Just quickly read the NYTimes piece on Catholic bishops and the election. It’s a lot fairer than I anticipated. The closing, gets to the heart of the matter:
It was only logical for the Republicans to view the church as a “natural ally” on cultural issues, the archbishop said. He said that would end if a Republican candidate supported abortion rights.
“We are not with the Republican Party,” he said. “They are with us.”
Mr. Kerry’s Catholicism is a special issue for the church, Archbishop Chaput said. To remain silent while a President Kerry supported stem cell research would seem cowardly, he said. The Rev. Andrew Kemberling, pastor of St. Thomas More Church near here, said he agreed with the archbishop, but he acknowledged that parishioners sometimes accused him of telling them how to vote. He said his reply was: “We are not telling them how to vote. We are telling them how to take Communion in good conscience.”
The real story, frankly, is that it is so few bishops who take that attitude.