Taken to extremes

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 07, 2004

For weeks now, Catholic Americans have been arguing back and forth about whether bishops should discipline pro-abortion Catholic politicians. Most American bishops, clearly, are loath to act.

OK, so let's push the argument a bit, to consider a more extreme case.

Suppose, instead of lay Catholics who have taken an oath to protect the Constitution, the people promoting abortion were members of a religious community, who had taken vows of obedience, and who could not continue to act without the canonical approval of the local bishop.

Suppose the support for abortion came not in a vote on a complicated piece of legislation, but in a cash donation, to a group set up specifically to back political candidates who endorse abortion.

Then would the bishop take action?

These are not hypothetical questions. This is an actual case. If the Archbishop of Detroit doesn't take action in this case, we won't have to wait for the McCarrick Commission's report; we'll know that the US bishops determined to stay on the sidelines.