In politics, hierarchy applies selective blackmail

Except its not a "political stance" it is an issue of morality! Abortion is murder and therefore should be called out for what it is! It is an intrinsic evil, something the death penalty and war are not, as they can be justified in specific circumstances. Also a found your straw man of the Bishop Tobin incident to be rather sad. The issue is NOT that he utters pro-abortion sentiments but that he is a public figure, who is a Catholic, who is standing up for abortion rights! In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, he describes those in positions of political power of having the greatest ethical obligation!!! They are the ones who are supposed to root out what is evil to the citizenry of this country! And Kennedy, as a Catholic, is not doing his duty to either God or the citizens of this country by standing up for murder.

Abortion is the sin only women can commit.

And only men can forgive.

It frees the lazy and uneducated clergy and hierarchy from having to deal with anything else.

Ms. Hayes apparently has a selected memory, not uncommon in folks on the "left side of the aisle". Perhaps Ms. Hayes should try to think back to the time of the lead-up to the war in Iraq. Pope John Paul II, the Great, repeatedly opposed the war and called on President Bush and all who supported him to stop the war before it started; the Pope went to far as to say that the war in Iraq would not be a just war. Nearly every bishop in the country, with a few exceptions, publicly opposed the idea of a war in Iraq and the USCCB repeatedly called on the Bush Administration to rethink its policy of preemptive war, calling it immoral.

The USCCB has been publicly in favor of universal health care for years. The bishops have condemned the death penalty and have often publicly been seen protesting/praying at prisons where the death sentences are carried out.

Having said that, I will take just a moment and attempt to explain some of the confusion Ms. Hayes apparently is laboring under. The death penalty, universal healthcare, even just and preemptive war, are all issues that are considered "prudential". Prudential matters are those "gray areas", issues on which people of good will may legitimately disagree. For example, a person of good will may honestly believe that preemptive war is completely consistent with the just war concept, while another person of equally good will may honestly believe that preemptive war is morally wrong.

The Church speaks on issues of import in the public square. Yet, the Church is not necessarily empowered to, nor supposed to, speak definitively on every single issue of the day. Some issues, indeed many issues, are left to the individual. The Church proposes moral principles, such as the ancient just war formulation, and allows individual Catholics to then apply those principles to specific situations. The Church, the Pope and the Bishops, may even offer their reflections and opinions, and all Catholics are bound to listen to those reflections, consider them carefully, and pray about them, then apply them as their conscience permits. Thus, the Church outlines and proposes principles such as stewardship of the earth, just use of resources, economic justice for all, etc., then the Pope may issue an encyclical letter, as Pope Benedict XVI did, on these issues. But, that is as far as it goes. The Church does not presume to tell a Catholic, or the faithful universally, how to put those principles into action. The Church leaves it up to the individual conscience; this is why some Catholics can claim that the only means of properly bringing about these principles is to have a socialist economy and why some other equally good Catholics can say that an unfettered free market is the only means of justly implementing those principles.

The matters of abortion and homosexuality, however, are not prudential, but are matters of faith and morals on which the Church is obligated to speak definitively, and has done so for nearly 2000 years. The deliberate taking of innocent human life is always a moral atrocity and morally wrong. What is abortion but the deliberate taking of innocent (the most innocent) human life? As such, abortion is nothing less than the deliberate violation of an absolute moral principle. It is murder of innocent human life and, as a result, is always wrong in every single circumstance. Every person is actively procures an abortion, or who actively encourages another to get an abortion, or procures an abortion for someone else, is guilty of grave sin. So is Representative Kennedy.

Sexuality is a gift from God given to humans for the purpose of enhancing marital intimacy and procreation. It is a celebration of the gift of God making humans as male and female. Marriage is between a man and a woman, as God intended from the beginning, and as has been consistent Church teaching for 2000 years, and consistent Jewish teaching for thousands of years before that. What is homosexuality but a violation of those principles? As such, engaging in homosexual activity and/or sexual behavior is morally wrong in every circumstance, just as engaging in heterosexual sexual activity outside of marriage is a violation of those same principles and morally wrong in every circumstance.

Despite Ms. Hayes attempts, there can be no moral equivalence drawn between war (which is the taking of human life for purposes such as protection of the innocent, and the accidental or unintentional taking of innocent life) and abortion (which is the deliberate and intentional taking of innocent human life). Folks like Ms. Hayes often attempt to make such equivocations because they do not understand that there are distinctions in the moral life, and that there are certain areas on which the Church speaks definitively and certain areas on which she does not and should not. These distinctions are not difficult to understand if one would actually attempt to inform oneself of them. They are clearly outlined in the Catechism, in the Magisterial teaching of all the popes, and in the Tradition of the Church. Only by intentionally and consciously choosing to do so can one remain ignorant of this aspect of the Church's teaching.

