Reply #26: With all due respect, I doubt that you know yet how liberal

[DemBones DemBones]

others in this group are. I have known most of them for some time, many for years, long before you were at DU, and I don't think anyone here is illiberal. Some of us are branded as conservative because we have a seamless garment approach to the pro-life ethic, being opposed to war, capital punishment, euthanasia, and abortion, and also to poverty and the social injustice that perpetuates poverty. But we disagree with the idea that pro-life progressive is an oxymoron and call on other progressives/ liberals to see how all these issues tie together in a seamless garment, such as Jesus wore.

You mention that you were converted by the Franciscans; perhaps you'll share your story with us at some point? I've never met any Franciscans in the U.S., though we had a Franciscan as our archbishop of Atlanta years ago; sadly, he died very young in 1992.

There are many wonderful saints and so I don't have one favorite but Francis of Assisi is very high on my list because of his commitment to the poor, his passion for God, his giving up the wealth of his father to serve God, his love of animals. He is also the patron saint of ecologists, which dovetails with my own specialization in aquatic ecology. I have a statue of him in my bog garden, near my little pond, and I had the profound spiritual joy of praying at Francis's tomb on Epiphany in 1995. I often pray the prayer attributed to him, "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace."