I am probably always going to consider myself a Catholic despite a lack of belief in the church that exists today. I found the recent news story in the Press Herald about how a Catholic should vote to be very objectionable (“Maine’s top Catholic speaks out against gay marriage,” Oct. 26).
It stated that with a “conscience … properly formed by Scripture and church teachings,” a Catholic could not justify voting for a referendum or candidate that opposes the teachings of the church. That was the position of Maine’s former bishop, speaking from outside Maine.
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That position was wrong in the Middle Ages and it is wrong today. I am voting for “Yes on 1,” and I am voting for candidates like the president who differ with the teachings of the church.
I was raised a Catholic and am still, at heart, a Catholic. The biblical Christ who I learned about was liberal and forgiving; his church today is not. The bishop is speaking to his empty pews because Catholics like me lost faith in the church but not in what we were taught.
Ray Monahan
Windham
Catholics for Marriage Equality, a Maine nonprofit organization, has staged various demonstrations trying to give the impression that their positions have validity within the Roman Catholic Church.
Why do they use the term “Catholic” when they have absolutely no intention of following what the church teaches?
They say they want discussion and dialogue, but the kind of discussion they want is for the church to cave in to “political correctness.” However, this is not going to happen no matter how much these individuals dissent.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2357) states that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and contrary to the natural law. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”
So regardless of the conditioning process that has insidiously come into play over the years, vocal dissenting attitudes cannot change these truths.
Yet, in spite of the perversity of homosexual behavior (and the dangers associated with it), these dissenters still continue to press for “same-sex marriage” and all its ramifications.
A plank from the gay rights platform, as far back as 1972, confirms this. It reads in part: “Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or numbers of persons entering into a marriage unit.”
This crucial objective totally dismantles traditional marriage. Why would any sane person want this?
On Election Day, society must retain its moral compass. We must vote “no” on Question 1.
Pat Truman
Hallowell
Romney earned his money by depriving others of jobs
You can spend your own money as you please. If you wanted, you could buy a company, fire its workers and sell its equipment.
However, bank loans are different. Commercial bank loans were always for building a business, not destroying one. But that all changed with financial deregulation.
Mitt Romney earned his money from “leveraged buyouts.” In a leveraged buyout, a trader borrows to buy 50 percent stock in a company. He then transfers most of the debt to the company’s books. After that, if the company goes belly up, the trader doesn’t owe the money. The bankrupt company owes it.
For example, Romney bought the retail chain Stage Stores with $300 million in loans. The loans were arranged by Michael Milken, then famously under federal investigation.
Romney’s company made an estimated $175 million on a $10 million investment. Romney had no desire, no experience and no plan to run a chain of retail stores. He saddled the company with monstrous debt, took its profits and let it sink.
Who lost?
• 5,800 unemployed people when Stage Stores went bankrupt.
• Devastated Midwest communities that lost their only department store.
• Pension funds holding some of the loans.
• U.S. taxpayers who covered the remaining loans during the bailouts.
• Real U.S. businesses that couldn’t get loans for growth.
Romney got his campaign contributions by promising to free banks and Wall Street from regulation. Romney’s top 20 contributors are the same financial firms that have wrecked our economy.
In his first debate with President Obama, Romney claimed to be in favor of banking regulation. Mitt Romney talks eloquently out of both sides of his mouth, saying whatever his audience wants to hear.
John Pankowicz
Boothbay Harbor
House 112 hopeful Jones committed to democracy
I had the pleasure of speaking at length with John Logan Jones, one of the candidates for the Maine Legislature from House District 112.
I’ve known his parents for more than a decade, but had only met John in passing from time to time before he entered the military.
I found him to be a thoughtful, intelligent young man, quite knowledgeable about the strengths and weaknesses of the policies of the past few decades. Sometimes these policies helped, but in many cases they led to high taxes and limited employment prospects for high school and college graduates forced to leave the state to make a living, pursue their careers and start their own families.
John not only was familiar with the main issues confronting Mainers, but he intuitively grasps the more subtle consequences of what might at first seem to be good public policy, but through higher taxes and public debt, is ultimately counterproductive at best and harmful at worst.
John served for five years in U.S. Air Force Intelligence as a translator of Pashto, the language of Afghanistan, providing real-time intelligence to ground troops during his many combat missions in that country.
He, like many of his fellows, has seen dictatorships in which the law is administered from the barrel of a gun.
He, like his fellows, appreciates more than most the blessings we enjoy; our Constitution and our way of life. Since they were called upon to defend these things abroad, they are even more committed to defending them here at home.
John represents a breed of more selfless Americans, who will ultimately replace, on both state and federal levels, the “me first” generation of the ’60s and ’70s.
It is really time for the old guard to yield to their leadership.
Paul Bachorik
Falmouth
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