Trump Administration: Life Begins At Conception

[Ender]

By “politics issues” you appear to mean “real-world” issues. Is it so wrong for the Bishops to illuminate the nexus between moral principles and real-world issues, even if we agree their statements don’t have the same force as a church teaching on abortion?

I agree they might make a poor statement. But the question is whether they should refrain from the statements of the kind I describe generically above.

If the bishops limited themselves to the objectives which we have an obligation to pursue that would be fine. Exhortations to “feed the poor”, and “heal the sick” are indeed what the church teaches and are the ends which we should keep in mind in crafting political policies. Unfortunately they don’t limit themselves to such reasonable statements, but rather come out with “feed the poor…by enacting policy X and rejecting policy Y”. This is where they go completely off the rails.

 

[Rau]

This is where they go completely off the rails.

I am sure some statements are too focused on detailed policy and not sufficiently focused on why a particular approach is likely closer to the Gospel message than another. But sometimes the objections to the Bishops are expressed as desiring they stick purely to their theology books and stay silent on social matters. And sometimes the root of objections by the laity are they find an unwelcome challenge in the message.