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A Glass Half Empty
At the height of the cult phenomenon in the 1970’s, Rabbi Maurice Davis, an experienced deprogrammer, reflected on his experience helping young people return to their families and mainstream society. He observed that most of them were dropouts from mainline churches and synagogues, and that wh
Hospitality at Church
The advice appeared in a newspaper column written by an interior decorator. A correspondent had asked, “What’s the single least expensive change I can make in my home in order to improve it?” The columnist responded: “Clean the place up. It’s virtually free, and it will
Letters
Letters

Public Scandal

Having read your recounting of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s advice to the U.S. bishops on morality in voting (Signs of the Times, 7/19), I find it little wonder that there is a great deal of confusion. But it should be quite apparent to any right thinking person that the murder of 40 million innocents is not comparable to an individual’s marriage-vow problems. The point to be dealt with here clearly is public scandal. Any politician who purports to be Catholic and supports the intrinsically evil practice of abortion is giving public scandal, notwithstanding all the specious excuses that have been concocted.

Such a person should not be treated as a Catholic communicant for his own good and, more important, in order to avoid confusing people generally as to Catholic teaching and especially scandalizing the faithful. Christ’s teaching on giving scandal is frighteningly explicit.

The politician’s sin is openly public and should be dealt with by his pastor or bishop in a public manner, not with the hierarchy hiding in their offices for fear of unpopularity or loss of their tax immunity.

Not only does a public condemnation of the individual politician’s position emphasize his moral error in the arena most important to him; it would also serve to inform and emphasize to the public at large the importance of the issue in church teaching. Those who wish to follow Christ must be his witnesses and face martydom as he did in leading the faithful to the truth rather than worrying about public attack or approbation. It is significant and sad that the bishops who have done their duty by speaking out against the public scandal of pro-abortion Catholic politicians can be readily named because of their small number, which goes a long way to explaining the reasons for the difficulties, confusion and other scandals experienced by the American Catholic Church in the post-Vatican II era.

Thomas P. Dowd

Books
Sep 13, 2004 issue
Meet the Innovators
Clayton Sinyai
In recent decades a growing number of social scientists like Theda Skocpol whose Diminished Democracy I reviewed in this space 10 20 03 have rediscovered the voluntary associations of civil society that flourish in the social space between government agencies and profit-seeking firms Today bus
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Critics have often asked, “When has the just-war theory ever led to the condemnation of a war?” Seldom, if ever, it would seem. As the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir has written, the Just War Theory provides reason “to pause analytically” before going to war, but an outright condemnatio
News
Signs of the Times
Catholics Rank Abortion Below War, EconomyAbortion was named as a very important priority by 49 percent of Catholics who expect to vote for President George W. Bush, coming behind Iraq, terrorism, moral values and the economy, each of which was named by at least 64 percent in a recent Pew poll. The
Post-Crisis Morale Among Priests
In the wake of the sexual abuse crisis, more than a few people, including priests, are convinced that the morale of priests is bad. In a letter dated Dec. 12, 2003, 69 priests of the Archdiocese of New York wrote to Cardinal Edward Egan, “We need to tell you again what you already know; the mo
Realigning Catholic Priorities
If asked to name the most prominent item on the Catholic bioethics agenda, most people in the United States, including Catholics themselves, would no doubt name abortion, closely followed by biomedical uses of embryos, such as stem cell research and cloning. Everyone knows that the Catholic Church p
Inculturating Liturgical Music
In a delightful scene in Ang Lee’s splendid comic film Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, the oldest sister of the Taiwanese family at the center of the story, a recently converted and fervent Christian, witnesses her new husband’s baptism by submersion. As he rises from the water, the large congre
Preparing for Dialogue in the Holy Land
Most of the dramatic changes that produced the vast improvement in Jewish-Christian relations in the last half-century have taken place on the Christian side. In light of the historic record of Western Christianity’s teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism, it is understandable that until th