MARIO CUOMO - THE CINOP BRAIN - 4 OF 5

MARIO CUOMO – THE CINOP BRAIN – 4 of 5
In pursuit of the truth – cinops be gone – Tuesday, January 13, 2009

We continue with historian Carlin’s book, “Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?”

# 3 Catholic shortcomings/hypocrisy: (cont’d)

“Despite the teachings in our homes and schools and pulpits, despite the sermons and pleadings of parents and priests and prelates, despite all the efforts of defining our opposition to the sin of abortion, collectively we Catholics apparently believe –and perhaps act – little differently from those who don’t share our commitment.

Are we asking government to make criminal what we believe to be sinful because we ourselves can’t stop committing the sin? The failure here is not Caesar’s. This failure is our failure, the failure of the entire people of God.

Nobody has expressed this better than a bishop in my own state, Joseph Sullivan … “The major problem the Church has internal,” the bishop said last month in reference to abortion. “How do we teach? As much as I think we are responsible for advocating public policy issues, our primary responsibility is to teach our own people. We haven’t done that. We’re asking politicians to do what we haven’t done effectively ourselves.”

I agree with the bishop …. Unless we Catholics … set an example that is clear and compelling, then we will never convince this society to change the civil laws to protect what we preach is precious human life."

For the most part, any Catholic can say, “Amen!” to this. Yet Cuomo (committing what logic textbooks call “the fallacy of division”) speaks as though all Catholics exhibit the softness on abortion that’s exhibited by the “average” Catholic. He fails to note that when it comes to abortion there is found among American Catholics something that statisticians call a bimodal distribution. Some (let’s call them “orthodox Catholics”) strongly adhere to traditional Church teaching; they regard abortion as unwarranted homicide and judge America’s abortion regime to be a system of mass killing of innocents. Others (let’s call them “cafeteria Catholics”) have “conformed themselves to the world.”… But does this mean that orthodox Catholics must strictly abstain from seeking anti-abortion legislation because their “cafeteria” co-religionists condone abortion? This hardly seems reasonable or fair – yet this is what Cuomo is arguing. 206-7

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Maybe Mario Cuomo forgot what happened in Louisiana. “In early 1962, Archbishop Joseph Rummel said that in the following year, Catholic schools would integrate. Several Catholic politicians organized public protests and letter-writing campaigns. They threatened a boycott of Catholic schools.
On April 16, 1962 , Rummel excommunicated three prominent Catholics – a judge, a political writer, and community organizer –for publicly defying the teaching of their church.”
The New Orleans events made national news, covered by the Time magazine and the New York Times. The Times editorial board gushed that “ men of all faiths must admire {Rummel} unwavering courage” because he “set an example founded on religious principle and is responsive to the social conscience of our time.” p. 56-7, Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, Render Unto Caesar, Doubleday, 2008.
George H. Kubeck