This story from Catholic News Service bears the headline:

Cardinal praises expanded health care but fears remain on abortion

 

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The cardinal in question is Cardinal George of Chicago, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He gave an interview to Nancy Frazier O’Brien and said the following, which prompted the headline:

We are apprehensive as we look to the future, even as we applaud much of the increased care that will be available. . . .

So we will watch basically and try to continue to enter into conversations as a moral voice — never as a political voice; we’ve been very careful to insist upon the moral principles that everybody should be cared for and no one should be deliberately killed. . . “

“The president’s executive order puts in some administrative protections that we are very grateful for, but an administrative order doesn’t substitute for a statute. . . “

“Never as a political voice,” Cardinal George insists.  I suppose he means that the USCCB is a non-aligned, non-partisan voice — I’m sure he realizes that when the USCCB lobbies the Congress on a piece of legislation such as the health care bill, that lobbying is undeniably political.

But, the more surprising element of the interview is the attitude, which I hear as, “Well, okay, we’ve got a bill, and even though it contains abortion funding, we are going to remain ‘in the conversation’ and bring the best out of it we can.”

Why not just say what many Catholics want to hear said: “We as the bishops of this country will do all we can to insure that abortion funding is stripped from this bill — we know an executive order is not enough. If it is not, we will call for the legislation’s repeal when the next Congress is seated after the 2010 elections.”  

A last thought: If I were a Catholic House member who had voted for this health care bill and I heard the president of the USCCB say, “We applaud much of the increased care that will be available,” I would feel off the hook. Why wouldn’t I? After all, I’d be asking myself, “What were all those letters landing on my desk over the past six months from the bishops about the problem of funding abortion? Now, they’re applauding the bill!”

 

Author

  • Deal W. Hudson

    Deal W. Hudson is ​publisher and editor of The Christian Review and the host of “Church and Culture,” a weekly two-hour radio show on the Ave Maria Radio Network.​ He is the former publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine.

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