Abortion-Supporting Politicians Are “Agents of Evil” says Fargo Bishop

FARGO, December 20, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a recent address to visiting US bishops, Pope John Paul II mentioned his concern about what he called the “serious pastoral problems” of a Catholic laity that has failed to understand the “duty…to act in accordance with (the church’s) authoritative teaching.” He reminded the bishops of their duty to teach the laity the true social teaching of the Church, a social teaching that categorically rules out the ‘personally opposed but’ position on abortion and euthanasia claimed by many politicians who call themselves Catholic.  Anticipating the Pope’s concerns, Samuel J. Aquila, Bishop of Fargo, has issued a pastoral letter that examines the roots of dissent among Catholic laity and many clergy. In the letter, dated November 30, the bishop wrote, “all too often the catechetics…have failed to hand on the Catholic faith.”  He says that politicians who support abortion, “do not merely cooperate with a grave evil but are principal agents in a grave evil.”  In May, LifeSiteNews.com reported that Bishop Aquila made one of the strongest statements during the presidential election campaign when he said that pro-abortion ‘Catholic’ politicians risked the ‘possibility of hell’ for their promotion of abortion.  In the latest letter, Bishop Aquila writes on the necessity of ending abortion to obtain a just society. Quoting the Catholic Catechism, he calls the right to life a “constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation.”“Genocidal laws in Nazi Germany, Russia, and China, and laws upholding slavery in our own country were neither right nor just, for they denied the dignity of the human person with horrific consequences,” he says.  The letter titled, “‘You Will Know the Truth and the Truth Will Set You Free,’ A Pastoral Letter on Deepening our Understanding of the Truths of the Catholic Faith,” addresses what the bishop calls sources of “confusion” for Catholics. He writes on the requirement of Catholics to believe the doctrines of their faith. “Instead of trying to appropriate the faith and treating it as a standard for judging the values of the unbelieving culture that surrounds us, people all too often judge which Church teachings to accept on the basis of whether they conform to the values of the surrounding culture.”  To read the full text of Bishop Aquila’s inspiring letter (pdf format):  https://www.fargodiocese.org/Bishop/Homilies/PastoralOnTruth.pdf   Previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/may/04050704.html   ph