Catholic Bishops At Conference Rebuke Obama's Support For Abortion Rights

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 12 Nov 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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Catholic bishops on Monday at the opening of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops General Assembly discussed how they should shape their explanations of church teachings during the administration of President-elect Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights and won a majority of Catholic votes, the AP/Google.com reports. Although some bishops during the campaign made strong statements that abortion should be the most important issue for Catholic voters, exit polls showed that 54% of Catholics voted for Obama (Zoll, AP/Google.com, 11/11).

In his opening address at the General Assembly, Cardinal Francis George -- president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops -- said that while bishops should "rejoice" at the election of a black president, they also should confront Obama over his support for abortion rights. George said that the goal of reducing abortions through social and economic assistance -- an approach backed by Obama and Democratic Party leaders, including some prominent Roman Catholics -- is not sufficient. "The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice," George said, adding, "Common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good." He added that while bishops support "social welfare programs that come to the aid of the poor," they will continue to lobby for legislative and legal restrictions on abortion (Goodstein, New York Times, 11/11).

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that while bishops support some of Obama's goals, such as universal health care, they are troubled by his promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which they argue would remove legal restrictions on abortion procedures and require health care providers -- including those who are Catholic -- to offer the abortion services. George said, "We are particularly concerned with the freedom of conscience of health care workers and the Catholic health care system." He added, "They stand as witnesses to the world that there is someplace in our society where no one is deliberately killed" (Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/11).

The suggestion by Obama advisers that he is considering reversing President Bush's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research also has compounded the bishops' frustration (AP/Google.com, 11/11). George said that if Obama overturns the ban, he "will alienate millions of people, not only Catholics, and work against the unity Obama wants to achieve" (Grossman, USA Today, 11/11). Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., also said that he "hope[s] that on issues as significant as defending and protecting human life, there would be no precipitous action to change where we are in public policy. That should really be something that reflects a great deal of thought, conversation and reflection" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/11).

In explaining the large percentage of Catholic votes in favor of Obama, the bishops "brushed off an apparent disregard among Catholic voters for church doctrine on abortion, saying the economy, not their teachings, was to blame," the Washington Times reports. San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer said that according to exit polls, "[v]ery few people answered they were voting on social and moral issues. What people had on their minds was the economic situation." Auxiliary Bishop Joseph McFadden of Philadelphia added, "There were so many factors in the election. It wasn't a vote against the Catholic position. There was the economy, a historic election involving an African-American. There was a multiplicity of items on the table." According to Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Archdiocese of the District of Columbia, "Most people did not vote for Obama because of his position on abortion, but in spite of his position on abortion" (Duin, Washington Times, 11/11).

The New York Times reports that the bishops will devote part of their meetings on Tuesday to debating whether they gave sufficient guidance to Catholic voters. Bishops in November 2007 voted overwhelmingly to adopt a brochure titled "Forming Conscience for Faithful Citizenship," which said that Catholics should pay attention to issues such as poverty, war, the environment and human rights but that "the direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many." According to Wuerl, however, the "document does not make the judgment, 'This is how you must vote.' It offers the principles." He added, "Different people arrive at different conclusions from the same principles," and bishops must clarify and teach those principles (New York Times, 11/11).

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