Earlier this year, The Tidings received --- via fax, email and "regular" mail --- more letters on "The Passion of the Christ" film than on any subject since the clergy sex abuse scandal in the early part of 2002.

Now, it is "The Passion of the Election" that has generated an unprecedented response, from readers, both inside and outside the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Indeed, the Election Year 2004 has brought forth a fervency and intensity on candidates and issues that is often invigorating, if at times a bit alarming.

This week --- owing to this month's presidential debates, the nearness of the election, the undeniable religious component involved and the unusual outspokenness of some Catholic leaders to address certain aspects of the presidential contest --- a particularly high number of letters has been received.

Because of this, The Tidings this week presents, in the centerspread, a sample of its correspondence. A qualifying note: All have been edited in some way, primarily for length (250 words maximum) but also in some cases for content, to avoid repetition as much as possible, to provide space for more views to be presented, and to (we hope) give readers an idea at the diversity of thought in our midst.

As you read, you may find yourself enthusiastically agreeing or vehemently disagreeing with a particular viewpoint. Hopefully, you will find yourself giving more thought to the issues involved in this very crucial election year, taking time to learn and to pray over your decisions, and then making time to vote Nov. 2.

As always, we thank those who take the time to read and respond. We are most grateful for your participation and your support.

---Mike Nelson, editor

The big picture for Catholics in this article is that beyond the election, much more work needs to be done to foster a true culture of life on earth --- a culture in which life is welcomed, nourished and protected from conception to natural death. Thus, choosing life consistently means hard work to reduce, if not eliminate, abortions, capital punishment, unjust wars, euthanasia, unjust economic structures, poverty, malnutrition, cuts in health care and other needs that threaten the quality of life.

Our society in the U.S. alone aborted more than 43 million lives since 1975; certainly persons that with God's blessings would have had the skills and talents to participate in the work of renewing the earth. God did not exclude them; we did.

I will not vote for any Catholic or non-Catholic who has a consistent, callous, disrespect for the beginning of life. I will not vote for any Catholic or non-Catholic who opposed the law that says it is a crime to attack a pregnant woman and kill or injure the unborn child --- a Catholic for whom life in the womb or in a lab might as well not exist.

Vi Patmas
Mission Viejo

I find it really offensive that Republican Catholics think that we can't be Democrats and be Catholics. I would rather people not have abortions, but would never want to deny anyone the proper care if they make this choice. How many women put their own lives in danger because of back room abortions?

I also feel that the death penalty is wrong, but our president's home state leads the country in executions. He has also taken us to war where hundreds of innocent people have been killed along with our soldiers. And for what? What happened to "Thou shall not kill"? Does anyone ever think about this anymore?

We have to answer to God, not to a certain political party and its beliefs. How can you say either side is more Catholic when the issues are so complex? I am a proud Catholic, wife, mother and yes, a Democrat.

Greta Hernandez
Santa Barbara

I read The Tidings weekly and am happy to say I enjoyed your various coverage of right-to-life issues. I am sad to say that the Catholic bishops' statement as an insert in my church's bulletin read like a political defense of John Kerry and the Democratic party with its omission of anything relating to the right to life.

The bishops put affimative action, the environment, illegal immigration, global solidarity, the United Nations and international law above the protection of the innocent child in the womb.

I pray for them in their misguided emphasis on political issues and their appparent and obvious political agenda.

Hal Dolan
Los Angeles

Whether the Catholic bishops like it or not, when a woman cannot afford to have her baby or her family makes her feel ashamed for getting pregnant without being married, sometimes the baby doesn't make it.

This happened before abortion was legal, and if Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortions will not be stopped. I know: Two of my best friends, Catholics, had abortions in the early 1970s so that they could walk down the aisle of their Catholic church. Don't kid yourself that abortion will go away if you vote for Bush.

We have to cherish life, yes, and that is why I am voting for Kerry, who I feel cherishes the lives and futures of living children, too. Bush has never promised to get rid of the "law of the land" (Roe v. Wade) so the both of them are to be judged on what they do after that baby is born.

President Bush has replaced environmental laws that helped my children breathe clean air and drink clean water with weaker versions that are gifts to his polluting corporate friends. He has been responsible for an unnecessary war that has littered depleted uranium into the lungs of American soldiers and Iraq soil.

Who's the one who is pro-life? And since when does a priest have the right to tell you how to vote? Is this Medieval Italy or America?

Mary Jacobs
Los Angeles

At best, Senator Kerry has betrayed a misunderstanding of both his Catholic faith and the First Amendment. At worst, he has used his Catholic faith to promote the continued legalization of abortion.

The Catholic Church never has held as a doctrine of faith or morals that the human embryo or fetus is a human being (see J. Connery, Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective, 212 (1977)). The church knows full well that the question of when a human being begins its existence as a human being is no more a religious (or moral) question than is the question of whether or not life exists on Mars.