The hubris of episcopal self-adulation has raised them to a different world — so they tell themselves (and try to make us believe). Don't expect any bishop to reply to your spot-on posting. They do the preaching, we do the listening; it's tradition. Thank you.

Abortion can certainly be forgiven through penance, but my understanding is that a Roman Catholic who has or procurs an abortion is still automatically excommunicated. My issue with the hierarchy's war on the Democratic Party is that supporting the American separation of church and state is not procuring abortion for anyone.

Golly,
I don't know what to think!
Then is it ok to have an abortion because one is able, after the fact to have the Sacrament of Penance? There's something wrong with that type of logic.

I agree that there seems to be a type of ethical relativism going on with the Episcopate regarding life and peace issues so don't count me as an apologist for them. There is a convoluted logic going on there.
Indeed, the devil is in the details!
Being kind, maybe the problem the hierarchy has may be one of a failure to get it's message across due to it's complexity or inability to inform.
Being unkind, maybe they fail to listen to the Voice of the Holy Spirit for any number of reasons, causing the "Laity" or "Faithful" to be put in a state of confusion causing division in the Church.
I know a lot of people who are leaving or have left the Church over the scandals and confusion. The faith communities they have joined they consider more enlightened, Buddist, Quaker, ect.
What will the Church leadership do?
Are they reacting like the Church after the Council of Trent, retreating from the world in full bunker mentality?
The Sufis say that one must be fully engaged in both the world and the Spirit,
choosing which one is appropriate at the time.
Also, according to Sufi tradition, there is but one religion and that religion is the religion of Love.
The Roman Catholic Church through the encyclical Deus Caritas Est by Benedict XVI teaches the same thing.
We need to work together to become as Christ's eyes, ears, hands and feet in this world. Love will get us through in spite of everything.

The pro-life issue should not really be seen as a moral issue in the political context. Our Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the nation defends the right to life. It is a stretch to maintain that life only begins at birth, provided the small entity can manage to get out of the womb successfully, i.e., avoid partial birth abortion!

Even the most die-hard pro-choicers should admit that the point of viability in the womb (sometime in the later second trimester) is the point at which life begins in the secular sense.

As far as the rest of the pregnancy goes even if there isn't a soul, from the point of conception, the human entity is in the process of formation. If there is a right to life, then logically, it should extrapolate back to the beginning point (conception) to cover the complete formative stage. The reasoning being that if life is sacrosanct then so is life in its formative stages.

I think this is what Mr Spock (not the doctor) would have to say about this issue! Notice it has nothing to do with religion or morality, per se.

This is a very thoughtful commentary. It's something I've wondered about too: why does abortion seem to the bishops to be the only sin worthy of public censure? And, as you pointed out Rep Kennedy hasn't actually had an abortion, and he's not exhorting people to go out and have one, so what terrible sin has he committed? Thank you for this essay; I suspect you'll receive an enormous amount of flak from the professional prolife advocates for even raising these questions.

The writer's understanding of Christian and Catholic dogma is shamefully lacking. Crutial elements of the discussion have been neglected in order to bolster her own opinion.

When is this web site going to stop using the Catholic moniker in their name. There is very little Catholic here.

The idea of being so singularly-minded is truly saddening. Yes, agreed that abortion is horrible, but so are starving people, a lack of adequate medical care, shelters for the homeless, and a myriad of horribly sad social issues. The money spent alone for the military occupations of foreign countries alone should be a sin. To me, the Bishops who single out the attack on abortion to the exclusion of all else are contributing to the "abortion" of those who walk amongst us every day.

Thank you, Pamela Hayes, for this thoughtful and concise article. As a former elected official, I know the knots one can become entangled in when trying one's very best to be a thoughtful Catholic office holder and at the same time face the realities that exist in the real world -- where the majority of our Catholic Bishops seem never to even visit.

Let's try and separate some of the wheat from the chaff in your article. Very briefly, you are making a moral equivalence between abortion, war, the death penalty, capitalism, and other issues. Please read the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2258-2275 (the footnotes too would perhaps be an aid to your understanding). While the issues you raise are important to our time, unlike the rest abortion is always a grave moral evil. To cooperate in procuring or to sanction an abortion are also always grave moral evils. For a Catholic to publicly and persistently hold the position that abortion is somehow a good thing, or at least not too bad a thing as long as you get some more health care, read Patrick Kennedy, is a cause for scandal and must be addressed. Let us not cloud the issue by making the argument, however poorly, that the bishops should be silent on tax payer subsidized abortion because they should have spoken out more on other issues (and yes, they have addressed all the issues you raise). Health care reform is indeed a good thing so long as it provides for real health care and never the murder of the innocent. Oh, and one last thing. If, by your last sentence, you are lambasting the bishops and by extension the Catholic faithful, for defying the law as it applies to the murder of the innocent then I would sincerely urge you to seek the council of your own priest or bishop.

