Peter Steinfels has a good discussion of the USCCB’s draft election year statement that has yet to gain final approval. He notes the background, as the “official guide” in 2004 was upstaged in some circles by “unlicensed guides”, such as the “five non-negotiable principles” document put out by Catholic Answers. Steinfels does not mention that some of these guides not only attempted ignore the bishops and align the Catholic Church with the Party of War and Mammon, but are also underpinned by really bad moral theology (is that too suprising when the goal is to follow the lead of the evangelical right?).
A little while back, I wrote a post on the necessity of a consistent ethic of life. According to Steinfels, the document states that “a consistent ethic of life should be the moral framework for principled Catholic engagement in political life”. It also includes torture and deliberate attacks on non-combatants as intrinsically evil acts, something that Catholic Answers has absolutely refused to do with its non-negotiable principles (that would muddy the partisan waters, you see). Moreover, it affirms that issues like poverty and health care crucial: “the moral imperative to respond to the needs of our neighbors’ basic needs such as food, shelter, health care, education and meaningful work is universally binding on our consciences”. Let’s hope and pray that these strong messages come through in the final document.
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