An Open Letter to Vice-President Elect Joe Biden

The following is an open letter to Vice-President Elect Joe Biden which I originally published on Facebook. I thought it fit right in with what I'm trying to accomplish here. It also takes up some space an tme while I work on my next "from scratch" post. Til next time, all the best. Joe

Dear Mr Biden,

May I call you "Joe"?

Please accept my congratulations on your recent election to the office of Vice-President of the United States and on the sweeping victory of your Party overall. Unfortunately, I was unable, in good conscience to support many Democratic candidates due to the Party's opposition to the right of life for the unborn.

Further, I feel I must voice my disappointment with your obscuration of Catholic teachings regarding the sancitity of life for the unborn. While discussion of the concept of when life begins has occured among the Fathers within the Church, none of the Church Fathers, none of the great thinkers of the Church, from the Didache through Augustine to Thomas Aquinas to John Paul the Great has favored or condoned abortion. In the early days of the Church, thinkers like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas had doubts about when life began because they did not have the benefit of modern science. That doubt has, in modern times, been thoroughly eradicated by the knowledge that, from the moment of conception, the DNA of the newply concieved child is totally unique, wholly and totally distiguishable from that of either of its parents. It is, for all practical intents and puposes, a new and unique human being, entitled to the protection extended to every other human life by virtue of that humanity. The death of that entity by natural causes is a tragedy; its death at the hands of another human being is murder, pure and simple.

For Catholics like you and Mrs Pelosi to deny the cold, hard logic of this case is either an act of ingorance, or an act of selfishness. Since you are obviously not, sir, an ignorant man, I must assume that, for the sake of political expedience, you are a selfish man. That is truly a shame, since other than that, I believe I could be the ardent supporter of you personally, and of the Democratic Party overall. As the most prominent Catholic in the public square today, it is your duty to "secure the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our posterity." Get over your narrow self-interest and do your job.

As the playwright Robert Bolt has the character Thomas More say to Wolsey in "A Man for All Seasons", "...I believe when a statesman forsakes his private conscience for the sake of his public duties, he leads his nation by a short route to chaos." Don't do it, Joe!Rest assured, that I, and many other orthodox Catholics are yearning to stand fully in support of the new government in areas where the policies of that government strive for the common good. Where however, those policies run counter to the common good, count on us standing in vigorous but loyal opposition to the government.

Best wishes and Godspeed, Joe!



Joe Henzler