PERSPECTIVE ON RELIGION AND POLITICS : The Bishops in Democracyland : Morality: The church can rightly expect Catholic political leaders to work toward more legal restraints on abortion.

Serious religious people ought to have at least a qualified admiration for the Roman Catholic bishops around the country who have challenged Catholic politicians who are too quick to capitulate to the pro-choice position on abortion. For one thing, the bishops have articulated a clear, substantive moral tradition that emphasizes the importance of qualities intrinsic to moral action in the face of cultural trends. The bishops have insisted that respect for the dignity of nascent human life simply cannot be tossed aside by appeals to free choice, or to a rough calculus of pleasure over pain. They deserve admiration for showing a tenacious commitment to moral seriousness in the face of “enlightened opinion” and vociferous special-interest groups.

And serious religious people ought to appreciate the bishops’ insistence that Christians in public roles are whole persons--that their Christian convictions cannot be restricted to their personal lives while another set of principles guides their public lives.

This said, I can summon only qualified admiration, because I wonder whether these bishops have privately engaged the political leaders they have criticized. Have they invited the politicians to serious dialogue about their position? Or has the church simply acted like any other interest group by “going public,” by exerting pressure through the media?

One must have some sympathy for political leaders as they face the demands of the role that they have chosen. They must appeal to many constituencies. to get elected and stay elected. They must be assessed by their performance on a number of fronts, not just one or several issues. They must uphold the existing laws, even if they dislike them. Even more importantly, political leaders must engage in the art of compromise, particularly on an issue like abortion, where there is genuine disagreement in the country among persons of good will and intelligence. The bishops ought not demand that Catholic political leaders sacrifice their callings for a full legal realization of Catholic moral teaching.

Finally, there is a sense in which the bishops must give space and freedom to the laity as they translate moral principle into the complexities of political life. The bishops simply do not have the competence or the warrant to prescribe concrete policy formulations.

These qualifications do not mean that anything goes. The bishops can expect that Catholic politicians--assuming they are serious Catholics--will respond positively to the invitation for private dialogue. The church wants to make clear its teachings, and Catholic political leaders should want to be well-formed in the wisdom of their faith’s tradition.

This seems like a banal suggestion, but I would guess that very little serious conversation goes on between the elites in many professions and the teachers of the church. All too often, laity operate with an adolescent understanding of church teaching that does not fare well in the sophisticated world in which they operate. Their religious formation appears stunted before the secular knowledge that abounds in their profession.

It seems clear, however, that, given Catholic moral teaching, a Catholic political leader must show some public discomfort with the present American practice of abortion-on-demand during the first trimester. It stretches credibility to think that the governor of New York, for example, can peacefully coexist with laws that allow abortion in the first trimester for whatever reason.

The bishops can rightly expect Catholic political leaders to work toward more legal restraints on abortion. Knowing that the state’s law will never reach a complete legal equivalence to Catholic moral teaching, Catholic leaders nevertheless can be active in shaping laws that will diminish the use of abortion.

If these expectations were fulfilled, perhaps Catholic politicians, in league with other allies, could help us as a nation come up with a nuanced, moderate policy on abortion that has thus far eluded us but for which many of us long. I am outraged that few political leaders have stepped forward to propose such a policy. Instead we are confronted with demands to be “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” a very unsatisfactory and crude set of alternatives.

It would be a work of social justice if seriously religious people--politicians and bishops and laity alike--could lead us toward a humane policy that effectively restrains abortion yet leaves room for tragic choices that sometimes must be made.