Rev. Richard P. McBrien on the 08 Elections

Rev. Richard P. McBrien on the 08 Elections
Immaculate Conception– Solemnity Monday, December 8, 2008

From The Tidings, Los Angeles, Ca. Perspectives, November 21-28, 2008, p. 14:
There are at least three important lessons for their pastoral leadership to absorb. First, Catholic voters are paying less and less attention to the urgings of some of the Conference’s most theologically rigid and politically partisan bishops. Catholics this year returned to their traditional allegiance to the Democratic Party by a margin 53-45%. And Hispanic voters, most of whom are Catholics, supported the Democratic ticket by an astonishing margin of 66-31%.

This was in spite of the efforts of a vocal handful of bishops, including Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver and Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, to try to persuade Catholics that a vote for the Democratic ticket was tantamount to a vote for abortion and, therefore, gravely sinful….

By an overwhelming margin of some 60%, voters this year identified the economy as their number one concern. The issues which right-wing pressure groups tried to use on fellow Catholics with voter guides, - abortion, gay marriage, homosexuality, embryonic stem-cell research – gained little or no traction this time around.

The vocal minority of bishops have to ask themselves whether their one-issue approach is actually counterproductive… This year, in any case, their narrow approach to life issues has stirred other pro-life Catholics to fight back and to reject the focus on the abortion issue to the practical exclusion of all others.

Second, there is also a question to be put to the all-too-silent majority of bishops who have failed to remind Catholic voters that the Bishops’ Conference supports a “consistent ethic of life” approach to moral issues; that it has gone record as neither endorsing nor opposing candidates for public office; and that it insists that the Catholic Church is not a one-issue Church, notwithstanding the moral urgency of the abortion issue...

The media and many in the general public do not usually make a distinction between the personal views of the few outspoken bishops and official teachings and policies of the entire Bishops’ Conference.

In the future, Conference leaders must make it unmistakably clear that, while individual bishop are free to issue statements, and take stands within and for their own dioceses, and indeed that their views are contrary to the stated teachings and policies of the Conference itself.

Third, beyond the concern for political and moral credibility and effectiveness, there are other, equally significant statistics to drawn from the recent presidential election. The Democratic ticket won the support of 66% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29, and 57 % between the ages of 30 to 44. …

Can our leadership not make a more concerted effort to understand the thinking of under -45 Catholics? … The sexual-abuse scandal in the priesthood has had a devastating effect on the credibility of our bishops. They must take care not to worsen the problem.

George H. Kubeck,
P.S. Is it possible that the flawed religious reality mindset that produced the sex scandal is the same one that kept two-thirds of the bishops silent? Let Pope Benedict XVI decide!