A Catholic Democratic pol, the late Chicago Mayor Richard Daley the Greater, once famously said of his opponents: “They have vilified me, they have crucified me; yes, they have even criticized me.” Some lesser lights than the Pharaoh of Chicago have some similar concerns. Abortion rights supporters in the United States House of Representatives have one request as they fight for legal abortion, widespread contraception education, and sexual liberation.
Castigate them, vilify them, but, please, don’t call them bad Catholics.
According to the Washington Post:
The signers said they were fed up with being labeled “good Catholics” or “bad Catholics” based on one issue — abortion. They said their religion infuses their positions on many issues: poverty, war, health care and education.
I need not detail the rest of the argument, because it is the typical pro-abortion Catholic talking points memo. Keep in mind, though, it comes just in time for Ash Wednesday.
As I read this, I couldn’t help but think of my grandfather’s generation of Baptist ministers, concerned as they were about the election of Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy to the presidency. They were afraid that JFK might “take orders” from the Pope in Rome. Jacqueline Kennedy is said to have remarked at the time that the irony is that the Baptist ministers didn’t know that JFK “isn’t even a good Catholic.”
What a turnaround it is that for Baptist ministers and all Christians it is the “bad Catholics” we’re worried about. Sorry, I mean…um…we worry about good Catholics who exist in tension with Rome on the question of the advisability of keeping legal and paying for what they acknowledge to be the taking of a human life but still value life in opposing the death penalty, helping the poor, and….whatever.
