practical test. It involved drawing and a small amount of dissecting a fish and a prawn. I had forgotten how "fishy" fish smell, especially when they have sat at room temperature for 18 hours in order to be easily manipulated by aspiring scientist/students. The prawns were purchased frozen in Manzini, and conversations among teachers during the setup made some connection with Mozambican restaurant there. Mozambique, with its Indian Ocean beachfront property and Portuguese colonial history, is known in part for its seafood. History/legend has it that one group of Swazis emigrated from what is now Mozambique and settled in present-day Swaziland. The smell of far-beyond-ripe fish confirmed to K.C., who had to set up and take down the equipment for two batches of students taking the test, the great wisdom of the Swazi relocation.

PRO-BIKE RIDER, FOR HALF A WEEK
One night when the power was off, we wanted some high-quality (read electric, not candle) light. We have two cell phones, and one of them has an led flashlight in it (I think that's pretty clever; you have probably had such a cell phone for 10 years, and think no more of it than you do of wireless internet-which still impresses me. Remember, we are Nsukumhillbillies). I got the cell phone, turned it on, and used the light; but it also had a message on it. It was from one of the 65km bike race organizers, explaning that I had a trophy and prize money to claim from the race. I sent a message back explaining that, as far as I knew, I was dead last in that race. She said that I came in 3rd in my age bracket. "Must have only been 3 of us" I told Ruth, but sent another message saying I'd pick it up on Saturday.

I got the trophy and money on Saturday; the prize money was E200! This race was turning out to be a money-maker, as the entry fee was E180. Also, I could claim "professional" status, as I had won some money in the exercise.

As I walked away, though, I saw that the trophy and money envelope said "Senior class, 19-29 years old". I'm 42 years old, and was in the "veteran" class. So, honesty compelled me to return the money and the trophy. It turned out that I was 5th place in the veteran class (must have been 5 of us). It was fun while it lasted.

SEMI-MENTOR
We have a new math/science teacher, a Mr. Nkambule. We now have two Nkambule's in the math/science department, one who was a student and finished school here in 2004 and our most recent arrival. We both teach the form 1 science classes, as well as the form 4 physics/chemistry class. As such, we have to work together on writing tests for the students to take and combining grades for the physics/chemistry class. I find that, without intending to, I am doing some amount of mentoring with him. He is just out of college; this is his first teaching job, and everything is new. I find that I am giving him ideas on what to do with the students now that we have finished all the material in the syllabus, and I am thinking about coaching him on how to write a test. It feels strange to pass from the receiving end of professional mentoring to the giving end, but it does feel good to give him tips and materials that will (hopefully) make doing his job easier and more effective. Most full-circle about the experience is that a colleague found worksheets that I had made when I was at the school the first time, duplicated from a stencil cut by a non-electric typewriter and run off with a hand-crank duplicating machine. That was almost 20 years ago. My, how technology has changed. Many of the worksheets were in envelopes in which the Peace Corps sent us our weekly copy of Newsweek International edition.

THOKO'S NEW JOB
We saw Thokozane Khumalo recently. He has a new job. He is going to be a farm manager for a researcher at UNISWA (University of Swaziland). They are going to be growing moringa for seeds to create an in-country seed source. This looks like it could be a very good job. He will be able to stay at home and drive a University vehicle to work instead of being separated from his family for days at a time. He will be supervising other staff and the pay sounds like it will be good. The paperwork and planning end will be a challenge for him, but he has a lot of the skills that will be really important to make things happen. We are very happy for him.

HAPPY'S GARDEN
Happy Gama was Rudy's student when he was a Peace Corps Volunteer. She is living in our community. She is a lady who makes things happen. She had a small vegetable garden. The local World Vision folks saw it (she runs the pre-school they support in this area) and decided to give her a drip irrigation system for the garden. She was so encouraged that she doubled the size of her garden--quite a feat for she had to build with local materials a fence to keep out cows, goats, and figure out a chicken control system. She does encourage Ruth with her initiative. Ruth was reading a book from her own mother about wise giving. There is a phrase in there that is so true "Money does not create initiative." We were really pleased to see World Vision reward the initiative that she had already taken and make it possible for her to do more. So many people just say "I don't have a fence". And fencing IS important, but it was nice to see Happy just figure out how to make a good one.

