About two weeks ago I was channel surfing and happened upon the broadcast of the Archdiocese of New York's Annual Alfred E. Smith Dinner. John McCain was just beginning his remarks and the camera panned the long head table. My jaw dropped as I saw the rather bulky red and black clad figure of Cardinal Eagan sitting next to the pro-choice Democratic candidate for president: Barack Obama. I thought back almost 25 years to the 1984 presidential campaign when Geraldine Ferraro was banned from the dinner because of her pro-choice views. I remembered the 2004 Presidential campaign in which John Kerry's candidacy led a few bishops to announce that pro-choice Catholic politicians were not "fit" to receive communion. It was impossible, they claimed, to be a Catholic and vote in favor of legal abortion.
The Era Before Kerry
The attempt of some bishops to apply sanctions under church law to policy makers who vote pro-choice and the rejection of this strategy by most bishops exposed the long time Achilles heel of church pronouncements about abortion politics. Of course, the position of the church on the act of abortion was relatively clear: abortion was wrong in all circumstances, objectively sinful. If certain conditions were met, the person who procured the abortion and those who performed the procedure automatically excommunicated themselves. But what about Catholics who neither had nor performed abortions, but supported of its legality? This included people like Supreme Court Justice Brennan, Senators Kennedy, Leahy, Mikulski; members of Congress Pelosi, de Lauro, Kucinich, and Catholics who voted these politicians into office. Were they subject to sanctions and if so which ones?
Almost all church lawyers said "no." Canon law was narrow and precise and the canon related to abortion did not apply to these people. Bishops may be frustrated by the fact that these elected officials visibly thwart the policy agenda of the institutional church -- but how Catholics vote is not genuinely subject to excommunication or exclusion from the sacraments. Of course, the governing system of the church is feudal; each bishop is a little prince in his diocese and can arbitrarily break church law with impunity.
From Mario Cuomo to John Kerry and now Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, Catholic politicians have made sometimes eloquent, sometimes awkward cases for why support for legal abortion was consistent with church teaching. All formally said they accepted church teaching on abortion even when they did not understand what it was or adopted a somewhat disingenuous understanding for convenience or casuistic purposes. But they either claimed they had to protect the right of those in other religions that did not have the same teachings to practice their religion, or they had to uphold the constitution. Or most recently, they explain that they believe the best way to prevent abortion is to make it less necessary, by supporting family planning, economic benefits for women who carry pregnancies to term and more humane adoption.
For the most part these tactics worked. Formal sanctions were almost never imposed. Most Catholic institutions were careful not make trouble: they did not give honorary degrees to pro-choice Catholic policy makers, most parishes did not invite these politicians to make speeches on church property and pro-choice Catholic politicians did not receive awards. Once in a while, there was an eruption that filled the newspapers. Until 2004, academics, priests, and influential lay people hid their heads in the sand and said nothing to defend these policy makers when such eruptions happened in the liberal Catholic community. They had learned from the 1984 presidential campaign, when a number of leading Catholic scholars, 24 nuns and four priests defended Geraldine Ferraro in a full page New York Times ad, that if the church was going to go after anyone it would go after theologians and nuns and priests. The nuns who signed the ad spent two years fighting Vatican attempts to get them kicked out of their orders. The theologians found that offers to speak or teach at Catholic colleges dried up.
Frankly, in that time period the only defender of pro-choice Catholic policy makers was Catholics for a Free Choice. Of course, at Catholics for a Free Choice we were frankly and fearlessly pro-choice. And we made no bones about the fact that we believed it was not only legitimate for Catholics to believe that abortion should be legal, we also believed it could be and was moral in a wide range of circumstances. We were out there both politically and theologically. Our primary loyalty was to the women who face unintended or unsupportable pregnancies and to supporting their right as moral agents to decide when abortion would be morally justifiable in their situation. Any support we could give to politicians needed to also protect women. There was no way we could throw these women to the wolves by claiming that women did not have a moral right to choose abortion but politicians and voters had a right to choose to vote for legal abortion. What hypocrisy that would be!
This position was too tough for most active progressive Catholics who were working for democratic reforms within the church or for the "big" social justice issues like peace and economic justice. Some were pro-choice, but just thought it would compromise their other work to speak out; others were afraid they would lose their jobs or status, some couldn't figure out whether they were for or against abortion and some, a minority in my opinion, were against legal abortion. In this sense their behavior was more circumspect than that of Catholics whose identity and work were less connected to the institutional church. Only a third of the Catholic Members of Congress were adamantly anti-choice and many of the strongest supporters of choice were Catholic legislators. Anti-abortionists, for example, were outraged that at a time when there were only five Catholic Senators, all five voted against the initial ban on "partial birth abortion." Later Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan changed his position; still later, Senator Patrick Leahy changed his.
Among all Catholics, support for the overall right of women to decide about abortion is comparable to that of non-Catholics. These Catholics are far more progressive on abortion than the progressive Catholics leaders who maintained silence on the abortion issue throughout most of the political firestorms and attacks by bishops on Catholic politicians.
