Is the draft of the Catholic bishops’ proposed letter on social and economic policy of interest beyond the Catholic community? Preliminary indications are that the answer is yes, and this is so, of course, because the Catholic community in America is very large, the single largest in the country. It by no means follows that the bishops can shape the attitudes of Catholic voters on broad social and economic policies. Statistical investigations suggest that even on questions of explicit moral content, the bishops address wayward congregations —the difference between the percentages of Catholics and non-Catholics who practice birth control and submit to abortion is reputedly not great. But it is probably so that Catholics who violate their church’s canons go through life with something of a moral hangover, until they reorder their lives through the sacrament of confession. But it is unlikely, even if the first draft of the bishops’ letter were to be endorsed by the bishops meeting in plenary council next June, that Catholics who voted for political candidates expressly opposed to some of the bishops’ recommendations would feel queasy about doing so.
So, then, why the fuss?
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