Mr. Hannity: In the age of international "Islamic" terrorism, preemptive war can sometimes be justified and even necessary to protect our country. (pp. 154-55)

My response: In fact, the Catholic Church imposes very strict conditions even for normal defensive war, including the danger of a certain, imminent attack with lasting and grave consequences. The Church's just war doctrine is based on a presumption against the use of force. Despite the fact that the Church has no definitive teaching on the morality of preemptive war, it does not admit that such a war could ever be necessary. A large majority of Church leaders around the world have condemned preemptive war as in their view unjust and immoral. When talk of a preemptive strike on Iraq was flying around some years ago, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stated several times: "The concept of a 'preventive war' does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church."

Yesterday morning in Nicaragua, at the urging of the Church, the State turned its back on women. The National Assembly voted 52-0 to remove the 130-year-old therapeutic abortion exception from the Penal Code - meaning that Nicaraguan women with life-threatening pregnancies now face a death sentence. That includes women with ectopic pregnancies. That includes pregnant women who develop or discover that they have cancer or sexually transmitted infections. That includes nine-year-old girls who have been raped. Not one single legislator stood up for these women's right to life.