OTTAWA, June 9, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Liberals are leaving Catholic concerns out in the cold, according to The B.C. Catholic, the diocesan newspaper of the diocese of Vancouver. Editor Paul Schratz decries the recent electioneering by the Liberals, and cites a few examples, one being Prime Minister Paul Martin’s promise to increase the number of children in subsidized daycare by 300,000. Questioning the wisdom of a Liberal plan to spend $5 billion of taxpayers’ money to fund the subsidized government program, Schratz says,.“There was nary a word about the implications of a fiscal and tax policy that all but forces families to send two wage-earners into the job market while embarking on the holy quest for daycare for their children.”
Schratz explains that according to the writings of Pope John Paul II, mothers should not be forced to work outside the home. “The Pope acknowledges the pressures that practically force mothers to return to the world of employment, but he makes clear such situations are not the ideal.” In the Pope’s encyclical Laborem Exercens (On Human Work), Schratz says, “[Pope John Paul II] writes that for mothers to be forced to abandon the care and education of their children ‘in order to take up paid work outside the home is wrong from the point of view of the good of society and of the family when it contradicts or hinders these primary goals of the mission of the mother.’” The B.C. catholic editor quotes Pope John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World) as saying, “the mentality which honours women more for their work outside the home than for their work within the family must be overcome.” Finally, Schratz entreats voters, especially women, to use their votes to show how they feel. He argues, “When huge numbers of working mothers tell pollsters they’d prefer to be at home with their children, and the political parties’ response is to fund more daycare, using tax dollars that, ironically, compel more mothers to work outside the home, it contributes to a vicious circle.”“Catholic voters must assume responsibility for getting these ideas into political circulation . . .” Read Paul Schratz’s opinion article at The B.C. Catholic on-line: https://bcc.rcav.org/04-06-07/editorial.htm