This is a personal footnote to FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY WERE IN KANSAS THIS WEEK, an article I published here last Saturday.
I was born and raised a Catholic when Vatican II came of age. The Church grew then. It added more than numbers, although it certainly did that. The Church also added inclusivity, the quality of reaching out to include one's neighbors. Faith, Hope, and Charity. The last virtue is often called "Love." That is what Vatican II is responsible for, what it inspired people seeking God to do as well as to say.
I went to Notre Dame when the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh was the President of the University. We called him "Ted the Head." Father Hesburgh was also the Chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, until he resigned to protest the activities of President Richard Nixon.
During my time as a student at Notre Dame, there were was a lot of discussion about Faith as you might expect. Notre Dame students, faculty, and administration not only talked about their Faith, they tried to live it. That gave everyone Hope.
There were many campaigns for Charity, running from raising funds for Biafra (a breakaway republic in Africa that no longer exists) to raising funds for the Tom Dooley Foundation (which delivered medicine and provided doctors in Southeast Asia, until the foundation was eliminated by those who took power later).
In my first article with FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY in the title, I mentioned the activities of the so-called Catholic Church in Kansas City. They campaigned this Summer to make everyone believe what they believe, which is not at all the kind of campaign that real Catholics ever waged. To begin with, the Kansas City campaign was not a campaign for Charity. What's more, it was not "universal" and so by definition it was not "Catholic," which means "universal."
But let's focus just on the money. Following the money means following at least $2,450,000.00 or $2.45 Million Dollars. That is the amount that the Archdiocese of Kansas City spent on a political campaign to pass an amendment to the Kansas State Constitution so as to permit the Kansas State Legislature to ban abortion for anyone and everyone in Kansas.
That $2,450,000.00 did not come from God. It was donated by thousands of parishioners in the pews. It was not the Archdiocese's money to spend on a political campaign. Especially a campaign that turned God into Big Brother.
The contribution of $2.45 Million would have gone a long way to support adoption services. That alone would be a huge encouragement to mothers to decide to bring babies to term instead of having an abortion. But of course, then there would have been no guarantee that women would be absolutely prohibited from making their own decisions.
The millions of dollars spent by the Archdiocese of Kansas City on a political campaign could have been spent to support healthcare of mothers and babies and small children in Kansas City and anywhere in Kansas for that matter. The millions should have been spent for those purposes, or perhaps even to buy diapers and formula, and in a different age, Catholics' money would have been spent on Charity.
Where your money is, there will your heart be also, the Bible says. And speaking once more of all that money taken from the faithful Catholics of the Kansas City Archdiocese, it should be paid back. That would be the Christian thing to do.
Let us Hope for Charity as our Faith would have us do.
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