Kennedy/Kerry:"If the bishops won't do anything about that, don't come to me. It's their problem."

FIRST THINGS ^ | October 2003 | Richard John Neuhaus

[Polycarp]

From FIRST THINGS, October, 2003, The Public Square, p. 83:

"It's the Bishops' Problem" is the title of Tom Bethell's column in the AMERICAN SPECTATOR. He's not talking about the sex-abuse scandals but what he views as episcopal silence or cowardice with respect to Catholic witness in the public square. When Senator Rick Santorum was ferociously attacked for simply stating the Catholic view -- and the view of most Americans -- on homosexuality, Bethell says "we did not hear from the Catholic bishops." In fact, Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua of Philadelphia did publicly support Santorum, and he and other bishops offered to do more, but Santorum's office asked them to hold off. It would, some thought, be counterproductive to make it "a Catholic issue."

In 1984, Bethell writes, "the question arose whether John Cardinal O'Connor would dare to excommunicate the pro-abortion vice presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro. For a brief moment, we held our breath. But he did no such thing. Little did we know that O'Connor was a pliant figurehead who was not remotely interested in opposing New York's Democratic liberal establishment." That's a cheap shot, and inaccurate to boot. O'Connor challenged the liberal political establishment on many things -- on school aid, the homosexual agenda, the freedom of the Church to run its social programs without government interference, and, again and again and again, on abortion. But it's true, there were no excommunications.

Bethell makes an important point. He tells about a pro-life journalist who recently managed to corner Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. The journalist pressed them on how they square being Catholic, and at the same time, unqualifiedly pro-abortion. Kennedy said, "I take my beliefs, I take my religion, very seriously. Look, I know who I am and what I believe." Then, speaking of the bishops, he said, "It's their problem, not mine." Kerry responded to the reporter's question, "If the bishops can't do and won't say anything about that, don't come to me. You know what I'm saying?" Bethell suggestively sets the two statements side by side --"If the bishops can't or won't do anything about that, don't come to me. It's their problem, not mine" -- and says the Senators are right. It is the bishops' problem, he says.

The way to deal with it, he says, is for the bishops of Kennedy, Kerry, and the many others who take the same position to call them in and say: "Look, we just can't have this. It is causing grave scandal. And your soul is in jeopardy. Either you change your mind, or you will be separated from the Church. Then maybe you will believe that we take our church affairs seriously as you take your affairs of state." In short, church discipline and, if it comes to that, excommunication, which is simply the public statement that a person has by grave, knowing, obdurate, and public sin separated himself from the communion of the Church.

Bethell is by no means alone in being puzzled and disappointed by episcopal leadership, or non-leadership, on this score. I have been asked hundreds of times, "Why don't the bishops do something about ___________?" (With Senator Kennedy, not surprisingly, most frequently mentioned.) The question is asked with a mix of poignancy and anger by the most faithful Catholics, and especially those who have sacrificed much for the pro-life cause. I'm afraid I don't have a very good answer for those who ask, although over the years I've talked with many knowledgeable people about it, including many bishops. Some bishops have taken bold initiatives, as, very recently, in the cases of Governor Gray Davis of California and Senator Tom Daschle, but they stop well short of public excommunication.

The Meaning of "PASTORAL"

Most bishops are, first of all, managers. That's not the way it is supposed to be, but it is the way it is. They are burdened and distracted by many things. Anyone who wants to be a bishop these days is either a saint or manifestly disqualified for the job. The latter may not prevent him from getting it. Most bishops are averse to controversy and terrified of confrontation. They see it as their job to keep everybody on board, not to rock the boat, and so forth. This is called being "pastoral'" a rich word much debased. They know that almost every nationally prominent Democratic politician who is a Catholic is also pro-choice, and the same is true of some Republicans. They recognize that it is a problem, even a public scandal. They, too, have been asked the question. In many cases, they are tired of being asked it, probably because they, too, don't have a very good answer.

Some of them say that efforts are being made behind the scenes. Speaking of one prominent politician, an archbishop tells me, "I can't tell you how often I've wrestled him to the mat on this." Apparently the politician won every time. He continues to be in the front lines of the pro-abortion cause, and to regularly receive the Eucharist. After more than thirty years, talk about what is being done behind the scenes is not very convincing. In another case, a bishop tells me that the politician claims his spiritual director assures him that his pro-abortion position is perfectly compatible with Catholic teaching. His spiritual director is a Jesuit. The bishop says nobody can expect him to take on the entire Society of Jesus. One might expect that, but, unfortunately, one doesn't. Yet another bishop says that he is not sure whether an egregiously offending politician is in his diocese or registered in the parish of a different diocese, and is therefore the responsibility of another bishop. I respectfully suggested the question might be clarified by a simple phone call. Yet another bishop friend is very candid in saying that we all know the answer to the question: all hell would break loose. The papers and networks would be down on the heads of the bishops, and we would witness an explosion of anti-Catholicism that would make the sex-abuse scandals of the past year look like a minor rough spot.

It is also pointed out that Rome has not demanded, or given any indication of favoring, more public action by the bishops. Politically prominent pro-abortion Catholics in Italy, France, and Germany, for instance, are not subject to public discipline. Why should America be different? So the bishops have thought about the problem -- although I do not know who was thinking what when Mr. Leon Panetta, a proponent even of partial-birth abortion, was appointed to the National Review Board. The bishops have an official policy against putting prominent pro-abortion proponents in situations of trust or honor in Catholic programs and institutions, lest it cause pubic [sic] scandal. One may be forgiven for wondering how serious they are about that policy.

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church" is clear enough: "Certain particularly grave sins incur excommunication, the most severe penalty, which impedes the reception of the sacraments and the exercise of certain ecclesiastical acts, and for which absolution consequently cannot be granted except by the pope, the bishop of the place, or priests authorized by them. In danger of death, any priest, even if deprived of faculties for hearing confessions, can absolve from every sin and excommunication." Assuming, of course, that the sinner is penitent.

We may not need a string of highly publicized excommunications, but the Catholic people certainly deserve a more adequate explanation of what appears to be episcopal indifference to prominent Catholics who, in explicit and persistent defiance of the Church's teaching, promote and abet the "abominable crime" (Vatican II) of abortion. Canon law states, "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae [automatically] by the very commission of the offense." Why is a frightened young woman who procures an abortion excommunicate while a politician who encourages her by telling her it is her right to do so, and works to secure her liberty to do so, welcomed at the altar? Why are prominent Catholics who persistently and publicly promote what the Church calls the culture of death apparently immune from public discipline? The Catholic people have waited a very long time for convincing answers to these questions.

Until such answers are forthcoming, it would seem that Senators Kennedy and Kerry are right. "If the bishops can't or won't do anything about that, don't come to me. It's their problem, not mine." Call it taunting, or call it throwing down the gauntlet, but Kennedy and Kerry have rendered an important service by clarifying that it is up to the bishops to make their problem the problem also of Kennedy, Kerry, and a host of others who count on bishops not having the nerve to be bishops. That, at least, is how many faithful Catholics see the matter. If they're wrong, maybe the bishops, or at least some bishops, will explain why they're wrong. Publicly.

[potlatch]

Strangely, growing up in smaller towns, 65 thousand or less, I don't know one person who has ever applied for or got an annulment!! Maybe it's the 'small town' values?? LOL!