BISHOP TROUBLE? It looks like Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) will be the first Roman Catholic presidential nominee of a major party since John F. Kennedy in 1960. But unlike Kennedy, Kerry specifically rejects his Church's teachings on major moral issues-perhaps most grievously on abortion. He could run into trouble if some Catholic bishops enforce church discipline. Sean O'Malley, the new archbishop of Boston, has reportedly told pro-abortion Catholic elected officials in private that they should not receive Communion. Last year, he said in a public statement that such officials should not receive the sacrament. Raymond Burke, the new archbishop of St. Louis in the key swing state of Missouri, said of Kerry, "I would have to admonish him not to present himself for Communion. I might give him a blessing or something. If his archbishop has told him he should not present himself for Communion, he shouldn't. I agree with Archbishop O'Malley." Patricia Rice of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that a Kerry spokeswoman said, "The archbishop has the right to deny Communion to whoever he wants, but Sen. Kerry respectfully disagrees with him on the issue of choice."
REMEMBER REAGAN: The Leadership Institute's Campus Leadership Program sponsored a celebration of former President Reagan's 93rd birthday on February 6. "Professors and administrators often ignore President Reagan's accomplishments," said Parker Hamilton, director of the Campus Leadership Program. "It's up to conservative students to carry on the Reagan Revolution." The institute had its 212 campus groups sign birthday cards for delivery to the ailing Reagan.
MCCAIN ON BUSH: War hero and former Vietnam POW Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) raised some points after Sen. Kerry and DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe criticized President Bush's National Guard service during the Vietnam War. "I believe that service in the National Guard is honorable service," said McCain on the Imus radio show February 3. "There are thousands and thousands of National Guardsmen and women who are in Iraq as we speak, and so to somehow denigrate service in the National Guard is totally inappropriate, and I think there would be a backlash to it if they pursued that." Imus noted that some charge that Bush did not perform all the service that he was required to do, but McCain said, "That charge was never proven, and again, it was brought up in the primary that President Bush and I were in. I never pursued it....But everything I know is that President Bush served honorably in the National Guard, and if you're going to make an allegation that somebody didn't, you better have some pretty good proof besides just throwing it out there. You see my point?"
NRTL ENDORSES BUSH: Not waiting for the end of the Democratic presidential race, the National Right to Life PAC announced its endorsement of President Bush for re-election on February 2. Said Carol Tobias, political director of the National Right to Life Committee, "He has backed with actions his statement that unborn children should be 'welcomed in life and protected in law.'" Noted NRTL, "Since taking office, President Bush has, among other things, reinstated the Mexico City Policy [barring foreign aid to abortion promoters], blocked federal funding of research that kills human embryos, and signed both the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act....Of the Democrats seeking the nomination, all are pro-abortion. A review of their records and statements shows that there is practically no difference in their very extreme positions on abortion. Senators Kerry, Edwards, and Lieberman have solid pro-abortion voting records. All three voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. In his speech formally launching his presidential campaign, Kerry emphatically stated, 'As President, I will only appoint Supreme Court justices who will uphold a woman's right to choose.'"
PARENTS WANT ABSTINENCE: The mainstream media, Hollywood, and other leftist elites may not agree, but an astounding proportion of parents still think teenagers should be chaste. In a Zogby poll released by the Family Research Council on January 29, "out of the 1,004 parents surveyed across the nation, 96% said abstinence is best for teens. Ninety-one per cent said that the best choice is for sexual activity to be linked to love, intimacy, and commitment-the qualities that are most likely to occur in a faithful marriage," reported FRC. Three million teenagers a year contract a sexually transmitted disease.
