THE HYPOCRISY OF U.S. CATHOLIC BISHOPS

The Conference of U.S. Catholic Bishops has raised its hypocritical head again by calling for its Catholic followers to ignore Christ’s call for social justice for the poor and to take up instead the Bishops’ favorite target – candidates who won’t make abortion a crime. The Bishops have released a statement calling for all Catholics to vote only for candidates who would make abortion a crime. Apparently, the Bishops would rather cram U.S. prisons with women and doctors than feed the poor or end state-sponsored killings.

What it boils down to is this: Catholic Church officials are threatening candidates who will not use their position of power to impose their own moral beliefs on those who don’t share their viewpoint, and they’re telling their followers that voting for certain candidates is a sin.

Such claims by Catholic Church officials are cheap shots by the lowest of standards. They also represent hypocrisy of the highest order. The candidates Catholic Bishops support vote consistently for upholding the death penalty (state-sanctioned killing), a practice morally repugnant to the Catholic faith. The candidates Catholic Bishops support vote consistently for supporting the Iraq war, a war the Vatican denounced the war as morally unjustified and contrary to Catholic teachings. Those same politicians routinely vote against aide to organizations who provide life-saving medical services in disease-infested African countries causing thousands of people to die without access to treatment. Did the U.S. Catholic Bishop’s Conference ever direct followers to vote against those candidates? No! Come to think of it, nobody called for non-support of all those priests who sexually abused kids either. They just moved them to another parish.

That Catholic Church officials should engage in attack politics is troubling enough, but when you add to the mix the hypocrisy of singling out for punishment individuals who won’t force others to make their moral choices, the Catholic Church actions are downright maddening. It demonstrates that some Church officials have lost their sense of what it truly means to mimic the life of Christ.