You keep on using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means

via email, Dr. Dianne Irving writes that we really can't talk to them because the words we use while they are the same words, do not mean the same things:

In a recent article in the New York Times by Peter Steinfels ("Roman Catholics' War Over Abortion", NYTimes, May 9, 2009) Steinfels attempts to "explain" the concerns of Roman Catholics over the invitation to President Obama to speak and receive an honorary doctorate degree at Notre Dame University...

Classic American Catholic dissent: all one has to do is observe the category for this Steinfels article in the New York Times: "Beliefs" -- the effort being to frame the debates (which they always do so successfully) by assuring the readers that abortion is just a "belief", that one only believes that abortion kills innocent human beings. And like any belief, in our democratic, pluralistic, multicultural society one person's or groups beliefs must not be allowed to outweigh the beliefs of the rest of those in society (or, as in the mini-version of utilitarian ethics called "communitarianism", where the beliefs of the majority in a community outweigh the beliefs of the minority in a community).