I won't compromise my morals. I'm Catholic

This letter is written in response to an article that appeared in the Daily Herald Monday, May 11, titled "Catholic political divide exposed."

The article states, Patrick Whelan, a physician at Harvard Medical School and president of Catholic Democrats, said by taking such a hard line against Obama, bishops and other conservative leaders risk driving Catholics away from the church rather than cool their support for the President. "There are unintended consequences to the kind of angry, vituperative language about their opponents," Whelan said. "By making themselves pawns of the conservative right, the bishops are playing into a cycle of decline for our church."

I suppose I would be classified as a conservative Catholic because I support church teaching, and I choose not to compromise my own morals and values to conform to the viewpoints of others. I suppose I would have to classify you, Mr. Whelan, as a liberal Catholic because you state that we, as Catholics, should yield to the liberal views of the so-called majority.

We, the conservatives, are not taking a hard line against Obama. We are fighting for what we believe. We are fighting for the church and that means we must stand up for what the church teaches. You cannot pick and choose what doctrines you want to follow and what doctrines you want to denounce. If you are a Catholic, then stand up and be a Catholic.

I will not now or ever yield to anyone who wishes to diminish my church, my faith, my love for God or the human being, born or unborn. I will not sacrifice my salvation to conform to liberalism because it's popular, or because the world wants me to.

I am not a pawn of the conservative right. I am a willing participant, and there are more of us than you might think.

Wendy McMahan

Algonquin