{"id":127,"date":"2008-10-22T20:00:33","date_gmt":"2008-10-22T20:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2008\/10\/catholic-bishops-a-pox-on-both.html"},"modified":"2008-10-22T20:00:33","modified_gmt":"2008-10-22T20:00:33","slug":"catholic-bishops-a-pox-on-both","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/10\/catholic-bishops-a-pox-on-both.html","title":{"rendered":"Catholic bishops: A pox on both parties on abortion…"},"content":{"rendered":"

A statement today from top leaders of the American hierarchy<\/a> seems to say that neither side has the best–or most Catholic–approach to abortion. Or that’s how it reads to me.
\n“Both opposing evil and doing good are essential obligations,” write Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development. They are quoting “Faithful Citizenship,” the bishops’ election guide–and the only one, they stress again, that is authorized, a clear swipe at conservative groups who are distributing their own “voter guides” in an effort to bolster McCain. The bishops continue:<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, there seem to be efforts and voter education materials designed to persuade Catholics that they need only choose one approach: either opposing evil or doing good. This is not an authentically Catholic approach.
\nSome argue that we should not focus on policies that provide help for pregnant women, but just focus on the essential task of establishing legal protections for children in the womb. Others argue that providing lifeaffirming support for pregnant women should be our only focus and this should take the place of efforts to establish legal protections for unborn children. We want to be clear that neither argument is consistent with Catholic teaching. Our faith requires us to oppose abortion on demand and to provide help to mothers facing challenging pregnancies.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Read the CNS story here<\/a>…)
\nThis seems clearly aimed at those Catholics (like, most recently and forthrightly, Nicholas Cafardi) who say the legal battle is largely over, and we must focus on social policy. The bishops don’t want to raise the white flag, and in fact folks like Cafardi et al don’t want to either. They are being realists. (Read “A Catholic Brief for Obama”<\/a> in the latest Newsweek.)
\nBut I also think they were trying to calm the waters following a host of episodes, such as the latest remarks by Archbishop Chaput of Denver, this “Judgment Day” column<\/a> by St. Louis auxiliary, Bishop Robert J. Hermann, and, most publicly, Scranton Bishop Martino’s party-crashing intervention at a parish seminar<\/a> on the election.
\nThe bishops are all over the map in this campaign, and some predict “blood on the floor” when they meet to hash out their views on electioneering after Election Day. The Rigali-Murphy brief may be an effort to find some common ground, or simply calm in these final weeks.
\nTo that end, check out Father Tom Reese’s latest at the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog, “Something New in the Abortion Debate.”<\/a> It’s a typically insightful take on both politics and the church, and has an onblique challenge to siome of the more outspoken prelates:<\/p>\n

“One wonders why these maverick bishops don’t just endorse their favorite candidates like some Protestant ministers (e.g., Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Pat Robertson) do. It would not be a violation of the constitution or tax laws for them to endorse a candidate, as long as they did it as private citizens and did not use church facilities or funds.” Perhaps they are afraid to break ranks so completely from the other bishops and from their own people, who don’t like their clergy endorsing candidates.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’d also point to the closing graf of today’s statement, which again stresses the primacy of “Faithful Citizenship” while also pointing to documents from bishops. And it also knocks guides from outside groups that are being distributed, largely by conservative groups:<\/p>\n

“In light of a wide range of attempts to interpret Church teaching or imply that outside materials represent the teaching of the Church, we wish to affirm that Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship is the teaching that has been approved by the body of bishops of the United States. As we explained in that statement, ‘We encourage Catholics to seek those resources that are authorized by their own bishops, their state Catholic conferences, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.’ “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So were does that leave the Catholic voter? With the duty to inform their conscience, and inform themselves about policy, and refrain from anathematizing those who may make a different decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A statement today from top leaders of the American hierarchy seems to say that neither side has the best–or most Catholic–approach to abortion. Or that’s how it reads to me. “Both opposing evil and doing good are essential obligations,” write Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-catholic","category-church","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nCatholic bishops: A pox on both parties on abortion... - Pontifications<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/10\/catholic-bishops-a-pox-on-both.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Catholic bishops: A pox on both parties on abortion... - Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A statement today from top leaders of the American hierarchy seems to say that neither side has the best–or most Catholic–approach to abortion. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}