TORONTO, October 14, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As the date of the US election draws closer, opposition from the Catholic Church to Kerry’s stance on abortion garners more attention from the press.
The incoherence of the ‘personally opposed but…’ position popular with politicians who want to appear Catholic but still support abortion on demand, has come under fire from a number of US bishops, most prominently Archbishop James Burke of St. Louis. But other dioceses and individual parishes around the country are distributing pamphlets and voters’ guides supporting the Catholic teaching and urging Catholics not to vote for Kerry. It was in St. Louis that Kerry, in a “town hall” televised debate, called the Catholic position on abortion ‘an article of faith’ that he would not ‘impose’ on non-Catholic constituents. In the last days of the very close race, it is becoming urgent for both candidates to capture the Catholic vote. In an article in today’s Globe and Mail, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic college known for its ‘liberal’ approach to Catholicism, said that the bishops do not have the support of Catholics in their opposition to Kerry. David Leege said, “So bishops do this at their own risk. They run the risk of losing even more of their moral authority, which in the United States is in somewhat short supply after the pedophile scandal.” One Canadian political analyst disagrees saying that it is difficult to see how exercising their authority in a Catholic way on a moral issue, would hurt the bishops’ moral authority. David Warren, a political columnist for the Ottawa Citizen and the US based Catholic magazine, Crisis, said that to accuse the bishops of partisan politicking in this presidential race shows an ignorance of the purpose of Catholic episcopate. He told LifeSiteNews.com, “Bishops have always had a duty to oppose candidates. The duty to protect their flock compels them to point to the location of wolves. The fact that one candidate is a wolf and there are only two candidates might create the appearance, to the logically-impaired, that the bishops are endorsing a particular candidate, but that is only a matter of interpretation.”“There is no bias in distinguishing a wolf from a sheep,” Warren said. Globe and Mail article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041014/CAMP14/TPInternational/Americas ph