The following press release is a real press release. Presume that it was written yesterday. Answer these questions:
Then craft a brief news item (50-100 words). Remember to include a title and your statement of synthesis and follow the guidelines in the Training Index.
When complete, post your article here.
Catholics Favored Bush over Kerry – The Truth is told.
Recent polling by the University of Akron and sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, suggests that George W. Bush captured a majority of the Catholic vote while John Kerry, a Catholic himself failed to capture even 50% of people from his own faith. A one-time reliable Democratic voting bloc, Catholics gave Bush an overall edge of 53 percent to Kerry's 47 percent.
It is clear that the Bush victory was not just the result of white, regular church-going, conservative, born-again Protestants. Many attribute the shift in the Catholic vote to "moral values" – whether in general or related to abortion or gay marriage.
The Bush Campaign worked hard for the Catholic Vote this past election. They recruited the now disgraced Deal Hudson to head up Catholic Outreach and recruited 50,000 Team Leaders to help spread the lie that George W. Bush was somehow the "Catholic Candidate". In June of 2004, Bush visited the Pope, a meeting where the Holy Father scolded and condemned the Bush war in Iraq, but instead of humbly accepting the Popes teaching on unjust war, the Bush team cheaply used the meeting as a photo op to place a picture of Bush and the Pope on the Bush/Cheney Campaign Website, with a headline "Catholics for Bush". When the USCCB (United States Council of Catholic Bishops) requested a response to the Bishops "Faithful Citizenship" voting guide from the Bush Campaign, they simply did not respond. Instead as the USCCB guide did not bode well for the Bush agenda, they recruited fringe groups such as Catholic Answers, The Catholic League and non Catholics to craft their own voting guide, not in accordance to Catholic Teaching and proceeded to distribute it to Parishes nationwide, despite the guide being condemned by the USCCB. They used Pro Life groups to attack Kerry's position on Abortion by running TV and Radio ads, while all the time ignoring the 10 issues outlined by the Bishops in their call to Faithful Citizenship. They also recruited a few radical Bishops to speak out, which had a very negative impact on the teaching authority of the USCCB.
Now that the dust from the election has settled, we see the betrayal of these same Catholic Voters by the Bush Administration. Bush has made it clear that he will not peruse the Gay Marriage Amendment, a corner stone of his Campaigns argument to Catholic Voters, to vote for him. In the Jan/Feb Issue of "Celebrate Life" – "Post Election/Pro-Life Blues", Judie Brown, President of the Pro Life Group "American Life League" bemoans the Bush administrations lack of honesty in regards to promises made to Catholics during the election. In December Catholic Relief Services felt the brunt of Bush"s lies when his administration cut funding to Global Food Aid, thus prompting them to eliminate or suspend services to some of the most impoverished people in the world.
Divisions now exist within the Catholic Church from the Bush Campaigns incursion into the Church that are deep and jeopardize the ability of Catholics to build a community at the parish level to be communities of salt and light to the larger society. There is a great deal of alienation that needs to be addressed. The lies of the Bush Campaign have created a growing and dangerous fundamentalism within the Catholic Church that provides space for some to demonize others. (i.e. the notion that you can't be a good Catholic and vote for John Kerry). Outside organizations with significant resources are extremely well organized and energized and are well situated to serve partisan purposes. They can and will exploit the divisions within the Catholic Church if they are not challenged with the truth the reality of true Catholic Teachings.
Reflection and dialogue are now required about how our faith should influence our politics. Teaching on the consistent ethic of life needs to be strengthened not diluted by cheap imitations from the right. More than ever there is a need for clarity in our Catholic teaching and messaging. Catholics are more than ever politically homeless and there is much work to be done among the laity to reform our political system. A great challenge of our Church will be to penetrate a national media that seems solely focused on the Church's position on sexual and family matters while ignoring Church teaching on war and peace, social justice and human rights.
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