As a Catholic deeply involved in the movement to achieve justice in Palestine, the tepid response of the Catholic leadership to the suffering of the Palestinian people is particularly vexing. The Catholic voice of protest on this issue is barely heard, a quasi-muteness all the more inappropriate considering how much Catholic tax revenue goes to provide killing machines to Israel.

Numerous Catholics in the U.S. Congress are ardent supporters of Israel's inhumanity toward the Palestinians, including Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island. I have yet to hear one peep of protest leveled against them for their trashing of Catholic social justice principles as they apply to the Holy Land.

To disagree with the hierarchy IS the one unforgivable sin. I not only agree with you, but have long seen this as the only actual priority of the hierarchy. You can DO anything you want as a Catholic so long as you give a lifetime of loyalty to the "one mind" society.

What universe is Ms. Hayes living in? Because this is not my universe. While the hierarchy may go after a few pro-abortion Democrates, big deal. If you examine the USCCB website Justice, Psychedelic Love and Human Development it's almost like reading from the Democratic National Committee website. In fact, I'm shocked they do not have a direct hyperlink to each other's websites. Expanding all social programs. Nationized health care. Global warming. The USCCB has nothing on the national debt. They have nothing on limited government. They have nothing on the economic impact of the green adgenda. And you liberals cry over a few politicians? You have the USCCB in your pocket and you want more? Greedy!!!

President Kennedy was right: "In my experience, all nuns are Democrats and all bishops are Republicans."

Rather than questioning the Bishops you should be looking inward to determine what is at the heart of your motivation to make all sins equivelant. What Catholic would equate greed with the taking of a human life. I believe that most Catholics are against all sin yet we are all sinners. The Sacrament of Pennance does require a sinner to be truly sorry for thier sins and committed to trying not to repeat those sins.

Let's not forget that Senator Kennedy wentt public with his private conversation with his Bishop.

Joe W.

"or don’t such issues rise to the level of abortion and homosexuality?"

Well those issues certainly don't reach the level of abortion - that's always been the Church's clear teaching, and one that Pope Benedict has written about.

"The question I have is whether the sin of having an abortion -- which, incidentally, can be forgiven through the sacrament of penance..."

While that's absolutely true about being forgiven, the baby would still be dead. I think it's important to remember that we're not just talking about the mother in an abortion, there's also an innocent life taken.

God bless and merry Christmas.

Thank you, Pamela. When talking about other sins that the hierarchy might address, I'd ask you to add the sin of abuse of children by anyone. Possibly because the abuse by clergy is in so many minds, our clergy seem to stay clear of the broader issue of the welfare of children. Too many children are abused. Where is the cry against that sin?

The Bishops take their cue from Robbie George. (See the NYT Magazine 12/20/09) The Bishops are at his mercy and will do everything possible to prove that in their list of priorities, the Republican agenda trumps all including the Gospels. We need new bishops. These buffoons have been duped!

I find myself nodding my head with a big "Amen," Ms. Hayes. Bishops are faithfully fond of reminding us that protecting life is paramount in living out the prophetic aspect of our life in Christ. But I always feel insulted and robbed of my Christian responsibility to work things out in my own world when our official teachers act with the same kind of moral agenda for which narrow minded and nit-picking Pharisees are clearly shaken up by Jesus in the Gospels.

I guess it is all in the way you look at things. Pamela Hayes sees the bishops as using their political clout to oust leading Demoncrats over the issue of abortion. She does not seem to notice that many of these same leaders are more than willing to prompt their Catholicism when it serves their political ends. (One of our local representative included her Confirmation picture with the bishop in her election pamphlet. She is very pro-abortion.) She ignores the problem of when Catholic politicans claim that their stand is compatible with Catholic Church teaching. (I suspect that she would be very upset with an attorney who was mis-representing the law in order to get ahead in the legal profession.) This is not a sexist issue as while women undergo the procedure and suffer from it, many of the doctors are men. A number of studies have shown that more female babies are aborted than male. Many of the women who have abortions are pressured by men to have them. It leaves the man free from responsibility and leaves the woman with the guilt. All those directly involved in an abortion, men and women, are bound by the same penalties in the Church.

Extremely well put!

"Cafeteria Catholics" is what the hierarchy pejoratively labels Catholic lay people who don't observe every nod and urrerance of the bishops. But aren't the bishops cafeteria catholics, too? There is a whole ramge of Catholic moral principle that the hierarchy blithely disregards in favor of the selected few that the "one, holy catholic, apostolic, and Republican church" deigns to support.

