US Bishops Correct 55 Representatives on Abortion

by Hilary White
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  WASHINGTON, March 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has responded to the Statement of Principles’ issued last week in which 55 Catholic members of the House of Representatives exposed themselves as being pro-abortion. The bishops’ statement was signed by Cardinals William Keeler of Baltimore and Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, both of whom are regarded as liberal on social and moral issues.
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  The USCCB statement welcomed the Representatives’ for their “efforts that seek to examine how Catholic legislators bring together their faith and their policy choices.”
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  The Representatives claimed last week that their priority was to create the social conditions necessary in which women did not feel the need to resort to abortion. This circuitous approach has been favored in the Democratic party since their defeat in the last presidential election when exit polls showed their militant support for abortion on demand was not shared by the majority of the electorate.
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  The Representatives wrote, “We agree with the Catholic Church about the value of human life and the undesirability of abortion, we do not celebrate its practice.” The Church, however, does not teach that abortion is merely “undesireable” but that it is “an unspeakable crime” that “cries to heaven” for justice and that it must be vigorously and unequivocally opposed by all people of good will.
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  The Bishops’ response avoids such strong terms but does correct the presumption that abortion is of equal gravity with other social problems. “At the same time,” their response reads, “we also need to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s constant teaching that abortion is a grave violation of the most fundamental human right – the right to life that is inherent in all human beings, and that grounds every other right we possess.”
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“While it is always necessary to work to reduce the number of abortions by providing alternatives and help to vulnerable parents and children, Catholic teaching calls all Catholics to work actively to restrain, restrict and bring to an end the destruction of unborn human life.”
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  The so-called “seamless garment” theory of Catholic social teaching that introduced the idea that such problems as homelessness and wage parity are morally equivalent to abortion was introduced not by Democrats, but by the leading Cardinal of the US Church, the late Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago. Catholic politicians in the US have used it as a guide for excusing themselves from taking a strong position against abortion and past statements from the US episcopate on the moral responsibilities of Catholic electors and legislators have failed to correct the notion.
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  Another popular theological innovation was cited by the Representatives, that of so-called “primacy of conscience” in which liberal Catholics grant themselves absolution for opposing their Church on a variety of issues. The bishops answer, “As Catholic legislators seek to act in accord with their own consciences, it is essential to remember that conscience must be consistent with fundamental moral principles. As members of the Church, all Catholics are obliged to shape our consciences in accord with the moral teaching of the Church.”
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  Read previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/mar/06030202.html