By Kathleen Gilbert
ST. LOUIS, Missouri, April 22, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Bishop Robert Carlson of Saginaw, Mich. has been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to succeed Abp. Raymond Burke as head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. A Minneapolis native, Archbishop Carlson also served in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, from 1994 to 2005.
Carlson, the bishop who in 2003 famously ordered former Sen. Majority Leader and strong abortion advocate Tom Daschle to cease calling himself Catholic, is well known as a strong defender of the Church’s pro-life teachings.
On the eve of the U.S. presidential election last November, Carlson urged Saginaw Catholics in a pastoral letter to vote according to the “special burden on the conscience” posed by the abortion issue.
While acknowledging that a given moral consideration can theoretically be outweighed by other issues, Carlson noted that “all issues do not have the same weight.”
“Can any other issue, or combination of issues, attain sufficient gravity to outweigh the directly willed destruction of 1 million children every year?” he then asked rhetorically.
The bishop issued a similar letter in August 2004, encouraging his flock in Sioux Falls to repudiate “faulty thinking today that all life issues are equal or the same.” He also tightly adhered to statements by the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, that a vote for a pro-abortion politician, even for reasons other than his support for abortion, constitutes material cooperation with evil.
In his 2004 letter Carlson recalled his October 2000 statement that one cannot vote for the more pro-abortion candidate and remain a Catholic in good standing.
“Understand that this is not simply one bishop’s opinion, but is the truth as revealed to us through the church founded by Christ,” he had warned.
In 2003, Bishop Carlson told South Dakotan pro-abortion advocate Tom Daschle to remove all references to his membership in the Catholic Church from his congressional biography and campaign documents, according to a Weekly Standard Report.
The Standard reports that in 1997, Carlson decried an abortion “compromise” Daschle had proposed as a “smokescreen” designed to “provide cover for pro-abortion senators and President Clinton.” Daschle had retaliated, saying his bishop’s comments were “more identified with the radical right than with thoughtful religious leadership.”
“NARAL claims him as one of their number-one supporters,” Carlson replied. “I don’t understand how he can be in touch with South Dakotans as much as he is, and yet consistently have a pro-abortion record.”
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
U.S. Bishop Carlson: Faith Compels Catholics to Make Abortion Prime Vote Consideration
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/aug/04080902.html
Highest Ranking U.S. Democrat Ordered to Stop Calling Himself Catholic
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/apr/03041701.html
Bishop and Governor Intervene to have Offensive Material Removed from South Dakota State Library Site
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/jul/04071309.html
Michigan Bishop to Voters: Abortion can Only be Outweighed by an Evil Equivalent “in Number and Kind”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08110302.htm