Today's Opinions

Hope was mentioned now and again as you campaigned for the office you will assume in January. We have some hopes we’d like to see you fulfill once there.

This is not simply a wish list. Failure to pursue honorable courses of action threatens this nation in ways most of us don’t care to imagine. We don’t care to forecast, for example, what might become of our country if our largest banks and other companies tuck our hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money into their pockets and walk away, leaving many of us without homes and jobs.

Editor’s Note: This text of President George Washington’s Oct. 3, 1789, national Thanksgiving proclamation was printed in The Providence Gazette and Country Journal and is printed with original spellings, capitalization and punctuation.

It was submitted by Freewill Baptist Church in Cannelton to commemorate Thursday’s observance of the holiday.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2007 “Faithful Citizenship” guidelines took a strong stand against abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty and embryonic-stem-cell research and also brought up other issues for voters to consider, such as social justice, the economy and opposition to unjust wars.

But last week several bishops said abortion should be the main issue Catholic voters should look at when deciding which candidates to back.