NSUKUMHILLBILLY
You buy a chicken from a local lady. She kills and plucks it, and cuts it open. Your wife and children gather for the gutting, so as to teach your girls about chicken anatomy.
Hands-on science Hillbilly

You ask the teacher in charge of the biology practical, "Can I take the discarded fish and prawns home?" He says yes and you do, planning to have a fish and prawn dinner. The wife and children eagerly gather for ANOTHER dissection activity. Reflection upon the fact that they've been out of the freezer for almost 24 hours dissuades you from eating them, though; instead, you will bury them next to your avocado trees so that they will provide "fish-based fertilizer" for the plant.
Waste-not want-not Hillbilly

TUESDAY
Below is the transcript of a speech given by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput in Denver in 2008. Though his comments are 2 years old, they are still relevant. I hope you will read them and keep them in mind as you go to the polls this coming Tuesday.

Have a good day,
Rudy for the gang

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.ph
p?selectedarticle=2008.10.18_Chaput_Charles
%20J._Little%20Murders_.xml
Little Murders
by Charles J. Chaput
October 18, 2008
In an address delivered on October 17, Archbishop
Charles J. Chaput stated that ''Prof. Douglas Kmiec
has a strong record of service to the Church and
the nation in his past. But I think his activism for
Senator Barack Obama, and the work of
Democratic-friendly groups like Catholics United
and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good,
have done a disservice to the Church, confused the
natural priorities of Catholic social teaching,
undermined the progress pro-lifers have made, and
provided an excuse for some Catholics to abandon
the abortion issue instead of fighting within their
parties and at the ballot box to protect the unborn.''
The following is condensed and adapted from an
address Charles J. Chaput delivered at an ENDOW
(''Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women'')
dinner, October 17.
Before I begin, I need to say what a friend of mine
calls my ''Litany to the IRS.'' Here it is. I'm not
here to tell you how to vote. I don't want to do that,
I won't do that, and I don't use code language - so
you don't need to spend any time looking for secret
political endorsements.
I plan to speak candidly, but I can only do that if
you remember that I'm here as an author and
private citizen. I'm not speaking for the Holy See,
or the American bishops, or any other bishop, or
even officially for the Archdiocese of Denver. So
the things I say are my personal views, nothing
more. I think they're pretty solidly grounded in
Catholic teaching and the heart of the Church, but
it's your task as Catholics and citizens to listen,
evaluate and then act as you judge best.
As adults, each of us needs to form a strong
Catholic conscience. Then we need to follow that
conscience when we vote. And then we need to
take responsibility for the consequences of the vote
we cast. Nobody can do that for us. That's why
really knowing and living our Catholic faith is so
important. It's the only reliable guide we have for
acting in the public square as disciples of Jesus
Christ.
Render Unto Caesar
So let's talk for a few minutes about my recent
book Render Unto Caesar. When people ask me
about the book, the questions usually fall into three
categories. Why did I write it? What does the book
say? And what does the book mean for each of us
as individual Catholics?
Why did I write this book, now? One answer is
simple. A friend asked me to do it. Back in 2004, a
young attorney I know ran for public office as a
prolife Democrat. He nearly won in a heavily
Republican district. But he also discovered how
hard it can be to raise money, run a campaign and
stay true to your Catholic convictions, all at the
same time. After the election he asked me to put
my thoughts about faith and politics into a form
that other young Catholics could use who were
thinking about a political vocation - and it really is
a ''vocation.''
That's where the idea started. But I also had
another reason for doing the book. Frankly, I just
got tired of hearing outsiders and insiders tell
Catholics to keep quiet about our religious and
moral views in the big public debates that involve
all of us as a society. That's a kind of bullying, and
I don't think Catholics should accept it.
Another reason for writing the book is that when I
looked around for a single source that explains the
Catholic political vocation in an easy, authentic
and engaging way, it just didn't exist. So I thought
I might as well try to write it, because a friend told
me it would ''practically write itself.''
So what does the book say? I think the message of
