Catholic Families for America is involved in a number of battlefronts, and in a number of issues. Challenges facing American families are immense, largely because of the absence of a robust, Catholic “counter-culture” movement in the public square. To that end, we will fight for our civilization, using the teachings of the Church, on the following issues:
SANCTITY OF LIFE
There is no issue more sacrosanct than the beauty and sanctity of life. The current leadership in Washington, D.C., is the most hostile in our history to sanctity of life issues. Whether the specific issue be abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, or defending the conscience protection afforded our Catholic hospitals and health care workers, the Catholic Family Caucus will exhaust every ounce of its resources battling for the protection of life.
TRADITIONAL VALUES
Our society is under attack, and not just from external forces. Insidious trends inside our own society threaten to accelerate the moral decay that began decades ago. Assaults on traditional marriage, whether by legislation and the courts, or by the subtle, daily rhetoric chosen by some in the media, have undermined the moral fibers that bind our civilization together. Bureaucrats and the liberal intelligentsia are actively working to eviscerate the very notion of manhood and fatherhood. No more. The Catholic Family Caucus actively seeks the successful coalition-building that led to pro-marriage victories in California, Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida in 2008, and will be a vocal force in promoting the virtues of traditional families for the future of our society
EDUCATION
If the heart and future of any civilization is its education system, then the United States of America is in trouble. Given that no entity has done more than the Catholic Church to educate our populace with rigorous intellectual and moral lessons, it is imperative that Catholics in America protect the many assaults on the religious missions of Church schools. The Catholic Family Caucus is, therefore, an active and vocal proponent of all forms of school choice: vouchers, tax credits for private school tuition, charter schools, and home schooling. The public education system has failed us, and may very well be beyond repair: thus, reform will come in the form of free market impulses, many of which approach education from a religious standpoint.
TAXES
The “nuts-and-bolts” of family life—finances and taxes—reflect the social and cultural trends of American civilization: a replacement of moral institutions, such as the Church, with a faux-religion, government. Thus the Catholic Family Caucus supports pro-family tax policies—namely tax cuts—rather than the mortgaging of our children’s and grandchildren’s futures through bloated, pork-filled, federal budgets that reward immoral behaviors and incompetent choices. We are particularly concerned about reductions in the charitable contribution limits that the Obama administration recently imposed, given that Christian conservatives give far more of their income to charity than do secular, limousine liberals.
FOREIGN POLICY
We’re kidding ourselves if we conclude that foreign policy can be ignored. The gravest threat facing American civilization is not just the rapid expansion of radical Islamism, but the weak, virtually absent, recognition by Western leaders that such a threat exists. For centuries the Church has fought back this threat: notably, in 753 at the Battle of Tours, and in 1571 at the Battle of Lepanto. Today, sheer demographics in the West presage a foreboding future in Europe, and eventually the entire West, will be a mere extension of Islamic territory. The real tragedy is not that this will happen by war, but by the conscious decision of generations of Westerners to contracept and to abort themselves out of existence. Thus the Catholic Family Caucus promotes a clear articulation by the United States about the threat posed to Western institutions—especially religious ones—by radical Islam. No longer can we tolerate emasculated, rhetorically-paralyzed political leaders who’d rather lose a civilization than offend a jihadist.
