From what little I have read in the blogosphere on the USCCB’s plan to meet with Catholic Congressional officials, I have concluded that not a small bit of confusion lingers as to the actual facts surrounding the meeting.
First, the letters:
Letter of Rep. Tim Ryan and 13 other House Democrats to Bishop Thomas Wenski – June 28, 2007
Letter of Bishop Thomas Wenski to Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) – July 17, 2007
Letter of Bishop Thomas Wenski to Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) – July 18, 2007
Second, the facts:
1. The USCCB did not actively or explicitly seek a meeting with Catholic Democratic congressmen and congresswomen in order to forge solutions to the Iraq quandary. 14 Catholic politicians, who happened to all be Catholic and Democrat, wrote to the the USCCB urging the bishops to work to “mobilize Catholic opinion” on the atrocities of the Iraq war. These same Democratic politicians requested a meeting with representatives of the USCCB in order to discuss strategies for ending the unjust war:
We write today to urge you to help mobilize Catholic opinion on this, one of the most critical issues of our time. To that end, we respectfully request a meeting with representatives of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to discuss ways in which we can work together in pursuit of our shared goal of ending the war in Iraq as soon as possible.
Thus, the criticisms I’ve seen that accuse the USCCB of capricious response to social issues or that suggest that the USCCB is misdirected in priority by having never called for meetings with politicians to resolve the injustice of legalized abortion are unfounded. The better question to ask is whether there has been an effort by pro-life Catholic politicians to meet with the USCCB, not the other way around. As concerned pastors of the Church in America, the USCCB agreed to meet with those Catholic politicians who reached out for assistance.
2. The USCCB is not overstepping its competence, as Fr. Richard John Neuhaus suggests. Let’s not dwell on the fact that Neuhaus foolishly and disingenuously attempts to pit Pope Benedict XVI’s teaching in Deus Caritas Est against the USCCB’s decision to meet with congressional leaders,and let’s not focus too much on the fact that Neuhaus–a Catholic cleric like the U.S. bishops who is a subordinate to a bishop–condemns his very own involvement in consultation and policy making with Republican government administrations through his calling into question the competence of the USCCB for doing the very thing he has done for years. The bishops of the Church have a long-standing tradition of making themselves available for consultation on public policy that has direct bearing on grave moral questions. Whether it was Pope John Paul II advising Augusto Pinochet of Chile to step down when the latter sought the former’s political advice or declaring his opinion to George W. Bush on embryonic stem cell research in the U.S., or John Cardinal O’Connor of New York testifying before the New York State senate on the immorality of human cloning during debates on legislation, or even Pope Benedict XVI initially opposing publicly the admission of Turkey into the EU, the Catholic bishops are well within their bounds of the competence when they weigh-in on public policy issues that have direct moral or religious implications. With the repeated condemnation of the Iraq War from both the Vatican and the USCCB, the bishops are acting pastorally and proactively through their efforts to aid in forging policy on Iraq in light of a deeply pressing moral question. Now, if the USCCB were to consult congressional leaders on tax policy or, say, zoning laws, then they would be stepping out of their competency, especially if they were doing so in the name of the Church in America.
This is not the first time Neuhaus has pretended to understand the role of the bishop in “the public square.” Fortunately, Bishop Wenski, who is much clearer and charitable than I, has responded well to Neuhaus’ factual errors and theological blunders at On the Square.
3. The USCCB has requested that Catholic Republicans be present at its meeting with Catholic Democratic congressional leaders. The USCCB is not taking a partisan angle on the issue of the Iraq War. A letter was sent directly from Bishop Thomas Wenski to Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner shortly after the USCCB received the initial letter from the Catholic Democratic congressional officials. The USCCB desires to participate in a bi-partisan meeting, which actually broadens the scope of discussion more widely than perhaps the Democrats had expected.
4. The USCCB’s reference to “our shared moral tradition” with respect to the 14 Democratic congressional leaders cannot be reduced to an action that “implicitly accepted the lawmakers’ claim that they are the moral champions of Catholic teaching,” as the rather undiscerning Diogenes of the error-prone Catholic World News has described. Instead of reading the phrase “shared moral tradition” in its proper context, Diogenes wildly constructs his own ignominious case against the judgment of the USCCB (it’s bad enough that Diogenes does not even link to the letter of the USCCB in question, which suggests to me that he has not even read it). My own recommendation to Diogenes, which I always recommend to my college students when we are discussing a loaded text, is to pay attention to context and repetition. Now, when one encounters the USCCB‘s phrase “shared moral tradition,” the intellectually responsible and rationally sound analysis will immediately derive two possible meanings from the phrase, and these options are not mutually exclusive.
First, the USCCB uses the word “moral” a total of nine times in its letter to the Catholic Democrats, the last instance occurring in the phrase “shared moral tradition.” The preceding eight instances of “moral” all refer specifically to the Iraq War itself or to the manner of conducting the war. Thus, the observant reader would conclude that the “shared moral tradition” is self-contained within the letter, referring only to the morality of the Iraq War. In this case then, the USCCB is speaking of the common moral perspective that these Catholic Democrats share with the U.S. bishops (and the Vatican!) on the question of war in Iraq. This first meaning seems to me to be both obvious and accurate within the context of the USCCB’s letter, and the meaning becomes even more perspicuous in light of the initial letter of the Democrats, who explicitly invoke their Catholic faith (however inconsistent that faith may be).
Second, the USCCB places emphasis on morality in its response to the Democrats. The Democrats use the term “moral” twice and “tradition” once in their letter to the USCCB. The USCCB uses the term “moral” nine total times in the second half of its letter, mentioning a “moral tradition” in the concluding sentence. The USCCB is emphasizing the “moral tradition” in order for the Democrats to realize that the USCCB is not a political ally in terms of the Iraq War, but that it is an episcopal body that approaches the Iraq War strictly from the Catholic moral tradition. Not only does this preclude partisan politics, but it reaffirms the teaching of the irreducible dignity of human life that undergirds the USCCB’s position on Iraq. By stressing the “moral tradition,” the USCCB is invoking a conception of life that extends to its position on abortion, an issue over which the USCCB and many of these same Democrats clashed just this past May. The USCCB deliberately invoked the “moral tradition” of the faith, and I cannot imagine that this was done accidentally or that the USCCB suffers from moral amnesia, forgetting that it had recently reprimanded 18 Democratics over their rejection of the Catholic moral teaching on abortion. Indeed, the USCCB has put the moral principle of respect for the human person on the table before the meeting even begins.
Incidentally, the USCCB spoke of its “shared moral tradition” in its letter to Republican representative Boehner, so it is clear that the USCCB is referring to the Catholic moral foundations that any publicly professed Catholic ought to share. Of course, Diogenes is typical when he omits to mention the fact that the USCCB invited Republicans to the meeting with Democrats, and that the USCCB spoke of a “shared moral tradition” to Catholic members of both parties.
It is a true shame when individuals such as Fr. Neuhaus and Diogenes, both of whom have a wide readership, either refuse to engage in rational discourse by villanizing the USCCB or deride the USCCB out apparent ignorance. In any case, Neuhaus and Diogenes are not reliable voices on this matter and each deserves to be called out for his very poor understanding of the relationship between politics and Catholic faith. One of the biggest challenges faithful Catholics in America must overcome is the perpetuation of the misinterpretation of Catholic social teaching conducted within so many so-called “orthodox” and “intellectual” circles. But I think we’re up to the task of reclaiming our Catholic patrimony in the social sphere from those who distort and convolve it through the conceptual misappropriation of what Vatican II truly meant by the “autonomy of earthly things.”
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