Well, not all of his fellow Catholics, but certainly those who believe "a culture of life must include support for women and children", and who therefore support providing health insurance to more American children:
Catholics United is running deceitful ads against pro-life members of Congress who opposed the vetoed S-CHIP bill, but otherwise supported health care for underprivileged kids. Why? Because Catholics United, which demurs from airing similar ads against pro-abortion members of Congress, is not a Catholic Church sanctioned organization; it is a Leftist political front group. No one should be fooled when this devil cites Scripture for his own purpose...
[I]n light of the modern media’s ability to engender a "dictatorship of opinion," the pope warns all Christians:
The fact is that under the pretext of goodness, people neglect conscience. They place acceptance, the avoidance of problems, the comfortable pursuit of their existence, the good opinion of others and good-naturedness above truth in the scale of values.
Through their duplicitous partisan S-CHIP attacks, this is (charitably) the sin which Catholics United has committed; and the sin with which Catholics United is coercively trying to tempt pro-life members of Congress.
Apparently for Thaddeus McCotter—who, by the way, went on in his article to cite scripture and Papal pronouncements for his own purpose—listening to your constituents is a sin. Americans overwhelmingly support the expansion of SCHIP, and since the political beliefs of American Catholics are essentially the same as the overall electorate, there’s little reason to think the Catholics in McCotter’s suburban Detroit district will be swayed to side with him just because he hides behind some sayings of the Pope.
McCotter failed to mention that he was one of the ten members of Congress targeted by Catholics United. As James at Swing State Project points out, one of the most Democratic districts represented by someone who voted against SCHIP is McCotter’s. If a decent candidate comes forth to run against McCotter, he could be in trouble.
McCotter has consistently voted the wrong way for his district. He remains steadfast in protecting George W. Bush instead of supporting a responsible withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. And he is also, according to Stuart Rothenberg, who wrote about McCotter in March 2002 for subscription-only Roll Call, an insufferable jerk:
I've interviewed hundreds of candidates for office, and most of the lost causes and serious contenders stand out immediately. But sometimes it's not so easy to separate the winners from the losers.
As evidence, I present Republican Thaddeus McCotter...
A former Wayne County commissioner who was elected to the Michigan state Senate in 1998, McCotter, 36, will win the August Republican primary in Michigan's newly created 11th district. That will make him a prohibitive favorite for November, since President Bush carried the district two years ago and the Democrats haven't recruited a credible nominee.
But if I've interviewed a candidate who was less communicative, more arrogant and more difficult to like, I can't think of one. And I've tried.
I thought my assessment of McCotter might be unique until I asked others. I found I had plenty of company, both in Michigan and Washington, among both reporters and Republican politicos.
How does someone as humorless as McCotter succeed? First, it doesn't hurt that his mother, Joan, was president of the Livonia City Council and now serves as the city clerk. That's how Thaddeus made it to the county council and then the state Senate.
But why would GOP state legislators agree to do a favor for someone so disagreeable by drawing a Congressional district for him? It's a lesson in politics. McCotter was picked for the committee that drew the lines and had a say in the final shape of the district because he volunteered to take a bullet for the state Senate Republicans by agreeing to chair a committee that expelled controversial GOP state Sen. David Jaye from that body.
Since McCotter was first elected, his district has trended Democratic. It would be great to see this district elect a Democrat who would listen to her constituents and support, for instance, the expansion of SCHIP. And McCotter will be fine if he’s defeated for reelection, as he’ll have as good an example as any for why the voters kicked him out of office: they succumbed to the temptations of such horrible sins as choosing to provide health insurance for children.