Catholics on the left will frequently posture as if they are seeking only a moderate and reasonable alteration in the Church’s teachings in order to make them more “relevant” for modern audiences. But then — Katie bar the door! Once they see an opening, they press forward with a full frontal assault for more radical changes.
This was the tactic they used on issues such as homosexuality and women priests. Their initial calls to end “gay bashing” soon became a campaign for homosexual marriages; lobbying for female altar servers was quickly replaced by a demand for women priests.
Many commentators on the Catholic right made the point that the “seamless garment” proposition, advanced by the American bishops under the leadership of Cardinal Joseph Bernadin during the 1988 presidential campaign, would be used in a similarly disingenuous way. They told us it would be used to undermine the Church’s teaching on abortion. Well, it looks as if they were right.
At the time, we were assured by proponents of the seamless garment that this was not the case; that the goal was only for the Church to express a “consistent ethic of life” within a “moral framework from which we address all the issues in the political arena.” We were told that the bishops’ objective was to make clear that the Church was interested in more than the “single issue” of abortion, to “address a spectrum of issues, seeking to protect human life and promote human dignity from the inception of life to its final moment”; that the Church was concerned with capital punishment, the rights of the poor, immigration rights, environmental issues and the exploitation of workers, as well as the rights of the unborn.
The conservative critics argued that all this was a ruse, a way of getting liberal Catholic politicians off the hook. They insisted that the seamless garment proposition would permit “pro choice” Democrats such as Ted Kennedy and Mario Cuomo to make the point that, while they were against the Church on the abortion question, they were with the Church on capital punishment, federal social programs and immigration; that their position was no worse than that of their opponents, who were in line with the Church on the abortion question, but in disagreement on the other issues. Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee as a virtue.
The conservative critics were called “paranoid” and “overly suspicious” for making this claim. Supporters of the seamless garment argument assured us that they were as anti-abortion as anyone else; that their goal was only to make clear that the Church’s concern for human life was not isolated to the abortion question. Not so. I don’t know if it is always the case that the truth eventually becomes known, but sometimes it does. Sometimes someone spills the beans. Fr. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at Notre Dame, did just that in his recent syndicated column. He made clear that that the critics of the seamless garment were on the mark.
Not that this was his intention. McBrien was using his column, as he frequently does, to shore up the defenses around “pro-choice” Catholic politicians, or as he phrases it, to argue that we should not “judge a Catholic politician’s performance in office on the basis of one issue alone, albeit one as important as abortion.” McBrien asks, “Is a politically conservative Catholic politician — someone, for example, like Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania — any less vulnerable to criticism if he or she votes for legislation that imposes an unfair tax burden on the poor, or supports capital punishment, or exposes the environment to exploitation and pollution, or curbs the rights or workers to form unions, or authorizes the President of the United States to wage a preventive war in Iraq against the emphatic moral opposition of Pope John Paul II?” There you have it: a moral equivalence between a vote for legalized abortion and a vote against a liberal social program.
You disagree? You say that I am overstating my case? That McBrien is not going that far? That he is only making the case that the Church has concerns for issues beyond abortion? Sorry. No cigar. McBrien: “The church wishes to protect human life at every point on the spectrum, not just life between conception and birth. To be sure, the bishops have a right and a duty to speak out on issues of public policy, but they must be careful to apply their moral yardstick even-handedly.” I don’t think I am being unfair when I interpret “even-handedly” to mean “even-handedly.”
But isn’t it true that a Catholic politician who votes for capital punishment, for an “unfair tax burden on the poor,” to leave workers open to “exploitation,” to permit “pollution,” or in support of an unjust war against Iraq, is ignoring the Church’s teachings in serious matters? Yes, that is true. But the point is that it is unfair to assume that a conservative Republican who is a Catholic, who votes against the platform of the Democratic Party, sees his vote in this way. There is no reason to assume that he does not see his vote for tax cuts as a way to stimulate the economy that will result in more jobs for the poor. No reason to assume that he does not see his vote for capital punishment in certain limited instances as in line with Pope John Paul II’s teaching; that he does not see a vote in opposition to the position of the Sierra Club as a vote “for” pollution, but as a vote for a more moderate approach to environmental issues, one that makes reasonable compromises in order to protect the jobs of American workers. No reason to assume that he has not considered the Church’s just war theory, and concluded that the war against Saddam Hussein is within its guidelines.
If a liberal Catholic protests that none of this is true; that tax cuts will hurt the poor, that the union movement is an instrument of social justice, that the environmental movement is correct about the economic sacrifices we must make to protect the earth, and that the war with Iraq does not meet the standards of the just war theory — fine. Catholics on the left are entitled to make judgements about which political party has a more effective approach to solving our societal needs. They are entitled to come to the conclusion that the Democratic platform works better than the Republican. In other words, they are entitled to their political point of view.
But they are not entitled to come to the conclusion that more conservative Catholics are insincere when they talk about their views on capital punishment being in line with the Church’s, or that they are indifferent to the plight of the poor when they make the judgment that the free-market approach favored by Republicans leads to more jobs and a better way of life than the big-government approach of the Democrats. After all, the streams of illegal immigrants pouring across our borders are coming in search of jobs in the free market. And these illegal immigrants, for the most part, come from countries led by political parties that share the big-government philosophy championed by liberal Democrats.
Let’s cut to the chase: A Catholic who is a conservative Republican can make the case that his political posture is in line with the Church’s teachings; that he is in fact seeking to implement them. A Catholic politician who votes to permit the killing of the unborn cannot make a similar claim. Manipulating the “seamless garment” proposition to make it seem otherwise is either muddle-headed or crassly dishonest.
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, is available from our online store. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