Render Unto Caesar can be condensed into a few
basic points.
Here's the first point. For many years, studies have
shown that Americans have a very poor sense of
history, and that's very dangerous, because as
Thucydides and Machiavelli and Thomas Jefferson
have all said, history matters. It matters because
the past shapes the present, and the present shapes
the future. If American Catholics don't know
history, and especially their own history as
Catholics, then somebody else - and usually
somebody not very friendly - will create their
history for them.
Here's the second point. America is not a secular
state. As historian Paul Johnson once said,
America was ''born Protestant.'' It has uniquely and
deeply religious roots. Obviously it has no
established Church, and it has non-sectarian public
institutions. It also has plenty of room for both
believers and non-believers. But the United States
was never intended to be a ''secular'' country in the
radical modern sense. Nearly all the Founders
were either Christian or at least religion-friendly.
And all of our public institutions and all of our
ideas about the human person are based in a
religiously shaped vocabulary. So if we cut God
out of our public life, we cut the foundation out
from under our national ideals.
Here's the third point. We need to be very forceful
in defending what the words in our political
vocabulary really mean. Words are important
because they shape our thinking, and our thinking
drives our actions. When we subvert the meaning
of words like ''the common good'' or ''conscience''
or ''community'' or ''family,'' we undermine the
language that sustains our thinking about the law.
Dishonest language leads to dishonest debate and
bad laws.
Here's an example. We need to remember that
tolerance is not a Christian virtue, and it's never an
end in itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a
society is itself a form of evil. Likewise,
democratic pluralism does not mean that Catholics
should be quiet in public about serious moral
issues because of some misguided sense of good
manners. A healthy democracy requires vigorous
moral debate to survive. Real pluralism demands
that people of strong beliefs will advance their
convictions in the public square - peacefully,
legally and respectfully, but energetically and
without embarrassment. Anything less is bad
citizenship and a form of theft from the public
conversation.
Here's the fourth point. When Jesus tells the
Pharisees and Herodians in the Gospel of Matthew
(22:21) to ''render unto the Caesar the things that
are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's,''
he sets the framework for how we should think
about religion and the state even today. Caesar
does have rights. We owe civil authority our
respect and appropriate obedience. But that
obedience is limited by what belongs to God.
Caesar is not God. Only God is God, and the state
is subordinate and accountable to God for its
treatment of human persons, all of whom were
created by God. Our job as believers is to figure
out what things belong to Caesar, and what things
belong to God - and then to put those things in
right order in our own lives, and in our relations
with others.
So having said all this, what does the book mean,
in practice, for each of us as individual Catholics?
It means that we each have a duty to study and
grow in our faith, guided by the teaching of the
Church. It also means that we have a duty to be
politically engaged. Why? Because politics is the
exercise of power, and the use of power always has
moral content and human consequences.
As Christians, we can't claim to love God and then
ignore the needs of our neighbors. Loving God is
like loving a spouse. A husband may tell his wife
that he loves her, and of course that's very
beautiful. But she'll still want to see the evidence
in his actions. Likewise if we claim to be
''Catholic,'' we need to prove it by our behavior.
And serving other people by working for justice
and charity in our nation's political life is one of
the very important ways we do that.
The ''separation of Church and state'' does not
mean - and it can never mean - separating our
Catholic faith from our public witness, our
political choices and our political actions. That
kind of separation would require Christians to
deny who we are; to repudiate Jesus when he
commands us to be ''leaven in the world'' and to
''make disciples of all nations.'' That kind of
separation steals the moral content of a society. It's
the equivalent of telling a married man that he
can't act married in public. Of course, he can
certainly do that, but he won't stay married for
long.
Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big
Question about Barack Obama
I began work on Render Unto Caesar in July 2006.
I made the final changes to the text in November
