Catholic voters divided on abortion again (part two)

 

(Continued from Part One)

Statements by lay groups like Catholics United only carry so much weight, however. In the hierarchy of the Church, bishops are considered the authoritative teachers of the faith in each diocese. Unfortunately, American Catholics who look to their bishops for guidance on abortion and electoral politics encounter ambiguous statements that can confuse rather than clarify.

For example, in its 2007 document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) reaffirmed the primacy of abortion “while obliquely referring to the far right’s narrow approach to voting” and condemning “indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.” The Faithful Citizenship document is held up by Catholic Democrats to justify their support of Obama.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, on the other hand, has bluntly referred to the Democrats as “the party of death”, and chided Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for publicly misrepresenting Catholic teaching on abortion.
 
Similarly, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput labeled Barack Obama the “most committed” pro-abortion rights candidate since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

“To suggest – as some Catholics do – that Senator Obama is this year’s ‘real’ pro-life candidate”, said Chaput in a recent address, requires “a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse.”

In terms of outspokenness, Scranton Bishop Joseph F. Martino has yet to be outdone, and may well affect the outcome in that Pennsylvania election battleground. Recently, the Bishop of Biden’s own hometown made what one veteran Catholic journalist called a bellicose “surprise cameo” at an election forum being held at a local parish church.

He addressed the USCCB’s Faithful Citizenship document directly.

“No USCCB document is relevant in this diocese,” said Martino. “The USCCB doesn’t speak for me.”

“The only relevant document ... is my [September pastoral letter, advising ‘public officials who are Catholic and who persist in public support for abortion’ to refrain from presenting themselves to receive communion],” he said. “There is one teacher in this diocese, and these points are not debatable.”

Scranton has been called “the town where a vote for Obama is an offence against God” – where voting Democrat is often a marker of social class and family tradition rather than ideology. Now that their bishop has forbidden them to support pro-choice candidates, some Scranton Catholics, like their counterparts across the nation, are conflicted.

Canon lawyer, journalist and author Pete Vere has worked for the Scranton diocese, among others. Speaking in his capacity as a canon law professor, he explains why clarity on the abortion issue matters in the 2008 election.

“Catholics are the biggest block of swing voters in the U.S.,” he said in an Examiner.com interview, “and have generally determined the outcome of every U.S. presidential election for the last generation. However, neither party truly represents Catholic teaching, so every election cycle Catholics begin weighing issues” again.

He explains that “evangelicals take a more horizontal view of the issues,” whereas “for Catholics the issues are hierarchical” with abortion at the top of the list.

Papal biographer George Weigel has emerged this year as a widely quoted voice for anti-Obama Catholics, explaining these “inside baseball” nuances in Newsweek and elsewhere.

Last week, he predicted the Catholic hierarchy’s response should Barack Obama win the White House, and raised the specter of American bishops leading, of all things, a tax revolt:

It seems unlikely that the bishops, having found their voices after discovering the limits of their patience, will back off in an Obama administration  (...)

"And should an Obama administration reintroduce large-scale federal funding of abortion, the bishops will have to confront a grave moral question they have managed to avoid for decades, thanks to the Hyde amendment: does the payment of federal taxes that go to support abortion constitute a form of moral complicity in an "intrinsic evil"?

“And if so,” Weigel ended ominously, “what should the conscientious Catholic citizen do?”