However, the church does teach that every person and every nation or state has a duty to protect all human life. The church argues and accepts what science itself points out: A human being or human life begins its existence as the same at or near conception. As is stated in Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia (5th ed., 1976, pp. 3-4): "The embryo and later the fetus is an individual entity imbued with individualistic qualities [i.e., with genes] which affects its rate of progress, much as later the progress of the infant to a mature adult will be determined by individualistic qualities … From a purely scientific standpoint, there is no question that abortion represents the cessation of a human life."

Philip A. Rafferty
Inglewood

It is inconsistent for the church to forbid individual members, cleric or lay, to participate in politics, and then to turn around and fund ballot initiatives or publicly advocate for particular candidates. In fact, a church which practices such inconsistency is transparently a political, not a religious, institution.

As a Catholic, I would not have an abortion or advise any woman to have an abortion, but if it came down to saving the life of a mother whose pregnancy was killing her, as a doctor I would perform an abortion. I don't believe there is any doctrine either in the Bible or in the Didache or any other cherished, sacred text that expressly forbids me from acting as I have outlined above.

As it happens, I am not a doctor; I am only a woman. As a woman in the church, I cannot participate in forming the traditions of the church, because I cannot be a cleric. Thus, a woman who gives birth is subject to men who have never been pregnant in situations that involve not one, but two human lives. This is unconscionable, and I really don't conscientiously believe that Jesus would approve.

It is time that women became priests or that priests abstained from telling Catholics what they must do in order to be politically pure. It is time our church became like God's house, a house of many mansions.

Jean Rosenfeld
Pacific Palisades

"The hard truth is that when it comes to stem cell research, this president is making the wrong choice to sacrifice science for extreme right-wing ideology," said Sen. John Kerry at a Democratic rally held Oct. 4 in New Hampshire.

Once again, on the subject of embryonic stem cell research, Senator Kerry has made a bold proclamation in direct opposition to the teaching of his Catholic faith. The "extreme right-wing ideology" to which he refers in the above quotation is his very own church! Senator Kerry is promising to devote $100 million of taxpayer money to further the development of "stem cell therapy." Do American voters truly understand where John Kerry wishes to take us? I believe that most Americans (and most Catholics, unfortunately) are clueless.

In order to change what the Holy Father has labeled this "Culture of Death" in America, it will take both pro-life Republicans and pro-life Democrats to enact laws that reflect the sacredness of human life. We must encourage our Democratic representatives to vote pro-life if we are going to change this Culture of Death. The Republicans cannot do it alone. We must work together.

Democrats for Life of America, Inc., is a grassroots, non-profit organization committed to sending the pro-life message to America. We are living proof that there are Democrats who believe in a consistent ethic of life from fertilization to natural death.

Valerie Mierzwa
President, Florida DFLA, Inc.

I am disheartened at the Catholics (Readers Forum, Oct. 15) who so quickly dismiss Senator Kerry as "pro-abortion" (he has said he personally is against abortion, but is "pro-choice"; there is a difference!).

Did your readers listen to the clear, compassionate, heartfelt and articulate answer Kerry gave on the abortion issue to the young woman at the second debate? He spoke for me and, I dare say, millions of Catholics like me, when he said it was a personal "article of faith," that he was not for abortion, but had to respect the rights and laws in a land that represents many different points of view.

One cannot "legislate" morality. One can only try to educate, counsel, help, and offer alternatives to something that we all want to see less of. This country cannot return to the back alleys and black markets of illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade. We are founded and have thrived on the separation of church vs. state.

Deborah DelHoyo
Toluca Lake

The Democratic Party platform stated that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." But I have not heard Senator Kerry say anything about making abortion "rare."

From his lack of concern on the issue, I conclude that he will simply allow abortion to go unchecked; and that, because the abortion lobby is such a powerful influence in the party, he will try to extend the gruesome practice to other countries through the United Nations. The answer to poverty in the third world is not limiting the number of children, but growing more food and creating better environments.

Here in California, we will be voting on Proposition 71, which would allow the destruction of a human embryo. Why dilute precious funding by diverting it to research that is being used for political purposes? It denies the fact that the embryo is an individual human life!

Why doesn't Senator Kerry accept the teachings of the Catholic Church of which he claims to be a member? I cannot judge him as a human being, but I can judge him as a potential president. Can someone who allows the killing of innocent human embryos and babies do anything good for the country? Will God bless us if we choose him to be our leader?

I wish I could say there was a perfect alternative. The war in Iraq is a serious issue that probably was a mistake. But can Kerry do any better in defending our country?

Louis Shapiro
Arleta

My gravest concern about the reelection of President Bush is his policy of preemptive war. The Bishops' Peace Pastoral reminds us that war is the very last resort after negotiations have totally failed.