2007. That's a long time before anyone was
nominated for president, and it was Doubleday, not
I, that set the book's release date for August 2008.
So - unlike Prof. Douglas Kmiec's recent book,
Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big
Question about Barack Obama, which argues a
Catholic case for Senator Obama - I wrote Render
Unto Caesar with no interest in supporting or
attacking any candidate or any political party.
The goal of Render Unto Caesar was simply to
describe what an authentic Catholic approach to
political life looks like, and then to encourage
Americans Catholics to live it.
Prof. Kmiec has a strong record of service to the
Church and the nation in his past. He served in the
Reagan administration, and he supported Mitt
Romney's campaign for president before switching
in a very public way to Barack Obama earlier this
year. In his own book he quotes from Render Unto
Caesar at some length. In fact, he suggests that his
reasoning and mine are ''not far distant on the
moral inquiry necessary in the election of 2008.''
Unfortunately, he either misunderstands or misuses
my words, and he couldn't be more mistaken.
I believe that Senator Obama, whatever his other
talents, is the most committed ''abortion-rights''
presidential candidate of either major party since
the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973. Despite
what Prof. Kmiec suggests, the party platform
Senator Obama runs on this year is not only
aggressively ''pro-choice;'' it has also removed any
suggestion that killing an unborn child might be a
regrettable thing. On the question of homicide
against the unborn child - and let's remember that
the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
explicitly called abortion ''murder'' - the
Democratic platform that emerged from Denver in
August 2008 is clearly anti-life.
Prof. Kmiec argues that there are defensible
motives to support Senator Obama. Speaking for
myself, I do not know any proportionate reason
that could outweigh more than 40 million unborn
children killed by abortion and the many millions
of women deeply wounded by the loss and regret
abortion creates.
To suggest - as some Catholics do - that Senator
Obama is this year's ''real'' prolife candidate
requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral
confusion, or worse. To portray the 2008
Democratic Party presidential ticket as the
preferred ''prolife'' option is to subvert what the
word ''prolife'' means. Anyone interested in
Senator Obama's record on abortion and related
issues should simply read Prof. Robert P. George's
Public Discourse essay from earlier this week,
''Obama's Abortion Extremism,'' and his follow-up
article, ''Obama and Infanticide.'' They say
everything that needs to be said.
Of course, these are simply my personal views as
an author and private citizen. But I'm grateful to
Prof. Kmiec for quoting me in his book and giving
me the reason to speak so clearly about our
differences. I think his activism for Senator
Obama, and the work of Democratic-friendly
groups like Catholics United and Catholics in
Alliance for the Common Good, have done a
disservice to the Church, confused the natural
priorities of Catholic social teaching, undermined
the progress prolifers have made, and provided an
excuse for some Catholics to abandon the abortion
issue instead of fighting within their parties and at
the ballot box to protect the unborn.
And here's the irony. None of the Catholic
arguments advanced in favor of Senator Obama
are new. They've been around, in one form or
another, for more than 25 years. All of them seek
to ''get beyond'' abortion, or economically reduce
the number of abortions, or create a better society
where abortion won't be necessary. All of them
involve a misuse of the seamless garment imagery
in Catholic social teaching. And all of them, in
practice, seek to contextualize, demote and then
counterbalance the evil of abortion with other
important but less foundational social issues.
This is a great sadness. As Chicago's Cardinal
Francis George said recently, too many Americans
have ''no recognition of the fact that children
continue to be killed [by abortion], and we live
therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This
can't be something you start playing off
pragmatically against other issues.''
Meanwhile, the basic human rights violation at the
heart of abortion - the intentional destruction of an
innocent, developing human life - is wordsmithed
away as a terrible crime that just can't be fixed by
the law. I don't believe that. I think that argument
is a fraud. And I don't think any serious believer
can accept that argument without damaging his or
her credibility. We still have more than a million
abortions a year, and we can't blame them all on
