GOOD LUCK GETTING THEM TO COMPLY. This is the Republican primary we’re talking about:
Catholic leaders issued a letter Friday to GOP presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, themselves Catholics, urging them “to stop perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes on the campaign trail.”
The letter, signed by 45 Catholic leaders says:
Mr. Gingrich has frequently attacked President Obama as a “food stamp president” and claimed that African Americans are content to collect welfare benefits rather than pursue employment. Campaigning in Iowa, Mr. Santorum remarked: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”
“At a time when nearly 1 in 6 Americans live in poverty, charities and the free market alone can’t address the urgent needs of our most vulnerable neighbors. And while jobseekers outnumber job openings 4-to-1, suggesting that the unemployed would rather collect benefits than work is misleading and insulting,” the letter adds.
See, the problem with their request, as Gingrich and Santorum likely see it, is that they’re at the point where they’re having to pander to the nasty Republican base, the base that absolutely lost it when Juan Williams dared to even bring up the subject of racism during the Fox News Republican debate on Martin Luther King Day, and during the same debate, booed Mitt Romney for having family born in Mexico. Racism isn’t icing on the cake for these people — it’s central to their governing platform.
Also, lest we forget, they’re running against the re-election of a black, Democratic president.
Glad those Catholic leaders are at least trying to say something, but I think it’s falling on deaf ears.
As if they have any authority to lecture on poverty when they’re the ones closing their charities every time they’re told they can’t discriminate against us.
Rainbow Phoenix – Good point, if the “Catholic Leaders” mentioned here are the Hierarchy only. However, there are many lay, religious, and parish leaders that are not part of the Hierarchy and who are probably more likely to write such a letter than any of the over-privileged bishops and cardinals. Do we know who the “leaders” are who wrote this?
When will they do the right thing and ask the anti-gay activist candidates to stop the anti-gay pandering and reviling on the campaign trial? I’m not holding my breath.
What difference does it make if they’re not part of the heierarchy? They’ve still submitted to the heirerarchy’s authority and it’s still hypocritical for them to do anything like this.
“At a time when nearly 1 in 6 Americans live in poverty, charities and the free market alone can’t address the urgent needs of our most vulnerable neighbors. ”
This is pretty hypocritical. Maybe its time the Catholics spent less on the political process and the dehumanizing of gays and redirected their efforts and monies where they admit they are needed.