ST. LOUIS — The Associated Press is continuing the mainstream media convention of misrepresenting Catholic teaching and positions on important political issues. In a story last Friday, using the headline, “St. Louis Bishop Softens Stance,” AP ran a story that implied Archbishop Raymond Burke has changed his mind about Catholics voting for pro-abortion politicians. However, the original interview in the St. Louis Post Dispatch included statements from Burke that show his speculation was heavily qualified. The Associated Press omitted Burke's emphasis on the need to have proportional reasons for that support. Burke said, “(the voter must) believe the politician's stance on other moral issues outweighs the abortion issue.”
“If the reasons are really proportionate, and the person remains clear about his or her opposition to abortion, that can be done,” Burke said. The archbishop was at pains to point out that in reality the question is not one of the fine points of moral theology, but of immediate reality. “What is a proportionate reason to justify favoring the taking of an innocent, defenseless human life? That's the question that has to be answered in your conscience. What is the proportionate reason?” He said that the difficulty of these nuanced ideas is the reason he did not discuss the problem of proportionality in his earlier statements in June. “It is difficult to imagine what that proportionate reason would be,” he said.
Campaign Life Catholic, told LifeSiteNews.com that Bishop Burke's position has remained consistent. Suresh Dominic, spokesman for the organization, explained to LifeSiteNews.com what proportionate reasons could be. “In North America, where abortion — the slaughter of the innocent and most helpless among us — is rampant, abortion is the central human rights concern and thus the overriding political concern in all elections. All who would vote for a pro-abortion politician would associate themselves with that atrocity. However, in a case where two pro-abortion politicians are vying for election, a pro-life Catholic may, in good conscience, vote for the politician who will give at least minimal protection to life such as the case where one of the pro-abortion politicians would support a partial-birth abortion ban.”
The St. Louis diocese will release a document clarifying the moral position of Catholics who support pro-abortion politicians. This statement will include Burke's qualifications that the reasons a voter is supporting a candidate have to weigh more heavily than his or her support for the killing of the unborn. However, the damage to the bishop's position will have been done by the time any official statement comes out. By Saturday, newspapers in Chicago, New York, Fort Worth, Seattle, Sioux City, London, England, and Taiwan had run the story and flashed headlines around the world that the Archbishop has “flip-flopped” on his strong stand.
One Canadian Catholic wrote a letter to the Associated Press complaining of their pattern of misrepresenting Catholic positions. Kevin Fraser of Surrey, British Columbia, wrote, “In recent years, unattributed disinformation has been the source of a compounding pain for we faithful Catholics. I don't know what other religious minorities would tolerate this repeated misrepresentation of their faith, especially in the litigious United States.”
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(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
