From Debra Sweet, National Coordinator of The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime, 8/24/06:
Because Sister Helen Prejean’s name
appeared in WCW’s August 3 New York Times
ad which calls for driving out the Bush regime, she has been
“uninvited” from a scheduled appearance for the Catholic Diocese of
Duluth, MN, and the event was cancelled.
Sister Prejean’s voice in the movement
growing in this country to repudiate the Bush regime is valued and important.
She is someone who speaks against injustice from her base in New Orleans and across the world. She should
be invited to speak everywhere!
A spokesperson for the Diocese said,
“The problem wasn’t the political nature of the issues raised in the
ad,” he said, noting that the church and Prejean often take stands on
political issues. “But the ad’s partisan attack of Bush crossed the line.
When it gets into attacking (a political figure), that becomes partisan.”
We ask the Catholic Diocese of Duluth:
Would Karl Rove or any political operative shilling for President Bush’s
illegitimate, immoral war, torture, and disastrous domestic policies have been
uninvited? In the face of the horrors being committed by this regime, what does
it mean for a church or any other institution to actively silence those telling
the truth, those taking responsibility for condemning these crimes against
humanity? As for the “higher calling” of
“non-partisanship,” we ask the Diocese, does Bush hesitate for one
second to vilify and use the full force of the government against his
opponents? The Bush regime’s stand is an absolutist “You’re with us or
against us,” and now this church institution is declaring it impermissible
for Catholics to even voice opposition.
What our ad says about the crimes of
the Bush regime is true, and has resonated with thousands of people living in
this country: “The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society
very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.”
For the record, Sr. Prejean wrote us after the ad was
published, asking that her name be removed because she had not understood that
the issue of abortion would be included. “While I
wholeheartedly support most of the reasons given in the ad to remove George W.
Bush from office, there is one component to which I cannot give my endorsement:
“Your government is moving to deprive women of the right to birth control
and abortion”.
Her clarification is posted on our website: “I signed the ad because as a follower of the way of Jesus and a U.S.
citizen, I cannot stand by passively and silently as I witness my government
wage such grievous oppression and violence. It has been the same spirit of
engaged citizenship that has for the past twenty years led me to speak out
against the death penalty while encouraging my fellow citizens and my church to
deeper reflection on the issue by the books and articles I have written and
numerous public lectures. For me, personally, it would be sinful not to raise
my voice publicly in opposition to the life-destructive policies and practices
of the Bush administration. That is what led me to sign the ad calling for his
removal.”
We ask, among the religious institutions in this country, where the Bush administration has openly trolled for votes, created fear about “gay marriage” and spread many millions of dollars for “faith-based initiatives”, how far from humanity will you allow the Bush Regime to veer before risking “faith based” funding and IRS audits in taking a stand the way Sr. Helen has done?
In the news:
Event canceled over nun’s politics, Duluth News Tribune, 8/23/06