It seems to be all-abortion-all-the-time for some of these jokers, and I call them that because whatever their theological expertise on which they base their instructions to their congregations, they are too stupid to see how the Republican Party plays them year after year after year on this issue and never changes a single thing in terms of abortion. And I suspect they never will, because if they managed to overturn Roe V. Wade (which they will never do) or actually enact any laws that made a difference, they would lose every election afterwards. They would lose for two reasons: 1. A majority of the American people see the Repubican ideology as wrong on nearly every other issue and would cease believing there was a reason to vote Republican once abortion lost its value as a wedge issue, and 2) the pro-choice forces would launch a fierce campaign to protect abortion rights in states and would most likely win most of them.
The current extremist Bishop of Scranton, Pa., Joseph Martino, has sent out a letter instructing all voters in his diocese that
Abortion is the issue this year and every year in every campaign...Catholics may not turn away from the moral challenge that abortion poses for those who seek to obey God’s command. They are wrong when they assert that abortion does not concern them, or that it is only one of a multitude of issues of equal importance. No, the taking of innocent life is so heinous, so horribly evil, and so absolutely opposite to the law of the Almighty God that abortion must take precedence over every other issue. I repeat. It is the single most important issue confronting not only Catholics, but the entire electorate.
Now the Bishop lives in a nation that grants him free speech, so he has every right to say whatever he wants to say, but the man is completely wrong about the connection between voting and abortion.
I agree with him that abortion is a significant moral issue - for each individual. I find it interesting, however, that many bishops in this country find abortion to be the only moral issue for which an individual is not allowed to follow his or her conscience. On every other issue of significance - divorce, war, the death penalty, even suicide, the Church offers some leeway in the individual conscience of the person- or at least compassion for the person facing these moral challenges. And the church does not become so unhinged regarding how one should vote on issues related to these other issues, all of which have been issues in elections at one time or another. I also don't recall the Church ever insisting voters had to vote against racism or discrimination or hate crimes - at least not with the same ferocity they use against abortion - or even against war, where millions of "innocents," born and unborn, are obliterated by American bombs.
The fact is that the president has little to do with abortion politics, in reality. Yes, there is the Supreme Court, but here a vote for McCain or a vote for Obama would not be that different. Yes, Obama will likely not appoint conservative judges, but neither would McCain. He knows a Senate with a Democratic majority (and a likely 60 member majority) would never confirm such judges, so he will have to pick moderates who likely will uphold the current law of the land regarding abortion. That being the case, it seems much more sensible to elect the better candidate on other issues, like the economy and the war, two issues that might determine whether or not this country survives. And on these issues, a majority of the people favor Obama.
Another point about which Bishops like Bishop Martino appear completely ignorant is the long history of abortion and what happens in places where abortion is illegal. Simply put, it doesn't stop. Women always have and always will seek abortion. As long as men rape women and molest their daughters, as long as priests molest young girls in their parishes, as long as husbands demand sexual submissiveness from their wives, as long as poverty makes it impossible to feed another child, as long as women's lives are in danger from complicated pregnancies, as long as women in some countries are executed for infidelity or for having been raped, as long as ignorant parents and teachers and clergy and presidents named Bush think you can prevent teen pregnancy with abstinence only education, as long as the Church condemns birth control, women and girls will seek abortions. If they can't secure them legally, they will get them illegally, and many will die in the process.
Interestingly, during the Democratic Clinton administration, the number of abortions went down in comparison to the Republican Reagan and Bush I administrations. There's a simple reason for this: the policies of Democrats are actually more conducive to such reductions. Democrats are better at providing birth control and sex education, and Democrats reduce poverty directly with anti-poverty measures, and indirectly by improving the economy. So while Democrats do not want to outlaw abortion (this doesn't make them "pro-abortion," it makes them anti-criminalization, and there is a big difference), they manage to save more unborn lives than their anti-abortion counterparts in the Republican Party. But Bishop Martino doesn't want people to vote on the basis of reality, he wants them to vote on the basis of theology, which is just one more type of ideology - something that dominates Republican politics, and has pretty much failed over the past 28 years.
Furthermore, the Catholic Church has a terrible track record in areas of treatment of women and sexual morality and therefore, in my opinion, has lost its moral authority to preach on these issues, including the issue of abortion.
I have heard many sermons on abortion, but never one on rape or incest or molestation or sexual responsibility and respect in marriage. When the Catholic Church starts tackling these issues which lead to unwanted pregnancy, then maybe their preaching on abortion will have more legitimacy. Furthermore, the Catholic Church has harbored and enabled pedophiles for decades within their clergy and up through the heirarchy. This also disqualifies them as moral authorities.
As for their treatment of women for 2000 years, it has been despicable. Their approach to abortion is just one more example. Do bishops ever consider the woman's perspective, what it is like to be raped or treated as sexual objects? What it is like to be molested by your stepfather? Can they even imagine what it's like for hundreds of thousands of poor women, married to louts who come home at night with their meager pay demanding the one recreational drug they can afford - sex - and then yelling at the wife if she becomes pregnant?
Of course they can't imagine this. They have no wives, they have no intimate relationships with women. Some have intimate relationships with men, due to the high rate of homosexuality in the priesthood, but they cannot possibly understand a woman's perspective. The fact is that in the Catholic Church, women have only been given two options: nun or baby machine. The Church, as we know, even condemns birth control. For 2000 years women have been second class persons in the Church, much less important than men, much less deserving of understanding and respect. I can grant you this: if men were the ones who gave birth, if men were treated as sexual objects by women, and if men still had all the power in the Church, the entire issue would be handled differently.
There's a lot the Church could do to help reduce abortions without overturning Roe V. Wade - implementing programs for poor pregnant women, compassionate sermons in support of desperate women, programs to educate about respectful sex in marriage, sex education for teens, and changing their ridiculous birth control policy. What won't work is this one strategy to try to influence elections so that Roe V. Wade might be overturned. Because it is not going to happen. No matter who is elected in three weeks, Roe will not be overturned. And in the slight chance that it will, the matter will only return to each state where in a majority, abortion will remain legal.
More and more I see the Catholic Church as out of touch with reality and meddling in politics when they know nothing about women, sex, biology, psychology, history, how our government works, or how the Republican party uses them to win election after election while never actually doing anything.
If they continue with this nonsense of threatening damnation to Catholics who do not vote for the Republican, I sincerely hope they lose their tax exempt status, because they have chosen not to be a church that cares for the people and uses its authority to change hearts. Instead they have become a church that has adopted a legal and political strategy to impose their theology on a democratic nation that frankly sees it differently. Furthermore, in this ridiculous and doomed-to-fail legal quest, they are throwing to the winds the fate of the nation - and are telling their members it doesn't matter how old, how ignorant, how shameless, how wrong-headed, how cruel, how racist, how warmongering, how empty-headed, how callous and crude, how neglectful of the poor, how incompetent a presidential or vice presidential candidate is, if he or she talks the anti-abortion talk, he or she is the only one good Catholics can vote for and not go to hell.
In demanding their flock vote for the "pro-life" candidate, the Bishops who adopt this dictatorial strategy are acting like poker players who know nothing about poker. In an effort to win the entire pot, they are willing to lose all their money on a single hand when they could play more conservatively and at least come out ahead. In an effort to overturn a Supreme Court decision, they are backing an inferior candidate who likely will not reduce abortions at all, though he may kill a lot of innocents in the many wars he wants to wage, and totally condemning the "pro-choice" candidate who will likely be much more successful in other ways in reducing the number of abortions.
One has to wonder whether all they care about is screaming their heads off and making a scene rather than really doing something. Do they only want to win a legal battle, which may not really change anything, or are they actully interested in saving unborn lives?
It seems to me they have made enough of a mess in their own backyard, with their ongoing pedophilia scandal (anyone who thinks this is over is dreaming - as long as celibacy remains the rule there will be sexual bad behavior in the priesthood) and should reform themselves before they insert themselves into the political world.
How did Jesus put it? The beam in your own eye?
UPDATE: An interesting and much more realistic take on the abortion issue from theologian Fr. Richard McBrien of Notre Dame. Worth reading.
