Meet the Bishops

Democratice vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden has followed Speaker Nancy Pelsoi in appearing on Meet the Press and misrepresenting his Catholic fath before voter. Now all those bishops who have been coming out with public corrections of Church teaching on matters of morality and social policy….can just cc: those on to Biden.

Or issue new ones. Like this one from the entire body of US bishops.

Senator Biden did not claim that Catholic teaching allows or has ever allowed abortion.  He said rightly that human life begins “at the moment of conception,” and that Catholics and others who recognize this should not be required by others to pay for abortions with their taxes. 

However, the Senator’s claim that the beginning of human life is a “personal and private” matter of religious faith, one which cannot be “imposed” on others, does not reflect the truth of the matter.  The Church recognizes that the obligation to protect unborn human life rests on the answer to two questions, neither of which is private or specifically religious.

The first is a biological question: When does a new human life begin?  When is there a new living organism of the human species, distinct from mother and father and ready to develop and mature if given a nurturing environment?  While ancient thinkers had little verifiable knowledge to help them answer this question, today embryology textbooks confirm that a new human life begins at conception (see www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/bioethic/fact298.shtml).  The Catholic Church does not teach this as a matter of faith; it acknowledges it as a matter of objective fact.

The second is a moral question, with legal and political consequences: Which living members of the human species should be seen as having fundamental human rights, such as a right not to be killed?  The Catholic Church’s answer is: Everybody.  No human being should be treated as lacking human rights, and we have no business dividing humanity into those who are valuable enough to warrant protection and those who are not.  This is not solely a Catholic teaching, but a principle of natural law accessible to all people of good will.

Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, in the heart of the political world, issues this letter to his priests.

In late August, I wrote to you following a discussion in the national media regarding what our Catholic faith says about when life begins and about abortion. Many of you took the opportunity to present and affirm the teaching of the Catholic Church on this important issue with your parishioners, and I thank you. These are teachable moments, and present an opportunity to highlight the consistency and clarity of our Catholic faith.

Great sentence. These are prime teachable moments, and bishops came out of all corners of the country in the past two weeks to clarify Catholic teaching, what with politicians courting the key Catholic voters in this election and Pelosi so publicly getting the facts wrong on the Church and history itelf.

Unfortunately, again this week on Meet the Press, the Catholic teaching on human life was not clearly presented by a public official. In an interview, Senator Joseph Biden said he is “prepared to accept the teachings of my church” on when life begins, but would not impose that judgment on everyone else.

Which is political waffling and intentional side-stepping.

So that requires clarification. Again.

Wuerl contines:

The role of elected officials to address the public policy issues before them must be respected, but the interpretation of the Catholic faith is the responsibility of the bishops. To avoid confusion among people of goodwill about the Church’s teaching on human life, it is important to state once again the Catholic Church’s constant teaching on human life, as well as clarify the difference between science, the theories of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the faith.

This is important. Follow the thought…

When life begins is not a matter of faith, but a matter of science. The scientific research available to us today confirms that the joining of the human egg and sperm begins a new human life. There is overwhelming empirical evidence that once conceived, that life will continue through its many natural stages, from embryo to fetus to infant to child and on until death.
Religious belief does not change this scientific fact.

However, faith and the natural moral law guide us in how we treat this human life.

Exactly a key question to debate in the abortion debate.

Modern science has demonstrated beyond any doubt that this innocent human life begins at conception. Defense of innocent human life is not an imposition of personal religious conviction but an act of justice.

Do civil rights cover and protect all human life, or do they not? Do we have the right to designate a certain class of humans as unworthy of all protection and rights? Because when we do, there’s no stopping the denial of rights to other groups of persons deemed unworthy for reasons that a ‘consensus’ decides.

That’s the consistent ethic of life. Arguments for justice and rights on any other social issues just aren’t coherent without the constancy of that ethic as the foundation for all policies.