Catholic Advocacy Group Tells U.S. Voters “Five Issues Matter Most”

CARLSBAD, California, October 14, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Less than 25 days remain before Americans cast their votes in the general presidential election. A Catholic advocacy group, Catholic Outreach, is asking voters: “. . . do the majority of Americans, particularly Catholics, understand the real issues?”  The group highlights the issues that strike most Americans first: “. . . the violence in Iraq, tax cuts, aid to foreign nations, health care, terrorism. But are those the issues that matter most?” Catholic Outreach, self-described as an advocacy group of politically concerned Catholics, is offering a “concise, easy-to-read question-and-answer book examining the issues truly critical to winning the moral war being waged on American soil.”“Laws that contradict what God has revealed will make for bad laws and we Americans will pay a great price,” explained Tom Allen, co-founder of Catholic Outreach. “Our support for the five key moral issues is not so much a political statement as a clarion call that some issues are more important than others, and that politicians who get these issues wrong are not worthy of our vote. We need leaders who can tell the difference between what will sustain humanity and what will lead to disaster.”  The book, co-authored by five leading Catholic authors, including Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life and Fr. Tom Euteneuer of Human Life International, discusses the five key issues: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and same-sex marriage—“Five Issues implores Catholics to vote with a conscience formed by the natural law and the teachings of the Catholic Faith-not by television and pop culture.”  Mark Brumley, one of the book’s authors, says this is a particularly critical time in American history. “Much in American society, including its political culture, is under attack – the innocence of our children, the right to worship freely, respect for the family, and the right to life itself,” he says. “We Catholics must do more to counter the attack and to transform our society. We must start by uniting on the five issues that matter most.”“If Catholic voters, one of the largest voting demographics in the US, fail to vote according to the truths of the natural law and unbroken Christian tradition, the nation as a whole will lose the core values on which it was founded – freedom, decency and reverence for human life,” explained Matthew Pinto, a co-founder of Catholic Outreach and co-author of the book.  The book, The Five Issues That Matter Most: Catholics and the Upcoming Election, can be purchased on-line at: https://www.catholicexchange.com/1/co/catholicoutreach_10072004.html   tv