SOCIALIST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE CHALLENGED HIS CHURCH AND PASTORS EARLY AND OFTEN ON ISSUES
Contrasts His Judgment and Antiwar Credentials, To Democratic Candidate Barack Obama
Spring Hill, Florida: Friday, March 28, 2008: Socialist Party presidential candidate Brian Moore compared his track record on speaking up to his church pastors "in stark contrast" to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's explanation for not confronting his minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ, for the minister's controversial comments.
While Moore agreed in part with the substance of some of Reverend Wright's criticism of the Iraq War and the U.S. government's policies, he found fault with Barack Obama, for either not supporting the veracity of the minister's positions, or for Obama's failure to stand up for what he disagreed with on the pastor's comments.
The Socialist candidate has written letters to his parish church, has had several meetings with the Catholic priests where he weekly attends Mass and has confronted them in the sacristy two or three times over issues of the Iraq War, and the ACLU. The Socialist candidate has also taken on Catholic Charities of the St. Petersburg Diocese in Florida, where Moore resides, for the roasting of his congresswoman who has voted repeatedly against social services for the poor, legislation that Catholic Charities not only supported but has lobbied publicly for such legislation.
In addition, Moore has sent critical letters-to-the-editor to the local newspapers in his home county (Hernando) over the silence or support of the Iraq War by the local catholic, protestant and Baptist churches in his area.
The socialist wrote letters in 2006, 2007 and 2008, as a concerned parishioner, to Reverend John Blum and Reverend Anthony Copppola, both of St. Francis Cabrini Catholic Church, in his home town of Spring Hill, Florida. He questioned the parish for its "apparent silence and/or support of the Iraq War, and their lack of addressing the moral dimensions of the questionable War."
Moore followed up his letters to the clerics with separate personal visits in their church to meet with Fr. Blum to address this issue, and challenged Fr. Coppola in the sacristy of the Church several times almost two years later.
Barack Obama, in his homepage statement to the Huffington Post on March 14, 2008, called upon Americans "not to judge him [Obama] on what someone else said," but on the "basis of ......what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President......."
Presidential candidate Moore was sarcastic about Obama's veracity, after attending his church for 20 years, about "not hearing Rev. Wright speak on such controversial matters," and Moore further mused that he [Moore] demonstrated "better judgment, strength of character, and less political calculation" [than Obama] in the Socialist candidate's numerous confrontations with his church, his parish priests and his own Catholic religion.
Moore also has confronted after Sunday Mass an unknown priest at St. Theresa's Catholic Church in Spring Hill, who was filling in for Moore's pastor, Fr. McAteer. The presidential candidate went directly into the sacristy after Mass while the elderly visiting priest was divesting and challenged the cleric for his sermon's virulent criticism of the ACLU for it "support of gays, movies and other questionable civil rights issues." Moore subsequently sent an e-mail to the Tampa/ Miami ACLU to advise them of the Catholic cleric's public condemnation.
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