Bishop's agenda should tackle greed

The Catholic Bishops want to lobby the Obama Administration to prevent abortions. They should also be willing to participate in the forging of a bill that will restrict late-term abortions that will work. President-elect Obama has stated he will sign a bill to prevent late-term abortions if it protects the "physical" health of the mother.

The Bishops should also lobby against excessive corporate greed. It is a cultural cause of abortion. The poor cannot afford to raise children.

The authenticity of the church's fidelity to Christ is proven when it looks at the beams in its own eyes. Shortsighted selfish usurious greed and unfair disgraceful economic gain creates more and more poor people and makes them suffer.

Christianity is not a conservative museum that preserves things the way they were when we were young. It is not about minding our own business in the face of moral injustice and seeking our heavenly reward in an eternity of splendid exclusivity with the well-connected and sinless. It is even more dramatic than sharing with the homeless and hungry. It is the horrifying humiliating death of Christ that saves the world, not just the golden rule or collection basket.

The moan for help from the suffering must be answered before it becomes a demented howl. Fairness and forgiveness and peace are not intellectual discussions limited to the hierarchy or government lawmakers.

When the Church speaks for the poor, the neglected and rejected, the sick and suffering and demands their rights, when it lays aside its modulated microphone in favor of a loud and clear megaphone, when its spirituality becomes uncomfortable to all of us who selfishly enjoy God's material blessings, it is fulfilling its mission, the mission of God's grand design.

George E. Bedingfield

Arlington Heights