Denver, Colo., Nov 8, 2004 / 22:00 pm
The former editor of the National Catholic Register, Francis X. Maier, says millions of Democrats across the country voted Republican in the last presidential election because they did not recognize in the party the traditional values, for which it once stood. His comment was published recently in the Rocky Mountain News of Colorado.
Currently chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver, Maier draws on the lived experience of his wife and her family, for whom “being a Catholic meant being a Democrat, and being a Democrat meant fighting for the poor, the homeless, racial and ethnic minorities, the unemployed,” and the unborn.
However, he says, she hasn’t voted for a major Democratic candidate in more than 25 years.
Maier admits that he and his wife, who have a disabled son, have struggled many times with the choice of voting Democratic since Roe vs. Wade, especially since “Democratic policies often benefit the disabled in ways Republican policies don’t.”
However, abortion is an overriding issue, he adds. “No matter how much good we try to do, we can’t outrun the effects of that most intimate form of violence against women and children,” he says. “Not so long ago, leading Democrats understood this.”