[Apologetics] Throwing away a vote?

[Stuart D. Gathman]

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 bbellamy at mindspring.com wrote:

> Funny, the candidate who is the closest to the Catholic Church's stance on
> abortion happens to be a fallen-away Catholic!  I don't know if I could vote
> for a fallen away Catholic in conscience, even if he remains in harmony with
> the Church's stand.  

Leaving the Church doesn't necessarily mean "falling away".  Many Catholics
are raised in local parishes that reduce the Catholic faith to
"go to Mass every Sunday and you'll get to heaven".  The next step 
on their journey to the true Catholic faith is often Protestantism,
if they run into a real Gospel preaching Protestant.  Later on, after
they discover that the real Catholic Church is nothing like what they 
grew up with, they come back.  The caricature of Catholics that
Protestants have in their heads did not arise in a vacuum.  When someone
like John Kerry is the one modeling the Catholic Faith in your life, 
a true Catholic becomes a Protestant.

-- 
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
    Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.