Editorials
EDITORIALS X-ing communication Cardinal John O'Connor often says more than he intends and as a result ends up in a position other than the one he set out for. His nineteen-thousand-word column on...
...How this contributes to the stated objective of the bishops' Hill and Knowlton ad campaign to persuade the wider public of the church's views is hard to fathom...
...emulation...
...Building that consensus is a critical and long-term task which, realistically, may take decades...
...O'Connor has, in fact, reiterated the warning on several occasions since the initial column...
...In a question-and-answer format, the column took up, with varying degrees of thoroughness, a series of issues of differing weight...
...with a capacity to build a consensus at the legal level that will significantly reduce the number of abortions...
...Nonetheless, as Cardinal Joseph Bernardin wrote compellingly in these pages (April 20, 1990) concerning the church's proper course following the Webster decision: "To grasp the opportunity of a post-Webster period, we need to join firm conviction...
...But more disturbing was the way in which the statement significantly shifted the discussion from his intended purpose to draw attention to what might be done to limit abortions to an argument about excommunication and the separation of church and state, particularly as it applies to Catholic politicians...
...In 1990, threatening anathemas is almost certainly the surest way to undermine the process and to insure the church's views will not reach those who need to hear them the most, those Americans (about 60 percent) who are unhappy with the present legal status of abortion...
...it has neither abjured the use of illegal violence by its own forces nor taken irreversible steps to end apartheid...
...But the cardinal does "require" that professors at Catholic universities under his jurisdiction should silence themselves when it comes to differing publicly with the church's teaching on abortion...
...The response of Catholic politicians to the cardinal's use of the E-word was the universal reaction to someone wielding a club: first duck...
...in part, it did...
...It was meant to clarify and inspire...
...but Mandela defends an understanding of revolution and violence closer to the politics of Sam Adams or George Washington and his view is compatible with just war ethics...
...His nineteen-thousand-word column on abortion (Catholic New York, June 14), said a great deal...
...Such pain and painful reflection in these grave matters is appropriate a reaction at the heart of all genuine religious reflection...
...A weak presentation of a contested concept only further erodes its usefulness...
...The cardinal writes that announcing his message causes him pain...
...The fallout from the cardinal's statement overshadowed his words...
...One is formally complicit in the injustice of abortion when one votes for a candidate even partially on the basis of his or her pro-abortion positions...
...Myers writes: "As voters, Catholics are under an obligation to avoid implicating themselves in abortion...
...On violence, Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr...
...The day after its publication, Bishop Thomas Daily of Brooklyn remarked in a radio interview that if excommunicating a politician would "clarify issues, sure, I would use it...
...His discussion of natural law, for example, is thin and unconvincing...
...so dramatically showed...
...Ever since last November when the USCC issued a statement on abortion, reminding public officials and others that "No Catholic can responsibly take a 'prochoice' stand" (Origins, November 16, 1989), various bishops have sought to clarify and apply it with mixed results...
...That Socrates refers to such a law does not demonstrate its application to today's abortion issue...
...Since the bishops have failed thus far to convey to Catholics the church's teaching on the seriousness of abortion, the cardinal was obligated to make that teaching clear and apprehensible...
...Recently Bishop John Myers of Peoria, Illinois, took up that facet in his pastoral letter "Obligations of Catholics and Rights of Unborn Children," Origins, June 14...
...Nor could he have doubted that other bishops would follow his lead...
...It is hardly surprising that just about everyone not simply tabloid headline writers took the column as a serious warning to Catholic politicians...
...African government that sets the terms of engagement...
...By his words, his demeanor, his life, he earned the welcome he received and set a standard worthy of emulation...
...But the pain is not his alone, as the faces of Catholic politicians such as Congresswoman Susan Molinari (R-N.Y...
...Cardinal O'Connor does not go as far as to apply his teaching on the politics of abortion to voters...
...In the latter undertaking, however, he has fallen short...
...On other issues the ANC's alliances outside and within South Africa, its economic program, the depth of its commitment to basic liberties and to pluralism there may be cause for uncertainty, as there is about the real intentions of the white minority...
...would have answered differently...
...But by threatening politicians with excommunication, the cardinal diverted attention from the prolife movement's major task: limiting the number of abortions by building a moral and political consensus that speaks to and for the majority of Americans...
...We do not question his sincerity...
...But none of this gives reason for questioning the stature and integrity of Nelson Mandela...
Vol. 117 • July 1990 • No. 13