Reverend fathers, this is no way to regain the moral high ground that your misbehaviors have cost you.

This commentary is an example (of many) where it seems we just have to keep throwing stones at each other.

Pamela Hayes may know civil law, but she is clueless about moral law.

Abortion is INTRINSICALLY evil; that is, it is evil in itself and can never be justified. All the other things she lists (death penalty, nuclear weapons, certain economic policies) are not completely without justification in all cases.

The reason Patches Kennedy is warned by his bishop is because he publicly supports abortion in his pro-choice position with his votes.

I can't think of any pro-choice Republican Catholics in the US Congress, while some of the most high-profile Democrats (Pelosi, Obey, Durbin) are ardently and in every circumstance supporters of abortion policy.

Rep. Kennedy has politically acted to in a way which allows more pre-born human persons to be killed, and yet professes to be Catholic. Bishop Tobin privately informed him that he was not to receive Communion, because doing so 1.) imperils his own immortal soul, for cooperating in abortion is a mortal sin, and receiving communion in a state of Mortal Sin, makes Rep. Kennedy "guilty of the body and blood of Christ" according to St. Paul; and 2.) imperils the souls of other Catholics by causing scandal, for it makes it seem as if the pro-choice position is an acceptable position for a Catholic, when any cooperation in abortion is onjectively a mortal sin, and ne which incurs automatic excommunication. This was kept private until recently, when Rep. Kennedy made a statement saying that Catholic Bishops should not express their opinions on the healthcare debate. Bishop Tobin publically reprimanded Rep. Kennedy, saying that as bishop, he has a duty to speak on the moral ramifications of healthcare legislation. It was after this that Rep. Kennedy made the private requests that he not receive communion public, in order to make himself out to be a martyr.
And as a side note: Bishop Tobin also denied conservative Congressman Tom Tancredo from speaking at (Catholic) Providence College because of Tancredo's political actions regarding immigration.

We must render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, but everyone, including politicians, must render unto God that which is God's.

And that us why this group of bishops have lost so much respect and have squandered any teaching authority they might have possessed. What a shame.

Michael J. Stephen, Ph.D.

The sin that is horrific - is against women. What I find fascinating is that not enough see that we as women are being used by the abortion industry for profit. It is a crime and sin against women. As far as male politicians go - they are responsible for proliferating this sin against women when the vote and promote pro abortion policy. Its too bad more women dont stand up for the female sex in the abortion arena. I am forever pro feminist pro life. I have my struggles and anger against the treatment of women in the church - but I am grateful the church stands firm on the heinous act that we have allowed ourselves to be duped by...

Unfortunately, Hayes is simplifying complex issues and leaving out important facts. In fact, both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have and continue to condemn the pre-emptive war in Iraq, stating that it is not and never was a just war. Pope John Paul II sent his emissary to President George W. Bush to talk him out of invading Iraq, but to no avail.

Abortion is the most heinous of anti-life acts, (among which are the death penalty, war, sins against the environment), first of all, because it kills a completely innocent child; secondly, it is a violation of motherhood and the traditional family unit; thirdly, as we were warned, abortion has become and is often used as a form of birth control - a deadly one. Today there is a frontal and lethal assault on the traditional family, the bedrock of civilization; and the attacking army is composed of those who support same-sex marriage, abortion, divorce. I find it hard to believe most people do not see this.

As to the "lazy and uneducated clergy and hierarchy," I would say there are plenty of lazy, uneducated abortion supporters, who are not fully informed about the issue and its consequences.

I vociferously challenged my church when the clergy sexual abuse crisis broke out. I marched with the victims to Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston in protest of Cardinal Bernard Law's incredible coddling of sexual preditors, wrote letters to the editor, spoke out at my parish. I still do. But the church is not about clergy and hierarchy. It is about Christ. There is no way I can imagine Christ supporting abortion. Surely, Christ would have mercy on a pregnant woman in crisis who wants or has an abortion; but that doesn't mean abortion is moral or good; it's just about Christ's mercy.

It's about time that pro-abortionists come to accept that their "abortion" solution is not in anyone's best interests. Pamela Hayes needs to learn much more about the Catholic Church, the negative psychological and physical effects of abortion on women, it's negative effects on society, etc.; as educated as she is, she needs to research the subject more before she sweeps the ugliness of abortion under the rug and blames the mess on clergy and/or hierarchy, and/or Patrick Kennedy's dustup with Bishop Tobin, who correctly stated the Catholic position on abortiion. Moreover, it was in a private conversation that Tobin correctly advised Kennedy that he should not receive communion if he publicly supports abortion. For Tobin the issue is not Patrick Kennedy's political career; it's the millions of children who are murdered in the womb as a result of policies that Patrick Kennedy helps enforce.