A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

The bishop’s role in passing Obamacare March 22, 2010

Matt Archbold at Creative Minority Report/National Catholic Register has a post up looking at how we got to a point in this country where a huge demonrat majority in Congress, along with the presidency, managed to cram an incredibly unpopular bill down the collective throats of the American people.  He gives the GOP a good share of the blame, which is very deserved.  But, he also points out the the bishops also have had a role to play in creating a situation where a disaster like this could become law.  What is that role?

The hard truth is that for years the Bishops have allied themselves with the pro-abort party in matters related to health-care, and now they claim 11th hour betrayal.

When you hang out with thieves, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get robbed.

Moreover, the Bishops silence for years in the face of pro-abortion Catholic politicians has given aid and comfort to those who seek the death of children. The Bishop’s unwillingness, with some obvious exceptions, to effectively address or discipline pro-abort Catholic politicians allowed for the Democrats to portray the Church as divided on the issue. They have also allowed a culture of dissent to flourish for decades that culminated in the shameful last minute endorsement by a group of radical nuns that seriously hurt the cause of life.

The bishops’ decades long collective silence on these issues allowed for this culture to develop and has resulted in the USCCB being understandably criticized as an extension of the Democrat party (the Democrat party at prayer they say).

I don’t want to take this too far.  I’m not blaming this on the bishops, but the cozy relationship between the DNC and many bishops and especially the USCCB bureaucracy has certainly gotten alot of politicians used to acting like catholycs, and not Catholics.  And, it’s conditioned the media to hearing some bishops say one thing, and some another, and dismissing those the media disagrees with.  This is what happened when the 55 nuns issued a press release stating that Obamacare was just so wonderful – we didn’t hear about CMSWR or the rebuttals from the USCCB or anything else in the media.

So, the USCCB has made some mistakes.  I’m sure alot of bishops feel more comfortable with a certain vision of the democrat party (a vision that hasn’t been accurate in decades, but a vision nonetheless) and have the same inherent distrust of the Republican party that so many Catholics share.  But, strategically, the close ties between the DNC and USCCB have got to be re-evaluated.  They were pretty embarrasing during alot of the run-up to this debate. 

This unfortunate strategic tendency to want to be close to the DNC encouraged the bishops to make a further tactical error – not opposing this bill on general principles until the 11th hour.  The USCCB did not finally come to the conclusion that this legislation was going to make abortion a permanent, and very large, part of American life, forever, until early November.  That was almost too late to do anything.  Once they finally did come to this realization, they acted nobly, and probably played a role in the House adding the Stupak language, but that language was always just a way of trying to buy off the bishops.  It was never going anywhere.   If the bishops had threatened very strongly to oppose all the bills being discussed back in August, when the Tea Party movement had struck fear into all the Congressmen, they could have been key in making sure abortion would have been completely pulled.  But in the interest of being congenial, being pals with the democrat buddies, they failed to do so, and we in the Pro-Life movement now face a task that is monumentally more difficult than it was yesterday. 

Moreover, the credibility of the Church has been badly, badly damaged.  It appears that the bishops have no real authority, not over trade organizations, not over their religious, not over priests, not over laity, and sure as heck not on powerful politicians.  A Church without authority will descend into a failed version of protestantism.  I pray the bishops will realize this, and realize that the decades long experiment in collegiality and ‘pastoral’ leadership has been a failure.