The Roman Catholic majority on the U.S. Supreme Court no doubt will tuck into their judicial robes the latest billet doux from their cardinals and bishops about how Catholics of conscience must react to abortion.
The newest voters’ guide (http://www.nccbuscc.org/bishops/index.shtml) from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops–“Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States”–puts the matter plainly:
Along with euthanasia, human cloning, destruction of human embryos, abortion must “always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned.”
It’s true the document of 40 some pages, along with a shorter version, “The Challenge of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” (pun intended), when it comes to voting for political candidates provides an escape zipper:
Catholics with well formed consciences might discover moral reasons for marking yes after the name of someone who favors abortion. The documents leave it to the reader to figure out why and when.
The bishops, however, do not leave it to the imagination about the law and abortion.
They call it a “mistake with grave moral consequences to treat the destruction of innocent human life merely as a matter of individual choice. A legal system that violates the basic right to life on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed.”
Among the Catholic justices on the court, Chief Justice John Roberts has scampered around how he might come down on a clear-cut abortion case. Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have not: They’d outlaw abortion. Samuel Alito has hinted he would too. Anthony Kennedy, now the decider on a nine-member court otherwise often split four-four, leaves us guessing on his final attitude toward abortion. Kennedy enjoys being the court’s swing vote. He gets to write a lot of decisions.
The bishops’ manifesto is worth the reading. They condemn racism, torture (the White House shudders), war, executions, exploitation of workers, deprivation of children, thumb-screwing the poor, hatred of migrants, the usual grist of American practice and politics.
The prelates remain tight-lipped about homosexuals, except to say marriage must be between a man and woman. They want government money, however disguised, to help pay for putting your kids in a Catholic school and they want the government to keep doling out bucks to “faith-based” outfits, which, they say, should be allowed to discriminate against hires who hold to different, offensive religious values.
Finally, they want a taste of government censorship to keep bad things away from the eyes of children and other corruptibles.
They don’t carp about divorce. That’s favors Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson, who now and then acquire younger wives. But the bishops’ restatement of their church’s condemnation of abortion doesn’t do Giuliani much good. Unlike another Republican presidential would-be, Mitt Romney, Giuliani has never abandoned his support for abortion rights.
The bishops wave the cloak of nonpartisanship, but since Democrats in general support abortion and sometimes gay rights, the bishops’ bull cannot make Democrats skip with joy.
As for the Supremes, well, I’m betting all those Catholic justices appointed by the Republican Presidents Reagan and Bush I and II will outlaw abortion, to usher in a new period of jurisprudence to be known as Back to the Coat Hangers.
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