#9 What you said!
The 16 pages of single spaced, small type of the Bishop’s treatise on “Faithful Citizenship” that we were enjoined to read each week was off-putting, as well as confusing. I don’t know how they can equate global warming, illegal immigration, and abortion!
I suspect that most of the Bishop’s statement was unread by the people, although they had our best interests at heart. It would put the average person to sleep.
I applaud Fr. Newman’s forthright statement and wish that our Pastor would be so bold.
AftR, good description! And it deserves to be unread for those reasons. But more important, it should not be read because it is meaningless: the entity called the USCCB has no authority over American Catholics. If they want to print statements, that’s fine, but they are not encyclicals, apostolic letters, proclamations of doctrine or any such thing. They are not binding, any more than the flier you might get in the mail from the Milkman’s Union with their voting recommendations.
So it really is irrelevant what the “position” of the USCCB is, they cannot have their own position. If they had come out with a unanimous and complete endorsement of Obama and said all Catholics should vote for him, that has no moral authority.
These national conferences have taken on too much power. If bishops want to get together to discuss ideas of how to be more effective, that’s fine. But they are using the organization to shirk their individual pastoral responsibilities, they hide behind what the USCCB says instead of each crafting a clear document for their own flock, which is a failure of their charter to teach and to govern.
It does not matter what the USCCB says, it matters only what your own bishop says, and if he is in error, you are obligated to disobey, and it’s very easy to discern if he is in error: as JP2 recommended, every home should have a the Catechism. If you’re more intellectual, read the Papal Encyclicals or go to the online Canon Law site at the Vatican.
It’s really pretty easy to understand Church teaching, especially when you simply disregard anything coming from the USCCB.
This document was nothing more than a comprehensive and overstuffed compromise on citizenship, aptly named "McCain/Connell." (okay I'm kidding about the name.)