Dogma lives loudly, but bishops are silent?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 08, 2017

The US bishops’ conference has reacted quickly and angrily to Steve Bannon’s charge that the bishops have economic motives for supporting immigration. Good.

Now can we expect an equally quick robust response to the insinuation by US Senators that a faithful Catholic cannot be allowed to serve as a federal judge?

The Wall Street Journal, unlike the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, immediately recognized the danger in the unseemly questioning of Amy Barrett, and remarked in an editorial that it was “part of a broader effort on the left to disqualify people with strong religious views from the public square.”

Which statements posed a greater danger to the religious freedom of American Catholics: the personal opinions of a highly controversial man who is now a private citizen, or the insinuations of “respectable” lawmakers that someone who upholds Catholic dogma is unfit for public office?