After his decision to invade Iraq, I greatly fear he might choose the same course in North Korea, Iran and Syria. The more aggressive we are, the more countries will want to pursue nuclear arms. We need a president who will take a lead in reducing our own nuclear proliferation and be an example to these other countries.

Claire Marmion
Long Beach

It is shocking to realize that there are people who think of capital punishment and abortion as similar evils. To use the 35 or so capital executions that occur each year in the U.S., regardless of how distasteful they are, as an excuse for voting Democratic is to blind oneself to the enormity of the abortion problem.

There are a million and a half abortions every year in the U.S. We Catholics believe that these are human lives, but even those who question the humanity of a fetus must be able to realize that the 6,000 partial birth abortions we allow every year are without a doubt killing live babies.

How do we know? National health statistics show that 14 percent of babies born after only 22 weeks of pregnancy survive, despite their weakness, yet partial birth abortions are invariably performed later, between 24 and 26 weeks. Experts have testified that those babies are alive and fully capable of experiencing great pain. They are, without question, 6,000 very alive and innocent human beings.

Whether one believes that we are killing a million and a half babies a year or only 6,000, it has to be of far greater concern than the loss of 35 convicted murderers.

Norman R. Serra
Pacific Palisades

I don't believe that a nation is immune from the same moral laws that apply to individuals; my nation can't morally do the things that I may not do. And when my nation acts contrary to moral laws (God's law, in my philosophy), I share in the guilt in some way. This is particularly true in a democracy, in which individuals have some say in the government.

From this viewpoint a preemptive strike is immoral. This is similar to an individual seeing their neighbor with a gun and, believing that the neighbor intends to kill the individual, the individual kills the neighbor first. This is not self-defense --- it's paranoid anarchy, and I can't believe any jury would accept a plea of self-defense.

By extension of this individual morality to a nation, my nation may not conduct a war against another nation because it suspects the invaded nation intends it harm. This is what happened in the Iraq War. The fact that the war has turned out badly is beside the point.

In addressing abortion versus war, we are forced to compare two evils (destroying fetal life versus killing adults and children, arguably innocent). We are required, I believe, to choose the "lesser of two evils." If we accept Bush's war, we participate in the actual killing; we are in effect "committing" the murders. In the case of abortion we are not siding with those who wish to reinstate the criminality of abortion. There is moral fault here, but it is less participatory than approving a perpetrator of war.

This is why I will vote for John Kerry in November and pray to God he will do better than Bush has done.

Connie Rutter
San Pedro

A human embryo is not a potential human being. A human embryo is a human being. A distinct individual who has never been created before and will never be created again exists "in toto" at the moment his life begins. Nothing is added to this unique person except time, nutrition and oxygen.

We were each a human embryo when our life began. The first outrage is that human life is being "created" in a test tube or a petri dish. The next outrage is that these innocent and defenseless human beings at the embryonic stage of their existence are being frozen. The final outrage is that their stem cells are being removed causing their immediate death.

There is no way to provide "ethical guidelines for human embryonic stem cell research" because human embryonic stem cell research is totally unethical. In a civilized society, one innocent person can never be killed to save the life of another person.

During World War II, children were used as living blood transfusions to save the lives of German soldiers. These little innocents literally had their lives drained out of them. Where is the difference in killing human beings at the embryonic stage of existence?

We are on an extremely dangerous and slippery slope from contraception to abortion to infanticide to euthanasia to embryonic stem cell research. The only hope for this country lies in the return to "The Culture of Life" and laws that protect innocent human beings from their beginning to natural death.

Lynn Vauiso
St. Petersburg, Florida

As a Catholic I understand the church's position with respect to Mr. Kerry. But I do not believe we can ignore the evils of the Bush administration. In my view, when the bishops speak out against Mr. Kerry, they must also speak out against Mr. Bush.

Who, without visceral horror, can look at the photograph of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner, "crucified" on a chain link fence, his arms blackened from the distress of being handcuffed in stretched out position and the resulting loss of blood circulation? How long had that poor soul been chained there? This torture, condoned by the Bush administration, is most definitely a monstrous crime against humanity.

Are the bishops saying that it doesn't matter that Mr. Bush and his administration have taken our country and our young troops into unjustifiable war, that they have killed thousands of people including Iraqi children (another monstrous crime against humanity!), that they have generated historic proportions of worldwide hatred instead of charity, spending billions of dollars on killing instead of feeding the poor --- as long as they say they are anti-abortion?

Saying they are anti-abortion does not even guarantee they will succeed in changing a single abortion law. No amount of labeling the abortion issue as "foundational" can possibly diminish the horrors of the sins of the Bush administration.

I know I cannot tolerate the Bush administration's record. I cannot in good conscience vote for Bush. I don't see how anyone can.

Mary Janss
Aspen, Colorado