There is a common misconception – among the secular community, but also among some Christians – that the Church should not speak on politics, and should not try to “impose” its views on anyone. To do so, the “keep it to yourself” crowd says, is disrespectful and “out of line”.
But in reality, everyone is trying to explain themselves to others, to convince others that their point of view is the right one. To say that only Catholics cannot participate in our pluralistic society’s great public conversation is discriminatory and unfair. In fact, it’s our mission to inspire change in the secular order. Pope John Paul II, in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Christifideles Laici,” wrote that the lay faithful “are called by God so that they… might contribute to the sanctification of the world.”
Presidential dissonance and “single-minded extremism”
And how should a Catholic in public office integrate his faith into his policies? I pose the question because Joe Biden, America’s second Catholic president, and his political supporters appear oblivious to the conflict between the President’s professed Catholic faith, and his sharply anti-Catholic political views. Or perhaps they simply don’t care.
The President seems to have a total disregard for Catholic teaching in so many areas, but especially on abortion, which he supports wholeheartedly. But also on the logic and necessity of living as male and female and respecting the bodies which God has given us, an idea which he rejects by his welcoming LGBTQ activists and the transgender lobby. Biden publicly endorsed “same-sex marriage” in 2012; and in 2016, while serving as vice president, he officiated at the “wedding” of two male White House staffers at the Naval Academy.
The Catholics that I meet in the pew often ask themselves and one another, “Why isn’t President Biden barred from receiving the Eucharist?” Indeed, while he calls himself a “devout Catholic,” his blatant disregard for Catholic teaching means, at least to many devout Catholics, that he is not aligned with the teaching of Christ and His Church. For that reason, they believe Biden should be denied the Eucharist – to preserve the dignity of the Sacrament, but also to prevent Mr. Biden from falling further into sin.
The Apostle Paul warned the Christians in Corinth that to receive the Eucharist unworthily is to be guilty of the Body and Blood of Our Lord (1 Cor 11:27). Paul doesn’t spell out what specific penalty the unworthy recipient would face; but it would be severe. So one might expect that someone who is so vociferously opposed to Church teaching as President Biden would not want to present himself to receive the Eucharist – and that if he did, he would be turned away by the priest whose responsibility it is to safeguard the Sacrament.
After President Biden announced last week that his highest priority would be codifying a national right to abortion, Archbishop William Lori, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, issued a statement emphasizing the constant teaching of the Catholic Church regarding the dignity of life. “The President is gravely wrong,” the statement said,
…to continue to seek every possible avenue to facilitate abortion instead of using his power to increase support and care to mothers in challenging situations. This single-minded extremism must end, and we implore President Biden to recognize the humanity in preborn children and the genuine life-giving care needed by women in this country.
The statement went on to confirm the Catholic Church’s commitment to protecting the right to life of every human being, and to ensuring that pregnant and parenting mothers are fully supported in the care of their children before and after birth.
The USCCB statement was a strong reiteration of the Church’s position, which is generally understood by its members but often ignored by those who speak only of “reproductive freedom” or “women’s rights” without considering the other, smaller human. There is a common misunderstanding, too, regarding the Establishment Clause in the Bill of Rights, which speaks of the “separation of church and state.”
JFK’s assurance and the present situation
When John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, competed for the office of the Presidency in 1960, there was a good amount of anti-Catholic bias in our nation. He won, in fact, only after telling American voters that he wouldn’t take orders from a pope. In a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, in front of hundreds of Protestant ministers, Kennedy assured them that he believed in an America where separation of church and state was absolute. He added that the Constitution required that federal aid should not be extended to Catholic schools; and he promised to disregard the teachings of the Catholic Church on matters such as “birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject.” Even at that, Kennedy won against Richard Nixon by a margin of only 112,827 votes – representing 0.18 percent.
One can argue, in hindsight, that by giving up the right to speak on matters of personal morality in the public square, Kennedy had abandoned his faith. Archbishop Charles Chaput said that Kennedy was “wrong about American history and very wrong about the role of religious faith in our nation’s life.” While acknowledging that there are more Catholics in American politics today than at any point in American history, Chaput wondered how many of those can coherently explain how their faith informs their work, or even feel obligated to try.
Some say, however, that the opposite was true: that prejudice against Catholics declined and millions were exposed to the Church’s rituals and teachings. Political science professor Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, talked about what he terms “the Kennedy effect” – the longstanding acceptance of Catholics across the political spectrum.
While the Kennedy presidency may have laid the groundwork for church/state relations, it did not close the book on the debate. Since that time, some American church leaders have been strong in their defense of the tenets of faith and directly focusing on the evil of abortion:
• In 1984, when Democrats nominated a Catholic, Geraldine Ferraro, for vice president, two bishops – James Timlin of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Archbishop John O’Connor of New York – publicly rebuked her for her defense of legalized abortion.
• In 1990, after he had been elevated to cardinal, Cardinal O’Connor spoke up again, warning Catholic politicians that failure to speak against abortion placed them “at risk of excommunication.”
• In 2003, Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston warned Catholic lawmakers that if they voted in favor of abortion legislation, they should stop receiving communion.
• In 2004, then-Archbishop Raymond Burke, a canon lawyer who had served as prefect of the Church’s highest court, warned Senator John Kerry, who was nominated by the Democratic Party to the ticket for president, that he would refuse Communion to the Senator, were he to present himself in the St. Louis Archdiocese, because of his support of abortion rights.
• In an August 2020 interview, Cardinal Raymond Burke reiterated his support for Catholic teaching on abortion, and emphasized that “no Catholic may support abortion in any shape or form because it is one of the most grievous sins against human life, and has always been considered to be intrinsically evil and therefore to in any way support the act is a mortal sin.”
• Archbishop Charles Chaput, in an address given last week, referred to Joe Biden’s “apostasy on the abortion issue” and said, “Mr. Biden is not in communion with the Catholic faith. And any priest who now provides Communion to the president participates in his hypocrisy.”
• Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington responded to President Biden’s pro-abortion advocacy, saying, “We witness firsthand the wounds women and men endure after ending the life of their child. It is clear that they deserve better than abortion. Through various ministries, the Diocese of Arlington accompanies those who have suffered the pain of abortion…. Any attempt to codify abortion, rather than to enact policies that support unborn children and mothers, should be met with peaceful, active and staunch opposition from the Catholic faithful and all people of good will.”
There is not likely to be a resolution to the problem anytime soon. But that shouldn’t keep faithful Catholics from understanding their faith and standing ready to explain it to our public officials, when necessary.
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Catholics, those who faithfully practice can only do as you recommend. Laity, indeed, would do well to follow your fine recommendations. Clergy because of their commission must do much more from the pulpit and elsewhere. Many, apparently the majority do not. Bishops, including some considered traditional, have a subdued approach that doesn’t inspire.
Our issue on abortion, many Catholics frequently the majority vote for pro abortion candidates – is leadership. We lack a clear, convincing voice. Occasional letters, condemning statements are ineffective. Insofar as our role within the Church we can, and should, in season and out of season address these issues of the faith with His Holiness.
The crux is the ambivalence, at times the suggested support of abortion rights by Pope Francis’ personal appointments to the Pontifical Academy on Life and other related dicasteries. His unwillingness to uphold canon 915 regarding Pres Biden, manifest in his criticism of Archbishop Cordileone for refusing Nancy Pelosi the Eucharist, accusing Cordileone of lacking pastoral sensitivity.
We can only hope and pray for Francis’ conversion of viewpoint, or a future pontiff who will ensure the practice of Catholic doctrine.
I modify my daily rosary to not pray for the Pope’s intentions but for his conversion. I leave it to God as to how deep the conversion experience needs to be. I fear very deep, as much as the reform of me from my sins is a matter very deep. Nonetheless, venial temptations crowd my mind when I presume to “advise” Our Lord how He might begin to accomplish this. One such scenario would involve a prominent “good Cardinal,” who normally whispers the winter of our discontent to the converted, confronting Francis at a public event, loudly, in front of the world press where everyone would be within earshot, about how he, rather than defending the Deposit of Faith, is deconstructing the Faith and creating the greatest crisis since the Protestant Revolution. Francis gives every appearance of not being cognizant that truth, all truth, not some truth, is immutable, a reflection of the unchaning mind of God. I fear this might require a big conversion. Fraternal correction is a ship that sailed to use a trite cliche, and he has created a bubble of yes-men around him.
There is evidence that he was shaken by that poster campaign in Rome of several years ago. The lives of the unborn can not wait for a future pope.
Prayer for the pope’s intentions is included as a condition for obtaining many indulgences. EWTN has a website with info, 1Peter5 and Fatima.org sites have articles explaining the origin of the practice. Fatima’s site claims there are six objective intentions for which the pope is to pray, and our prayers are also for these intentions.
The Exaltation of the Church
The Propagation of the Faith
The Extirpation of Heresy
The Conversion of Sinners
The Concord between Christian Princes
The Further Welfare of the Christian People
Biden, such an empty suit, yet so filled with aggressive deceit–the promised codification of evil…
Surely, even within our non-aristocratic democracy, he still merits a royal title of some sort. Many propose “Sleepy Joe.” But this is not befitting. So, considering Biden’s appropriation and defilement of the Church’s sacraments, and his zealous carnage against children yet unborn, might we propose from the Books of Maccabees: “Antiochus Epiphanes II”?
Biden’s outrageous claim to Catholicism speaks as insidiously to the corruption of faith and morals as does the pontiff’s silence.
“But that shouldn’t keep faithful Catholics from understanding their faith and standing ready to explain it to our public officials, when necessary.”
That’s fine. But shouldn’t our bishops — at a bare minimum — bar these heresiarchs from receiving the Eucharist?
And shouldn’t our priests be urging the people in the pews to vote their faith?
Honestly, I’m not sure how many Catholic bishops or priests actually believe what the Church teaches.
About abortion. About the Eucharist. About anything.
Think about it:
Abortion is the eighth sacrament of the American Catholic Church. If, in any election for the past half century, Catholics had voted their faith, pro-death candidates would have been swept out of office. And no candidate would ever touch the issue again.
But half of Catholics have consistently voted for abortion, and now it’s estimated that between one and three billion children around the world have been killed over the past half century.
When will our Church say, “Enough!”?
Tell me, Cardinal Cupich, Archbishop Gregory, Father Martin, what other “seamless garment” voting considerations should outweigh those billions of lives lost?
Runaway inflation?
Skyrocketing crime?
The highest risk of nuclear war since the early sixties?
The sexualization of children in public school primary grades?
U.S. taxpayer-funded drag queen story hours in classrooms in Ecuador?
The flood of illegals coming across the open borders?
The deadly fentanyl they bring in, resulting in record numbers of drug overdoses in the U.S.?
I am convinced that there is no Democratic policy so insane, so idiotic or so evil that half of Catholics will not…
Vote Democratic!
By his conduct he has already excommunicated himself, and the fact that he is still given Holy Communion is an ongoing scandal, as it was with Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, among MANY others – this has been going on for YEARS. It continues because there is no one in the position to do so who has the cojones to deny him and many others Holy Communion.
He is the personification of the phrase CINO – Catholic In Name Only.
“And how should a Catholic in public office integrate his faith into his policies? I pose the question because Joe Biden, America’s second Catholic president, and his political supporters appear oblivious to the conflict between the President’s professed Catholic faith, and his sharply anti-Catholic political views.”
Joe Biden isn’t a Catholic, and JFK wasn’t a Catholic while he was the president. To believe that abortion isn’t immoral is to be a heretic.
Supporting abortion – in the slightest – amounts to complicity with murder. As such, any politician who does so ought to be indicted with a crime.
“One can argue, in hindsight, that by giving up the right to speak on matters of personal morality in the public square, Kennedy had abandoned his faith.”
It is more like denial of faith. And it is impossible for a person to give up any “right to speak” with regards to morality. The hierarchy has a duty to speak with regards to the same and politicians have a duty to vote informed with their faith.
“Some say, however, that the opposite was true: that prejudice against Catholics declined and millions were exposed to the Church’s rituals and teachings. Political science professor Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, talked about what he terms “the Kennedy effect” – the longstanding acceptance of Catholics across the political spectrum.”
This is like saying that the reduction in prejudice against Catholics who denied their faith rather than be martyred was a good thing. To be accurate the above statement would need to have “Catholic” in place of Catholic. It also is an example of a Faustian bargain.
The “rule” that religious institutions must stay out of politics finds its roots in the law proposed by Lyndon B. Johnson and passed through Congress in the 1950s that required them to stay out of politics at the peril of their tax exempt states. The Constitution not only has no such requirement, but it supports the opposite. The government has no power over religion, according to the First Amendment; however, this is a one-way street in that it doesn’t prohibit religion from influencing the government — until LBJ’s law.
Johnson was not a “nice” person. Biden is also a deceitful person but his culpability is deeper because of his upbringing & knowledge. He tops of his perfidy with hypocrisy. Bad cess to him and the other evil “Catholic” politicians that beset us.
Thank you, Kathy, for this timely and excellent piece.
I agree that faithful Catholics should understand their faith and stand ready to explain it to public officials when necessary. The dilemma we have, it seems to me with all humility and due respect, is how we should react when we have a Pope who continually fails to do this but rather welcomes, endorses and praises pro abortion quisling catholic politicians.
• In 1990, after he had been elevated to cardinal, Cardinal O’Connor spoke up again, warning Catholic politicians that failure to speak against abortion placed them “at risk of excommunication.”
Well, 32 years later we can see how much of a false prediction that was.
The following quotes from Catholic Catechisms reflect Catholic dogma.
“Everything that exists depends on God and continues in being only because God wills it to be”. (YOUCAT 44)
“In God’s hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:10, CCC 2318)
“Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end.” (CCC 2258)
In addition, “Catechism of the Council of Trent” states, “… He nurtured us even in the womb, brought us into the world, and still supplies us with all the necessaries of life and maintenance.”
Let’s see how God does, by examining some scientific data regarding pregnancy in God’s natural world. In nature, 50 percent of all fertilized eggs are lost before a woman’s missed menses. Studies also reveal that anywhere from 10 to 25 percent of all clinically recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage.
Thus, if conditions regarding the pregnancy are not suitable and since the pregnancy is still in the hands of God, God ends it. God aborts it.
Science has even identified some of the ways God misses: fertilized eggs with chromosome abnormalities or those that don’t implant, blighted ovum, hormone complications, mother’s health, infections, trauma to uterus, diabetes, and parents’ ages. In all these cases, we don’t label the miscarriage as murder. It happens.
Couldn’t God simply have skipped some conceptions in the first place as a way of avoiding His acts of abortion?
Couldn’t external conditions such as rape, incest, serious accident, or an unwanted pregnancy motivate a mother to follow God’s example and abort?
After all, God also had no trouble killing innocent embryos in Noah’s flood (Genesis 7:8), the Passover slaughter (Exodus 12:29), or when Joshua leveled Jericho (Joshua 6:21).
Pope Francis, on September 10, 2014, said, “The mother Church, like Jesus, teaches by example.” In addition, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states in paragraph 2172 , “God’s action is the model for human action.”
The Roe v. Wade decision of January 22, 1973, and recent Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejecting abortion restrictions agree with the de facto Catholic position: Humans need to follow God’s example. if things are not going correctly, abort.
But, a state can now determine if the abortion is legal.
This is a such a crudely argued and embarrassing comment, it’s hard to know where to begin. A couple of observations:
• Quoting the Catechism as definitive on Point A (re: the nature of God and his work) and then trying to use to directly contradict the Catechism on Point B (the evil of abortion) is sophistic at best. The CCC does directly state: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law…” (par 2271).
• Your language about God indicates either willful twisting of what Catholics actually believe about God or simple cluelessness. The CCC, again, is helpful here: “God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil” (par 385). No, God does not “abort” or “miss”, etc. Catholics readily acknowledge that the mystery of evil is difficult, but they are also understand that free will, love, and human choice are not must mere words in the Faith–they really do mean something.
In short, you (like many skeptics–although you might not be a skeptic, per se) want to have your metaphysical and moral cake and eat it: you want God to make everything perfect but you also want freedom to do as you will. The contradiction should be obvious.
Carl – If you remove all your ‘put-downs’, all that remains is your agreeing there are contradictions in the catholic catechism. Are Catholics supposed to decide what to believe? (I think they already do decide for themselves.)
And, where in my piece do you find support that “you want God to make everything perfect”?
I also wish to remind you that you can’t use a mystery to prove anything.
And where, exactly, is your allowance for phony self-serving amoral self-delusion, which only happens to be the most common of human experiences, right up there with breathing.
I won’t engage the malevolence of your logic or the warped views of God presented in your post. Suffice it to say that your moral compass is not functioning properly and a review of basic biblical teachings about God’s nature and character might be in order here.
Richard. God who created all things is the ultimate cause of all things. Although, he is not the proximate cause of all things. He created them within their own order of causality. Otherwise creation would simply be an extension of himself, which is pantheism. Furthermore, he would be responsible for evil [as you imply], which contradicts his infinite goodness, his very self, in which good and existence are identical. For example, human freedom to act requires an independent will other than the will of God. Omnipotent beyond human limitations then, God created a universe with its own autonomy and its own variables. And man with free will.
To attribute natural physical deficits [accidents] in nature, miscarriages as abortions willed by God is a lack of understanding the difference between an omnipotent, infinitely good God, and not simply the limitations of one’s intellect, rather per your example the error of an anthropocentric interpretation of God and creature. Realize your limitations. Turn to God in humility.
Pete – You need to reread the following for content. Thanks.
The following quotes from Catholic Catechisms reflect Catholic dogma.
“Everything that exists depends on God and continues in being only because God wills it to be”. (YOUCAT 44)
“In God’s hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:10, CCC 2318)
“Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end.” (CCC 2258)
In addition, “Catechism of the Council of Trent” states, “… He nurtured us even in the womb, brought us into the world, and still supplies us with all the necessaries of life and maintenance.”
This pulls the rug from your argument.
What you quote here Richard supports the reality that God created all things and keeps them in existence. Certainly God wills all things to be, as they do in accord with their created nature, and the many variables living things as well as the inanimate experience. Within the laws of nature instilled in the physical world by God, entities co exist relative to each, and at times there are anomalies, and accidental failures.
The difference with man is free will. Your argument by necessity argues man does not have a free will. That God would abort his own creation, those created in his own image. That there consequently is no difference between good and evil. That whatever we do is fine since God wills it.
I think it is fair to reason that the wrath of God homicide stories in the Old Testament were allegorical. As for the fallacious canard repeated often by the truly simple minded that God is an abortionist because so many embryos fail to develop fully, that phenomenon is part and parcel with the enormous and magnificent complexity of living organisms. Trillions of things can go wrong but the miracle is that it is possible at all for trillions of trillions of molecular interactions to coordinate successfully. As for God’s position on miscarriages, they represent the deaths of some of his beloved children. Everyone dies; not everyone is killed by the deliberate act of another human being.
And only a moral simpleton would fail to appreciate the repercussions for a civilization, to law, to family stability, to economic impovishment, to self-respect that comes from treating life as a utilitarian commodity of convenience. Our willingness to resist the avoidance of sacrifice is one of God’s greatests gifts for those with eyes to see it.
Fortunately, not even every liberal Catholic is so simplistic and cowardly as to allow themselves to be influenced by the depravity and flat out stupidity of progressive moral theologians.
God gave man free will. If something goes wrong it only makes sense. Everyone thinks their reason for abortion was the exception. But we wont ourselves be able to judge that, that is for god. For a pluralistic society, simply allowing it and not sectioned off would be better. Do they expect different rules for different faiths? Jewish women want no restrictions. Are Jewish women satanic to Catholics now? I think Catholics know better. I want to believe that.
Most abortions happen under 30 and amongst women in poverty for a reason. States that allow abortions for longer have healthier women and babies. Better health outcomes for all. God speaks about life and its preservation. If we follow what his world informed us about life, we would give women the control.
We wonder why latino Catholics are more likely to support abortion. Well more come from a country that banned it or have a mother who directly lived under a ban.
I hope Catholics reading this will consider some notions. I admire a lot of what liberal Catholics have been doing instead of only wanting their faith represented.
We need to pray for and encourage the the Bishops attending the Mid November USCCB meetings in Baltimore to sanction Pres. Biden as he is a scandal to Catholics. I see some more Bishops having the courage to condemn his damaging retoric lately but we would like to see more courage and a consensus at the USCCB meeting. Lay Catholics need the reassurance from their Bishops as there doesn’t seem to be any coming from Rome.
To the author: How can ordinary Catholics have any confidence that the Church’s leadership will have their backs? Your column is best addressed to a clutch of Cardinals who are the de facto USCCB leadership – Cupich, Tobin, McElroy, Gregory – and a swath of bishops who are in fact all pro choice. Ordinary Catholics have stuck their necks out long enough only to realize that the hierarchs (including a pope who talks a good game and then appoints one pro-abortionist after another) consider pro-life Catholics to be deplorables and insurrectionists. By the way, at least one of the hierarchs you give honorable mention to has since retracted his warning and now frets that denying communion is making the Eucharist political. (Oddly, it’s not political to GIVE communion to pro-abortion politicians.) Read his address to his seminarians. Ordinary Catholics have been burned too often. And I bet you feel the same way. Fess up!