Kathy Shaidle and Stephen Kruczek both think the US bishops spend too much time and energy on abortion to the exclusion of “more important” things. Kathy says “Yes, abortion is important, and Daschle shouldn’t be supporting it. But I’ll say it again: the hierarchy’s obsession with it, to the exclusion of almost every other issue, lends credence that old joke—that the Catholic Church believes life begins at conception… and ends at birth…” And Stephen adds, “While I like the Church taking positions on political issues, but the danger is that these stances, whether on abortion or the war in Iraq, can distract or often alienates the faithful from the Church’s true more important messages.”
Excuse me, but what is more important than the most defenseless and innocent of all people being murdered in their wombs and—almost as bad—the majority of people having no problem with that? Should we have told the German bishops of 1930s and 1940s to stop talking so much about the Holocaust because we needed more soup kitchens and door-to-door evangelists?
I think there’s a danger after more than 20 years of fighting legalized abortion that we’re becoming used to it.
Besides, I don’t think the US bishops devote nearly the time and effort to fighting abortion as they do to other causes. The fact that a pro-abortion politician being publicly rebuked by his bishop (which didn’t actually happen in the Daschle case) is news shows that the bishops don’t take it seriously. When was the last time the bishops tried to mobilize the faithful to support laws banning abortion?