Very interesting that six years into the Mr. Bush presidency, we are finally hearing that his policies are antithetical to Catholic social thought. Are we finally past the single-issue political support of the "compassionate conservative" who opposed partial-birth abortions? Oh, he must be a good man if he's opposed to that. Who are these Catholic social thinkers? The people in the pews and in the positions of lay authority in my parish are far more deeply devoted to Republican ideology and to supporting Mr. Bush's corporate benefaction and intolerance toward any view that opposes his own than to, for instance, the papal denunciations of first the sanctions and then the attack and finally the war on Iraq. The papal condemnation of treatment of Saddam was brushed off like Mr. Bush brushed off street protests by the people in the pews of my church. The priests almost never emphasized Catholic social thinking during the whole six years of Sundays' homilies. Hardly a person in our parish opposes capital punishment, or the cutting away of practically every social safety net for the poor. Now it's suddenly popular to distance ourselves from Mr. Bush? Not here among the have mores, Mr. Bush's base. These folks are just looking for another person to put in the White House who will continue to support oligarchy, cut taxes and services and continue to allow corporations to maximize their profits at the expense of everything else. Catholic social thinkers don't seem to have much of a voice at our Ave Maria University either. Denunciation of homosexuality is very popular as are The Chastity Team and Love Week, The Modesty Pool Jump, and The Modesty Fashion Show. Its location in the midst of Immokalee's environs makes little provision for the Catholic preferential option for the poor. Catholic social thinking is founded on rock, not on money. It tells us to always act with forgiveness and compassion toward the sexual "sins" of others, especially those one considers prostitutes or profligates or homosexuals or women who have chosen to abort their pregnancies. Being unyielding and self-righteous about chastity or any other "virtue" is a sin against the Spirit. True Catholic teaching promotes Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount: tolerance, forgiveness, compassion, and peace. It's as simple as writing in the sand: no one is worthy to cast the first stone. But I sure don't hear that from the altar. The Christian Coalition and its various forms of "conservative" morality are deeply embedded in Mr. Bush's Washington and in places where he maintains his base. It has certainly infiltrated my church and my town. I keep hoping that the Rapture will happen momentarily and take these hard-to-live-with folks off my back. Then we can get back to Catholic social thinking.