To the Editor:
Perhaps some readers remember the T.V. show where four people would all pretend to be the same person. Contestants would ask them questions and try to guess which individual was that authentic person. At the end, the host of the show would say, “Will the real Mr./Ms. XXXX please stand up.”
In the divisive climate in which we live, l feel like saying, “Will the real Catholic please stand up?”
Has anyone running for president read Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical “Caritas in veritate” yet? Probably not, it’s too recent. Perhaps they missed John Paul II’s call for a “preference for the poor” by keeping a social safety net in place to protect against poverty, homelessness, hunger and lack of health care.
Yes, and when Benedict XVI decried “lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers,” his heavy German accent caused some in politics to misunderstand him.
Will the real Catholics please stand up! We are more than a Church against; we are a Church for the rights of every human being to live in dignity as children of God. Our schools, hospitals, homeless shelters and soup kitchens also define who we are and what we stand for. We see the suffering of Christ in our homeless, hungry children and we believe that as a country we should work to put poverty on the decrease not the increase.
Deacon Art Donart
Thomson, Ill.
