OPINION:
Bravo to the Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, for telling House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to choose whether to be orthodox in her professed Catholic faith or in her adherence to liberal Democrat Party principles (“Priest slams Nancy Pelosi: Stop ’betraying’ Catholicism or renounce faith,” Web, June 21). She is not alone in her hypocrisy. Catholics make up about 30 percent of the 112th Congress, and almost every Catholic Democrat shares her inconsistent, duplicitous position.
The church hierarchy would perhaps be in a better position to deal forthrightly and powerfully with these politicians’ scandalous behavior. But the U.S. bishops’ embrace of the Democrat Party’s social justice agenda has historically made them reluctant to be as overtly critical of wayward Catholic Democrats as they might otherwise be.
Maybe, though, the way in which the church’s free exercise of its beliefs is being circumscribed by Democrats’ implementation of various Obamacare contraceptive and abortifacient mandates has stiffened its spine. Maybe it’s finally ready to say what it should have been saying all along; namely, no one has to be a Catholic, but no one can be who holds Mrs. Pelosi’s position on abortion.
BOB FOYS
Chicago
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