Catholics across America are standing up to policies and practices of a second Bush Administration that profoundly violate Catholic ethics

"Now more than ever, we must stand up for our enduring principles and values. We can't lie low while the Republican Party tries to pass itself off as the party of 'moral values,' at the very time when it shortchanges America's children, neglects the nation's needy, and leaves America with trillions of dollars in debt for future generations to pay off. We must not give the time of day to a party that mobilizes the hateful reactionary forces of bigotry, greed, and fear and tries to win elections by fomenting irreconcilable divisions in our people." - Senator Edward M. Kennedy

* New CDC abortion statistics were released by the Bush Administration in the dark of night over the Thanksgiving holiday, as is their custom, safely after the mid-term elections. This secretiveness offers perhaps the best evidence that the Republicans are fearful of the public knowing how impotent their approach to abortion has been. New statistics released 11/22/06 showed a continued increase in teen abortions for year 3 of the Bush Administration, and essentially a continued flattening of the curve on total abortions across the US (the total in 2003 dropped by 8000, excluding California statistics, out of a total of 1.29 million). CDC statistics released over Thanksgiving 2005 for year 2 of the Bush Administration showed the first increased abortion rates in nearly 10 years, reversing the long decline under President Clinton. Even last spring's Guttmacher data validated this flattening out in the long abortion decline under the preceding Clinton Administration. Mr Bush has truly made himself "the Abortion President" by exploiting the tragedy of abortion to further polarize our society on this issue, and Catholics in particular, while featuring Catholic speakers at his 2004 Convention (Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Pataki, Rudolph Giuliani) whose abortion views were indistinguishable from Senator John Kerry's. Control of the White House, the Supreme Court, and until recently the Congress, but the Republicans have actually reversed the decline in abortion seen under the previous Democratic administration.
* Budget priorities that target the most vulnerable in society--Pope Benedict has issued a new encyclical focused almost exclusively on Jesus' call to reach out to those in need (Mt 25:40). Continued budget cuts in services to the poor for healthcare, education and food stamps.
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Exploitation of Christianity for political gain--Former assistant director of the White House's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, David Kuo, wrote a book last year detailing how the Bush Administration privately derides Conservative Christians while harnessing their political power to advance an economically-based agenda advancing tax cuts for the well-to-do and cutting environmental regulations for major polluters.
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"Preemptive War"—the most profane imaginable violation of Jesus’ injunction in the Sermon on the Mount to “Love your enemies,” now enshrined as official US policy in the 2006 National Security Strategy Assessment. More than 3000 US servicemen and women are dead and more than 21,000 injured as a result of all the falsehood proffered in the name of the pre-emptive war principle.
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Continued justification of the use of torture-The Administration worked surreptitiously to pass new legislation forgiving their previous use of torture in secret CIA prisons Mr. Bush finally acknowledged, by undermining the War Crimes Act of 1996. Click here for more details.
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Killing with no end in sight--With more than 3000 US troops dead, the British medical journal The Lancet published data Oct 12, 2006, from a research group at Johns Hopkins, indicating that 655,000 people have died as a result of President Bush's war in Iraq. Imagine the worst day of your life, with your children living in total fear, and having that day repeat itself over and over again. And the war is having the effect of forcing many Christians in Iraq to leave, in part because the Americans are identified with Christianity according to an Oct 17, 2006 story in the New York Times.
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Politicking in Catholic churches divides Catholics. The Bush Campaign's unprecedented exploitation of congregations for political purposes, by plumbing parish donor lists and paying Republican Catholic “organizers” to register voters after Mass in Catholic churches and thus pollute our spiritual space.
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Despoiling the environment—Genesis’ injunction to be “good stewards.” The word "environment" simply did not come up at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. Meanwhile a quiet revolution of regulations is turning back the clock fifty years on air, water, forest and soil quality in the U.S.
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Climbing poverty and lack of medical insurance, driven by Administration indifference to cuts in local services while pursuing tax policies vastly expanding the income gap—a direct affront to Pope John Paul II and the “preferential option for the poor.” Census data released Aug 30, 2005, showed that since Mr. Bush took office, family median income has fallen by $1669.00, child poverty has increased by 1.4 million to almost 13 million in the last 4-1/2 years, the total number of people in poverty up by 5.4 million, and 6 million more Americans have no health insurance. Now, legislators have passed massive bills in energy, sweat shop job creation in Central America, transportation, and immunity for the gun industry that further threaten the economic wellbeing of the worst off among us.
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Sabotaging the Assault Weapons Ban, after Mr. Bush claimed to support it, and handing broad legal immunity to the Gun Industry, with incumbent rewards to criminals, drug traffickers and international terrorists.

Very interesting. I have always thought that the Righties were in trouble playing with Christianity. They might accidentally run across real Christians.

I'm not sure what the definition of a "real" Xian is, but the concept is beyond frightening.

A little late isn't it? Have their heads been in the sand since 2003??

Many non-religious have been against this since the beginning. When do we receive credit?

Credit schmedit as long as we get Obama into the White House we should all be happy!