Something like crashing a party

Bishops have been making statements and clarifications of Church teaching on moral issues and informed voting for months now. Recently, they have come out in greater force with stronger language. Catholic groups all over the country are holding workshops and seminars and mini-conferences to study the issues, how they apply to Church teaching, and muddle through media coverage of it all.

There was such a forum in Scranton this week, and the head of that diocese paid a surprise visit.

Some bishops just do not mince words.

A presidential election forum at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church on Sunday centered mainly on abortion.

The argument and audience, however, erupted when Diocese of Scranton Bishop Joseph F. Martino unexpectedly arrived and vehemently expressed his distaste for what was said about the church’s stance on voting for pro-choice candidates and the exclusion of his anti-abortion letter at the forum, which recommends voting against pro-choice candidates for moral reasons….

The press and some ‘pro-choice’ Catholics use the USCCB document on ‘Faithful Citizenship’ to justify their right to set aside the abortion issue for what they consider more important social issues. They carefully excise certain lines out of the bishops’ document and mis-apply them to their argument.

Martino knows this, and addressed it frankly. Especially since his own pastoral letter to members of his diocese was left out of this forum while they parsed the larger document (which is easier to mis-read).

“The only relevant document … is my letter,” he said. “There is one teacher in this diocese, and these points are not debatable.”

His letter, published Sept. 30 and circulated throughout the diocese, states that a candidate’s abortion stance is a major voting issue that supersedes all other considerations due to its grave moral consequences.

Here’s a snip:

“Health care, education, economic security, immigration, and taxes are very important concerns. Neglect of any one of them has dire consequences as the recent financial crisis demonstrates. However, the solutions to problems in these areas do not usually involve a rejection of the sanctity of human life in the way that abortion does,” the letter says. “Another argument goes like this: ‘As wrong as abortion is, I don’t think it is the only relevant ‘life’ issue that should be considered when deciding for whom to vote.’ This reasoning is sound only if other issues carry the same moral weight as abortion does, such as in the case of euthanasia and destruction of embryos for research purposes. … National Right to Life reports that 48.5 million abortions have been performed since 1973. One would be too many. No war, no natural disaster, no illness or disability has claimed so great a price.”

That’s telling it like few others are. Explicitly.

“No social issue has caused the death of 50 million people,” he said, noting that he no longer supports the Democratic Party. “This is madness people.”

Questions?

About a quarter of the audience left after the bishop’s comments, which preceded the last half of the forum, a question and answer session with the panelists.

Martino exited shortly after his comments.

He said the rest here.