With  most of the national polls showing the race to be one or two  points either way,  the fight over the Catholic vote is heating up. In  Cleveland,  Ohio, the local chapter of Right to  Life has issued a  formal letter to Bishop Richard Lennon asking him to suspend  the  Diocese’s “Faithful Citizenship” meetings because of their  disregard  for pro-life issues.

“As  a pro-life woman and a Catholic, I am appalled,” Cleveland Right  to Life  President Molly Smith said in a release. “Our Church is under  attack by  the most liberal, pro-abortion leadership in history. The  Cleveland Catholic  Diocese is missing a great teaching and unifying  opportunity by responding in  this manner.”

According  to Smith’s group, “Faithful Citizenship meetings were  organized by the Diocese  of Cleveland with the goal of aiding Catholics  in preparing themselves to vote  this November. The forums, led in part  by open Obama-supporter Karen Leith, downplay  abortion and religious  freedom, issues of irreducible importance to Catholic  voters.”

The  push back in Ohio  is only part of what is going on nationally  said Deal Hudson, the president of  the Pennsylvania Catholics Network  and an expert on Catholic outreach.

“Lay  Catholics who are committed to life, marriage, and religious  liberty are not  going to allow a repeat of the 2008 campaign, when the  bishops’ document  ‘Faithful Citizenship’ was cherry-picked and spun  into a garland of blessing  for Barack Obama,” Hudson said. “The purpose  of the new introduction to the  document, published this past November,  was to discourage this type of  irresponsible partisanship that ignores  the Church’s teaching on fundamental  social issues.”

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