a first step toward disenfranchising Catholics

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | May 07, 2010

Today's CWN headline story from Wisconsin provides an illustration of how critics of Catholicism might move to silence the public voice of the Church. It's a frightening episode.

Begin with a piece of legislation that was framed to allow more lawsuits by abuse victims-- with the Catholic Church as the primary target. Whether or not this legislation was desirable, clearly the Church would have a legitimate interest in addressing the proposal. Lobbyists for the Church spoke with state legislators. And then the Church's critics-- in this case SNAP-- went to work.

One legislator, a practicing Catholic, told a former colleague that he planned to remain a practicing Catholic, attending Mass and receiving Communion every Sunday, and his approach to the proposed legislation would reflect his loyalty to his Church. From that inoffensive statement, a former colleague leapt to the preposterous conclusion that the Church had threatened to withhold Communion from the lawmaker if he supported the bill. With that, the campaign to disenfranchise the Church (and, by the way, the Catholic legislator) was underway. 

Already on the defensive as the main target of the proposed legislation, the Church was now asked to respond to a ridiculous charge. SNAP raised the suggestion that the bishops of Wisconsin were threatening ecclesiastical reprisals against lawmakers who opposed the Church's stance. Anyone who knows anything about contemporary American Catholicism-- anyone who knows how very reluctant the US bishops have been to sanction even those politicians who support the killing of the unborn-- realizes that the charge is absurd.

But if you believe the charge, then you have a good reason to say that Catholic bishops should not be allowed to influence legislators. To be safe, you might say that bishops should be barred from any public statements on political issues. To be safer still, you could point out that any practicing Catholic is subject to ecclesiastical influence, so practicing Catholics should be ineligible for public office. In short you would ban Catholics from political life.

SNAP claims to be working for simple equity: to prevent the Church from exerting undue influence in the political system. But the logic of SNAP's charge suggests the use of the political system to silence the voice of the Church.