The Ex-GOP At Prayer?

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't have voted for Kathleen Sibelius, either, although it must be said that the filling of positions in the Obama Administration is becoming a very urgent necessity, and it was not as if rejection would have led to a pro-life nomination instead.

But with little history of Catholic involvement in the Republican Party until well within living memory, with no love lost between any of its main components (such as there still are) and Catholics, with that party still profoundly committed to viciously immoral (and massively unpopular) economic and foreign policies of the aberrant Dubya years, and with President Obama electorally beholden to the people who reaffirmed traditional marriage in California and Florida, who abolished legal discrimination against working-class white men in Colorado, who declined to liberalise gambling in Missouri or Ohio, and who keep the black and Catholic churches (especially) going from coast to coast, it is horrifying that Right Democrat has this:

Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, PA leads effort to purge pro-life Democrats from the Church as Catholic parishes and schools close down within his diocese.

As a Christian and a social traditionalist, I have no desire to bash the Catholic Church or any other religious institution but something is terribly wrong when a Bishop uses his position to pursue a narrow partisan political agenda. Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino this week attacked the decision of King's College to invite pro-life Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania as a commencement speaker. According to the Bishop, Casey's vote to confirm Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services is "an affront to all who value the sanctity of human life." And yet we are not hearing criticism from the Catholic Church of Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and other pro-life Republicans who also voted to confirm Sebelius.

At the blog of Commonweal Magazine, Eduardo Penalver was puzzled by the Bishop's action:

"So, as I understand Martino’s position, consistently opposing legal abortion, both by speaking out on the issue and by opposing specific items of legislation (as Casey has done), is not enough to qualify you to speak at a Catholic college. You must agree with each and every one of the good Bishop’s prudential judgments about exactly how to go about forwarding that agenda. If you do dare to disagree with Bishop Martino about whether opposing a particular nominee to head HHS is the right place to take your stand, you will no longer be deemed to be a person with sufficient moral stature to be fit to address Catholic college students and your invitation will be interpreted as an “insult” to the pro-Life movement. Got it?"

A comment on the blog Get Religion summed up the situation well from a Catholic perspective:

"I’m a pro-life Catholic, and I feel that the bishops are justified in refusing communion to Catholic politicians who have supported explicitly pro-abortion (or pro ESCR) policies, although I wonder how prudent it is. I also feel Bishop Martino’s actions towards Casey are totally unjustified and are quite different from other prelate’s statements to politicians. Casey opposes embryonic stem cell research, supported Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, publicly opposes abortion, and has voted for a number of limits on it. Whether to confirm a nominee for a bureaucratic position is a different kind of issue and is totally beyond the competency of a bishop, and Bishop Martino risks causing greater scandal than Casey’s vote does by convincing people that the Catholic episcopate is primarily concerned with partisan issues. Casey’s vote wasn’t courageous, but how much to defer to a president regarding his nominations is surely a prudential issue, particularly given concerns about not having senior leadership at HHS when a flu pandemic is being suggested. Especially since abortion policy is certainly set at the White House.

I agree with him that Casey’s vote in favor of reversing the Mexico City policy was a mistake, but it should be noted that similar funding was already available to organizations like Planned Parenthood in the US, so anyone who has voted for HHS’s budget in the past 20 years has probably voted to give money to providers of abortion.

The reason Martino’s actions are so important (along with the fact that they are totally unique among bishops - note that the strongly and outspokenly pro-life Archbishop Naumann of Kansas City did not condemn Sam Brownback for supporting Sibelius) is that Casey, although he represents all of Pennsylvania, is from the Diocese of Scranton."

I might add that Senator Casey is the lead sponsor of abortion reduction legislation recently endorsed by the Catholic Bishops!

The real offense of Senator Casey is that he is a loyal Democrat. Just as some Protestant evangelical leaders have promoted the idea that one must be a Republican voter to be a true born again Christian, a right-wing element within the Catholic Church wants to support for the GOP part of being a faithful Catholic.

Bishop Martino might have a considerable amount of work to do if he wishes to purge all Democrats from the Catholic Church. In the last election, Catholics attending weekly mass split 50 to 49 between the McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden tickets.

A more thoughtful Bishop of Scranton might be more focused revitalizing the parishes and schools of his diocese rather than carrying out partisan political attacks against pro-life Democrats.