ENGAGING THE CULTURE
Keeping Politics Out of Parish Churches?
Sometimes it's hard to make sense of the rules
(Nov./Dec. 2000)

BY DONNA M. STEICHEN

NOT SO LONG AGO, California's Catholic bishops gave their unanimous support to a drive to put an initiative item on the California ballot requiring that parents be notified before their minor child has an abortion.

Despite that official endorsement, Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles warned all his pastors, by letter, not to permit supporters to collect signatures anywhere on church property. This ruling so hobbled the efforts of parish coordinators that the petition failed for lack of signatures. The cardinal's letter reportedly justified his prohibition with a claim that a parental notification signature drive would constitute illegal political activity and might endanger the archdiocese's tax exempt status.

Cardinal Mahony seemed to have adopted a more stringent standard about political activities than is recommended by either the California Catholic Conference or the NCCB/USCC. Their worries center on activities that promote particular candidates or political parties. About issue-oriented activities, on the other hand, the CCC guidelines indicate that "limitations on the extent of such lobbying are not generally a problem for parishes or active institutions, since lobbying would be an insubstantial part of their total work."

Still, the relevant passage in the CCC guidelines cautions that a signature drive is in fact considered a lobbying activity: (and) must be counted in determining whether the parish/diocese has engaged in more than insubstantial lobbying during a taxable year, the gathering of signatures on Church property or at Church activities is not encouraged or appropriate unless specifically authorized by the local bishop.

One might question the cardinal's priorities, then, or puzzle over his divergence from his colleagues' policies, but undeniably he was acting within his authority when he decided to rule out the petition drive.

But this fall, just before November's election, that stringent standard was apparently abandoned as a different matter of political advocacy raised deeply troubling questions about partisanship and priorities in the Los Angeles archdiocese.

A pre-election feature story by James Davidson in the September 15 issue of The Tidings asks, "How do the votes of US Senators and members of the House of Representatives compare with church teachings on social and moral issues? Which Congressional leaders are more likely to vote in ways that are consistent with the Church's social teachings: Democrats or Republicans?" The Tidings, the official archdiocesan newspaper, is distributed in parish churches as well as by mail.

Quoting a National Catholic Reporter study with a straight face, author Davidson, the editor of The Search for Common Ground: What Unites and Divides Catholic Americans, says there are 60 "key issues" on which Democrats voted more consistently for the bishops' positions than Republicans did. But as examples he cites only five specific votes: those on "President Clinton's deficit reduction plan," an increased minimum wage, a detail on the death penalty, the Cuban embargo, and the "earned income tax credit." Against these, he measures only two—education vouchers and partial birth abortion—as matters on which the Republicans voted in agreement with the bishops.

Apparently, in Davidson's eyes, the first five issues outweigh the latter two. In conclusion, he agrees with the NCR writers that "Democrats more closely reflect Catholic teachings over the broad spectrum." Not just more often, please note, but more closely.

What can explain the incongruity here? It should not be necessary to point out that issues such as the earned income tax credit, a minimum wage increase, and President Clinton's 1994 deficit reduction plan are not morally equivalent to partial birth abortion. This is like treating the macrobiotic diet, veganism, and the consumption of red meat as dietary issues equivalent in gravity to cannibalism. The first three are debatable, the latter is not.

Inflicting this specious partisanship on Catholic readers— who may take it as official Catholic teaching—is inexcusable. The blame it deserves is great enough to be shared among the author, the editor of The Tidings, the two sociologists responsible for the original NCR piece, and the whole nest of ideologues at NCR, with enough left over for the cardinal to share, unless he speedily repudiates the story.

It used to be an adage that the Catholic bishops constituted the Democratic party at prayer. That day is past. No one can justify collaboration with the party of abortion any longer.

[ St. Catherine Review ]