American prelates rebuke 'pro-choice' Catholics
August 26, 2008
With Church-state disputes swirling around the Democratic Party convention in Denver, Archbishop Chaput and his auxiliary, Bishop James Conley, set the record straight with a public statement: "On the Separation of Sense and State." Their opening lines indicate the strength of their excellent statement:
Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the "separation of Church and state." But their idea of separation often seems to work one way.
In Washington, Archbishop Donald Wuerl issued his own public statement, pointing out that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has distorted the clear and constant teaching of the Church on the immorality of abortion.
Next the US bishops' conference weighed in on the same issue, as did with a group of 10 Catholic congressmen. Their statements, too, presented Church teaching with admirable clarity. Pelosi, the USCCB statement observed, based her argument on "uninformed and inadequate theories about embryology" held by medieval theologians. That's right; Pelosi bases her case on the scientific-- not theological, scientific-- views of medieval teachers.
John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter had predicted that American hierarchy would be loath to revisit the debate on Catholicism and abortion-- a debate from which most American bishops shrank during the 2004 campaign. "Perhaps the most disappointed group in America over the choice of a Roman Catholic as the party’s nominee for Vice-President may well be the country’s Catholic bishops," Allen wrote.
Perhaps they would have been happier if the question had not been forced upon them. But willingly or not, in these last few days the American bishops have responded clearly and convincingly.
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Further information:
- Archbishop Chaput, Bishop Conley: On the separation of sense and state (Archdiocese of Denver)
- Archbishop Wuerl on the Church’s constant teaching (Archdiocese of Washington)
- Bishops' conferences responds to House Pelosi’s misrepresentations (USCCB)
- Catholic Congressmen say Pelosi remarks (h/t to American Papist)
- With Biden pick, America's bishops face a familiar headache (John Allen/National Catholic Reporter)
- Are Obama and Pelosi dodging the life-and-death question? (George Weigel/Newsweek)
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