Republican social policies. After all, it was a
Democratic president, not a Republican, who
vetoed the partial birth abortion ban - twice.
The truth is that for some Catholics, the abortion
issue has never been a comfortable cause. It's
embarrassing. It's not the kind of social justice they
like to talk about. It interferes with their natural
political alliances. And because the homicides
involved in abortion are ''little murders'' - the kind
of private, legally protected murders that kill
conveniently unseen lives - it's easy to look the
other way.
The one genuinely new quality to Catholic
arguments for Senator Obama is their packaging.
Just as the abortion lobby fostered ''Catholics for a
Free Choice'' to challenge Catholic teaching on
abortion more than two decades ago, so supporters
of Senator Obama have done something similar in
seeking to neutralize the witness of bishops and
the pro-life movement by offering a ''Catholic''
alternative to the Church's priority on sanctity of
life issues. I think it's an intelligent strategy. I also
think it's wrong and often dishonest.
It's curious that nobody seems to worry about the
''separation of Church and state,'' or religious
interference in the public square, when the
religious voices that speak up support a certain
kind of candidate. In his book, Prof. Kmiec
complains about the agenda and influence of what
he terms RFPs - Republican Faith Partisans. But he
also seems to pay them the highest kind of
compliment: imitation. If RFPs are bad, is it
unreasonable to assume that DFPs - Democratic
Faith Partisans - are equally dangerous?
As I suggest throughout Render Unto Caesar, it's
important for Catholics to be people of faith who
pursue politics to achieve justice; not people of
politics who use and misuse faith to achieve
power. I have no doubt that Prof. Kmiec belongs to
the former group. But I believe his arguments
finally serve the latter.
For 35 years I've watched thousands of good
Catholic laypeople, clergy and religious struggle to
recover some form of legal protection for the
unborn child. The abortion lobby has fought every
compromise and every legal restriction on
abortion, every step of the way. Apparently they
believe in their convictions more than some of us
Catholics believe in ours. And I think that's an
indictment of an entire generation of American
Catholic leadership.
The abortion conflict has never simply been about
repealing Roe v. Wade. And the many pro-lifers I
know live a much deeper kind of discipleship than
''single issue'' politics. But they do understand that
the cornerstone of Catholic social teaching is
protecting human life from conception to natural
death. They do understand that every other human
right depends on the right to life. They did not and
do not and will not give up - and they won't be lied
to.
So I think that people who claim that the abortion
struggle is ''lost'' as a matter of law, or that
supporting an outspoken defender of legal abortion
is somehow ''prolife,'' are not just wrong; they're
betraying the witness of every person who
continues the work of defending the unborn child.
And I hope they know how to explain that,
because someday they'll be required to.
Before I conclude and we go to questions, let me
say just a couple of things about ENDOW. Betsy
Considine, Marilyn Coors, Terry Polakovic and the
other women who founded ENDOW are
extraordinary leaders. The success of ENDOW is a
testimony not just to their enthusiasm and hard
work, but to yours. ENDOW succeeds because its
message for women is true.
These are difficult times for our country. Even
within our Church, the economy, the Iraq War, the
life issues in general, and this election in
particular, have created a deep spirit of conflict and
anxiety. But I do believe Scripture when it tells us
not to be afraid. God uses each of us to renew the
world if we let him. The genius of women is their
capacity to love; to blend talent, intelligence and
energy with patience, understanding, respect for
the sacredness of life and compassion for others.
That's the kind of leadership we need, in our
communities of faith, in our public service and
throughout our country. Whatever happens next
month and in the years ahead, ENDOW will have a
hand in sustaining and refreshing the heart of the
Church. That's not a bad achievement for an
organization so young. I'm proud of your witness,
proud of what you've accomplished and very, very
grateful for your service to the Church. God bless
you.
Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., is the author of
Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living
our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (Doubleday,
2008). The views expressed here are his own, and
do not represent those of the Archdiocese of
Denver.