in the high grass

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jan 20, 2007

Don't miss Fr. Richard Neuhaus's post on the First Things blog concerning what he calls "the deep realignment of religious, cultural, and political dynamics resulting from [Roe v Wade]." The role played by U.S. Catholics in the drama was, and is, exasperatingly double-edged. When it comes to abortion, the vocational role-reversal is almost total: Catholic politicians have tended to be uncompromising on the issue (both pro and con), whereas the key bishop-players have been masters of ambivalence. Two excerpts:

What the bishops like to think of as their fraternal solidarity was badly shaken when it appeared that, in the meeting of the bishops' conference, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, then archbishop of Washington, misrepresented to them a communication from then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI). As it turned out, Ratzinger had said that, when all pastoral efforts of persuasion failed, it would be appropriate to advise those who publicly and persistently reject the Church's teaching that they should refrain from Communion and, if they still refused to do so, to deny them Communion.

And here's what Neuhaus says about New York's most prominent pro-abortion Catholics, Rudolph Giuliani and George Pataki:

Note that the politicians in question in these instances are not struggling with the moral questions involved or trying to reconcile their position with the Church's teaching. At least there is no public evidence of such struggle, nor any suggestion by the bishops that their longstanding and adamant support for the unlimited abortion license should be a matter of concern.

In a word, we are an Easter People.