absent with leave

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Oct 30, 2006

The Michigan gubernatorial race sets a pro-life challenger, Dick Devos, against a pro-abortion Catholic, the incumbent Jennifer Granholm. The Fumare blog has been watching this campaign intently:

Recent television ads by Governor Granholm directly attack her Republican challenger Dick DeVos's position on abortion and stem cell research as "extreme." Despite the fact that this is a direct attack on Catholic moral teaching by an ostensibly Catholic Governor, the Catholic Church in Michigan is silent.

Note that Granholm's position on abortion is not reluctantly held, nor does she apologize for it as the regrettable price to be paid for getting her party's nomination -- on the contrary, she singles out her opponent as unworthy to be elected precisely because of the Catholic stance he takes.

Once again we face the historical irony that the second Vatican Council, which encouraged lay Catholics to bring their faith to public and political endeavors, has in large measure had the opposite effect. Think of the Catholic countries that have legalized divorce, abortion, embryo destruction, sodomy; think of the Catholic pols that support these innovations without ecclesial reprimand. When lay Catholics defy the Church on these issues their bishops tend to make themselves scarce, muttering that it's not the Church's role to take sides -- not even on her own teaching. If the Council had taught that the chief duty of a Catholic was to flee the world, to make personal reparation for sin through private prayer and penance, would the current situation look any different?