Fred Sneesby - Observations on Culture, Faith and Politics

Religious Leaders Should Not Talk Religion

June 21, 2007

Once again, a Catholic bishop’s reprimand of a Catholic public figure has generated about five days of news stories and comments. In this case, as in most recent examples, abortion was the touchstone for this flare-up of newsprint. Bishop Thomas Tobin, Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, dressed down Republican Presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, for stating that he is personally opposed to abortion while refusing to advocate for government restrictions on the practice of abortion. In other words, Rudy thinks that this instance of taking human life is immoral but he also thinks it should be perfectly legal.

I’ve written before about how nonsensical such thinking is and I’m glad that someone else, namely Bishop Tobin, has pointed it out. Strangely enough, it is the way many people speak about abortion. I refer you to my columns of May 15 and May 20 (see the “Archive” link on the main page of the website) for more thoughts on this line of “reasoning.”

This week, I wanted to zero in on Bishop Tobin’s calling Rudy Giuliani to task about Giuliani’s stance on abortion. First of all, as a person with an abiding if wounded bond with the Catholic Church, I am happy that Bishop Tobin spoke up. Similar sentiments should be appearing in every Catholic newspaper throughout the country. No Catholic politician from either political party who is unreservedly pro-choice should go unchallenged. Further, no pro-choice politician should go unchallenged regardless of their religious brand. Bishops, or any Catholic person who addresses issues such as abortion, should be addressing their remarks to two different audiences: Catholics (including the Catholic politician) and non-Catholics. Many public Church pronouncements are crafted this way; when they are meant for a wider audience than Church members, they usually begin with words like, “to my brothers and sisters in Christ and to all people of good will.” Bishops’ statements about abortion should follow a similar method; they should speak to the baptized Catholic but also to everyone else who is touched by the issue. It makes sense, does it not, that they need to speak to these different audiences in different ways.

Since Rudy Giuliani is Catholic (as are many other presidential candidates), a bishop should speak to him and about him (to other Catholics) using the language of the Catholic faith and culture. Certainly, it is scandalous that a professed Catholic should be trumpeting a position so diametrically opposed to one of the most fundamental of Church moral teachings.

Beyond scandalous, it is embarrassing. How could a Catholic be raised and educated in the Faith and end up with a pro-choice position? Someone screwed up. Was he absent on the days certain fundamentals were covered? Or did the teachers not communicate the content of the Faith? Whatever the reason, it is a colossal failure on someone’s part.

Even in my home state of Rhode Island, a state that is 65% Catholic, one of our Senators, Jack Reed, is radically pro-choice and claims to be a Catholic. I know that he went to Catholic elementary school and a Catholic High school. Yet he does not hesitate to be a hard-line pro-choicer to the point of opposing a ban on partial-birth abortion. How the heck did that happen?

As a Catholic, he and Rudy Giuliani and Bill Richardson, and the many others, need to be directly counseled by their bishops and other pastoral leaders that they are in serious violation of Catholic moral teaching. Other Catholics need to be alerted to the fact that these politicians are clearly at odds with what it means to be a Catholic. Catholic teachers have a responsibility, indeed a duty, to do this.

But what about everyone else? What are Catholic bishops and teachers supposed to be saying to non-Catholic Americans? Should they be saying anything at all?

Because the practice of abortion is one of the most fundamental matters of this or any era, Catholic and other religious leaders should be speaking out as loudly as possible to non-believers about abortion. They should not, however, be using religious language when speaking to this audience. They should be debating with others as if abortion was not a religious issue. Religious language is foreign to the non-believer. Scriptural references carry no particular authority. Citing great theologians or saints carries little weight. Speaking prophetically goes unheeded when the hearer of the word does not believe in the one who sent the messenger.

No, the religious leader should not be talking religiously about abortion to the voters of the United States. They must fight in the public arena with reason and data and all manner of persuasion that is accessible to everyone, not just the religious believer.

For Catholics, this is an almost natural thing to do. Catholics believe in the compatibility of faith and reason. As a Catholic, I was taught never to fear the truth because it would never contradict my faith. Catholics should be fighting this fight to give the unborn the protection of the law by engaging every person of good will in pursuit of the truth about the practice of abortion in a way that makes sense to them and, for many, that means staying away from religious language.

The truth of the matter is that everyone who has anything to say about abortion in the public arena is speaking from some belief even if they are atheists or agnostics. There is no belief-neutral stance. Everyone is operating from beliefs, values, and first principles religious or non-religious. So religious people should never apologize for their beliefs or let themselves be disqualified because they are believers. But they need to engage others in an appropriate and effective way and many times that means avoiding religious language and argument even if you’re a bishop.