Progressive Catholics Outraged at Threat of Sanctions Against Kerry
The 2004 election changed that. Progressive Catholics were outraged at the threat of sanctions against Kerry, but more disturbed that the sanction talk may have contributed to the reelection of Bush, whose positions on war, poverty and other social justice issues were an affront to Catholic social teaching and a challenge to the issues these Catholics cared about. They were also mobilized by the Democratic Party's newfound interest in religion and some wanted to be part of the action. In the wake of the 2004 election they met with Party leaders and joined with progressive evangelicals like Jim Wallis and others in early efforts organized by the Center for American Progress to engage center-left religious leaders in support for the Democratic Party and its social justice agenda.
The progressive evangelicals and Catholics involved in these efforts were skittish on the Party's support for abortion rights, but over time independent faith groups developed and found a "middle ground" position: express moral disapproval of abortion and suggest progressive economic approaches to reducing the number of abortions. This strategy has been implemented for the past for years by two Catholic groups that emerged - Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. These groups advertise their acceptance of the church's position against abortion and contraception. In the case of Catholics in Alliance, they go further and say they are for legal protection for the unborn. At the same time, they strongly promote the idea that Catholics can vote for candidates who are solidly pro-choice.
There is no doubt that these positions are moderately useful in convincing the very small slice of Catholic voters who would be likely to vote for Democrats except for their position on abortion (probably less than 10% of the Catholic population) to vote for Democrats. But do these positions serve women, especially poor women, well, and do they advance the role of Catholics in reforming the church?
Do Progressive Catholic Groups Advance Church Reform?
The most recent indicators that these groups are more of an obstacle than a prod for church reform and women's reproductive choice can be found in their reactions to statements by Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden about Catholicism and abortion.
Both Pelosi and Biden made strong statements defending their stands on choice on Meet the Press, speaking not only as legislators but as theologically well-educated Catholics. In answer to a question about when life begins Biden said: "As a Catholic, I am prepared to accept the teaching of my church...I'm prepared to accept as a matter of faith that life begins at the moment of conception." As I listened to Biden I thought I heard a slight emphasis on the phrase "as a matter of faith." How elegant of Biden: he did not claim that the idea that life begins at conception is a medical fact.
The bishops promptly issued a statement in which they asserted Biden needed to go further. The idea that life begins at conception is not, they said, just a matter of faith - it is a "biological fact:" "When there is a new human organism, embryology textbooks confirm new life begins at conception."
About a month earlier, just before the Democratic Convention, Pelosi noted on Meet the Press that "as an ardent practicing Catholic this is an issue I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition...St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is that shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose." Pelosi was immediately criticized by the arch conservative Cardinal of Denver, Charles Chaput, one of those who had suggested in 2004 that pro-choice Catholic voters should not receive communion.
One would think that progressive Catholic leaders working for the inclusion of Catholic social justice values in electoral discourse would have been delighted at the forthrightness and intelligence of these pro-choice Catholic policy makers -- who both asserted their duty to serve women's moral agency (Pelosi) and to respect science and religion (Biden) and also explained the nuance of Catholic theology which allowed them to be pro-choice. Instead, the worst form of clericalism emerged. How dare these Catholics "do theology"; they should stick to politics. Chris Korzen, the spokesperson for Catholics United, complained that "there is a legitimate conversation to be had about how best to translate the teachings of the Catholic faith into public policy, but as far as the church is concerned doctrine is off limits."
What then do Korzen and Catholics United think the role of the faithful is: obedient sheep that blindly follow the bishops? It would seem so -- he went further, saying, "When public officials make those comments the bishops need to correct their errors." I am left asking, "What errors? As an educated Catholic with a degree in theology are you trying to tell Americans that something Pelosi or Biden said was a theological error? Surely you are too intelligent to believe that Catholics cannot believe that there is room within the teaching on abortion to allow women to exercise their moral adulthood and decide whether abortion can ever be a moral choice."
The slavish and inappropriate obeisance that Korzen, et.al. show to ultra-orthodox understandings of church teaching and abortion are unfortunately not limited to that single issue. Yes, these leaders proudly assert that they want to see abortion criminalized (Catholics In Alliance for the Common Good website: "CIA is prolife. We support full legal protection for unborn children as a requirement of social justice and a matter of essential human rights.") However, they accept that that is not likely and as an alternative they think it reasonable for policy makers to seek to reduce the number of abortions by providing economic assistance to women who continue pregnancies and making adoption easier. What is missing from this prescription? In spite of the fact that about 95% of Catholics believe that contraception is moral, these progressive Catholic groups are so locked into the institutional church that they cannot support the measure most likely to reduce abortion: contraception.
This is really soul numbing politics and soul numbing theology. It is faith in the service of the powerful - in this case good policy makers. But it is not in service to the millions of women in the US andworld wide who need their right to decide and to live affirmed. And it is not in service to the people of God who need their right to do theology, to speak freely and to dissent from damaging church teachings and policy upheld by those who would claim moral leadership.
Progressive Catholic electoral activity is yet another example of the dangers of mixing politics and faith.
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