The Bishops’ Campaign
On the page opposite this one, lay theologian and conservative commentator Michael Novak argues with his customary force that criticism of the Catholic bishops’ recent intervention in the abortion question is hypocritical and unfair. One would have to be mean-spirited and bigoted indeed not to concur in Novak’s belief that the bishops have a role to play in bringing about that “happy day” when “America’s public square will no longer echo emptily but will be alive with serious moral argument, as a free country ought to be.” But that is precisely why the bishops’ recent decision to hire a powerful public-relations firm and a politically well-connected pollster to press their opposition to abortion under any circumstances is troubling.
Public relations and polling are not instruments of ethical persuasion or moral argument. They are tools of electoral politics. When the bishops choose to take them up, it is fair to ask precisely what they intend. In a nation of believers, such as ours, no one wants or expects our lawmakers to check their moral convictions at the door to the legislative chamber. But in a pluralistic country whose well-tested charter of liberty prescribes the absolute separation of church and state, we also expect that those convictions are dictated by the individual’s conscience and not from the pulpit.
Today, there are many things that Americans of all creeds esteem as essential to a decent life without even realizing they are the product of Catholicism’s rich and sophisticated system of moral reasoning. Among them are the notion of a living wage, the idea that true individual fulfillment is found in the fulfillment of our responsibilities to others, the concept that all social classes have a mutual duty to ensure each other’s rights and well-being, and the insistence that higher authorities ought not to preempt those decisions that smaller social units, particularly the family, can make for themselves.
It would be a sad--perhaps tragic--day, if the custodians of such a fruitful tradition transformed themselves into just another political lobby.