So you say you’re Catholic…

Then know that a lot of politicians will be after your vote. Some of them, politicians who also say they’re Catholic. Time to ask some questions.

Like, for instance, what makes someone Catholic?

“If you’re Catholic and you disagree with your Church. What do you do? You change your mind.”

So said Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of the Catholic archdiocese of Denver, at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception at 6:30 Mass on Sunday night, as the Democratic Convention was set to begin.

His comments — part of his homily during the Mass — came hours after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, describing herself as an “ardent practicing Catholic,” announced that when life begins “shouldn’t have an impact on a woman’s right to choose.” She explained that “over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy.” Ignoring both embryology and the Vatican, she insisted on giving the impression that abortion is somehow an open, undecided question in the Roman Catholic Church.

But, as Chaput, author of the new book Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, explained in an interview with National Review Online last week, “Abortion always, deliberately kills an innocent unborn child. Nobody can honestly claim to be a faithful Catholic and then support a false ‘right’ to abortion; it’s just an elegant way of evading the brutality of what abortion actually does.” He explained, “Abortion is never morally justified.”

Good piece. Read the whole thing.

And that interview with Chaput. Clarity is a necessary good.