The Catholic Choice

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When the bishops found that their efforts to convince Catholic laypersons to support pro-life legislation-and oppose personal use of birth control and abortion-were unsuccessful, they turned their attention to more visible targets: Catholic politicians. In 1989, a California bishop told a state assemblywoman that she was required to refrain from taking Communion because she supported abortion rights. The next year, the archbishop of Guam threatened to excommunicate any Catholic politician who voted against a bill prohibiting abortion except when the life of the mother was threatened-the most restrictive abortion legislation in any U.S. state or territory. That same year, Bishop Reiss of Trenton announced the pro-choice Catholic politicians were barred from speaking at church-sponsored events, and New York's Cardinal O'Connor wrote in diocesan newspapers that these same politicians "must be warned that they are at risk of excommunication."

This strategy of making examples of Catholic politicians was codified in a way in the 1998 NCCB statement "Living the Gospel of Life." The bishops did not mince words: "Catholic public officials who disregard church teaching on the inviolability of the human person indirectly collude in the taking of innocent life." In an ominous note bordering on a spiritual threat, the bishops wrote, "We urge those Catholic officials. to consider the consequences for their own spiritual well-being, as well as the scandal they risk by leading others into serious sin." Catholic public officials are appropriate targets of attention and pressure, they explained, because their high-profile status puts them in a position to influence ordinary Catholics. They have a special responsibility to be model Catholics and to uphold the Church's teaching.

This is the logic that some Catholic officials have continued to apply when arguing that pro-choice Catholic senators should not "consider themselves Catholic." But if Catholic politicians are considered prominent models in the community, why not Catholic judges? Justice Anthony Kennedy weighed in with the majority in 1992 when Casey v. Planned Parenthood reaffirmed the legality of abortion. Surely his actions had no less impact on abortion politics than the votes of Ted Kennedy on abortion legislation. Why, then, has the Church not expanded its coercion campaign to the judiciary as well?

Perhaps for the same reason that conservative Catholics dogged Kerry last year but appeared not to notice when the Republican Convention featured three pro-choice Republicans-Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, and Arnold Schwarzenegger-in prime-time speaking slots. Perhaps for the same reason that the injunction for Catholic politicians to uphold Church teaching does not extend to issues such as welfare or poverty or war or the death penalty. The bishops are political men. Their political involvement extends only as far as they can get away with. So they recognize that seeking to influence the votes of political representatives is on an entirely different plane from seeking to do the same with judges.

After all, the logic behind activities such as the Justice Sunday gatherings is that the judiciary has been antifaith-what we need to do, so the argument goes, is make sure that judges are simply neutral to people of faith. But if bishops tried to insist that Catholic judges have a responsibility to rule in certain ways, that would be a promotion not of a neutral judiciary, but of a sectarian judiciary. If voters feel an elected representative bases his decisions too much on religious beliefs, they can kick him out of office. Most judges, however, are not elected but appointed, and could not be removed if citizens believed them to be inappropriately relying on religious tenets instead of the law.

All of which puts the American Catholic Church in a difficult position. The conservative bishops face two unappealing options. They can throw their weight around by trying to interfere with judicial rulings and risk a public backlash. Or they can do nothing and reveal their policy for dealing with Catholic public officials for what it is-a political, partisan tactic.

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