America Magazine - Cul-de-Sac Catholicism
During the debates on the Health Reform Bill I become discouraged by the frequent positions voiced by the US Catholic Bishops that seemed closer to the Republican talking points than to our Catechism. The new book by Professor Cafardi lays out clearly (to me) the political positions taken by the Bishops.
Why did the bishops fight health care reform until the end?
NICHOLAS P. CAFARDI | APRIL 12, 2010
I n the second temptation of Jesus in the desert, the devil offered Jesus political power. Jesus turned him down. The American bishops—or rather their leadership and staff—succumbed. How heady it must have felt for those staffers from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops who were present in the room with Rep. Bart Stupak when he was negotiating with Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the anti-abortion language in the House health care reform bill.
But what the lords of this world give, they can take away. How bitter it must have been for these same staffers when Congressman Stupak worked out a reasonable compromise with the administration—an executive order clarifying the anti-abortion language of the Senate bill—so that the Congressman, acting as a pro-life Catholic layman, with a fully-informed conscience, could vote for the Senate version of the health care reform bill.
The Catholic Church has always been a strong supporter of universal health care, ever since Pope John XXIII included it in his list of basic human rights in his encyclical, Pacem in Terris. Yet when the United States finally adopted near (not complete) universal coverage, the bishops of the United States found themselves opposed to it for reasons that were, at best, hard to decipher.
It is worth your time to read the full review.
