President Obama

The American people have spoken and Barack Obama is our next president, the first African American president of the United States.

I know good Catholics who voted for Obama and good Catholics who voted for McCain and good Catholics who could not in good conscience vote for either candidate.

There is a serious burden on supporters of Obama as well as all Catholics to pray that Obama's opinion on abortion, the most important issue of our time, changes with the help of God's grace. We pray that his presidency is not the cause of further erosion of the respect for life from conception to death. We also pray that Obama effectively represents the interests of the poor, the sick and the disenfranchised as many of his Catholic supporters hope.

To the supporters of McCain, let's get behind our new president with our prayers and with our voices. Let him know why you voted for McCain and help Obama to understand that he must listen to the voices of conscience who did not vote for him if he is going to understand and fully represent the American people.

Catholics have a unique voice in the political arena. No candidate will ever fully represent our views, that is why we are divided more than any other religious or ethnic group in the country as to which candidate we will support. It is important to remember amidst the euphoria of our candidate winning or the sorrow of a loss, that we are Catholics before we are Americans. We are Catholics before we are Democrats, and we are Catholics before we are Republican. No candidate will ever represent for us the fullness of Truth that is the Catholic faith. So we are always on the sidelines, observing, sometimes rejoicing, sometimes lamenting, but hopefully always aware that politics can never truly have ownership of our hearts.