As many of us already know, the bishop of Scranton, PA, Biden's original home town, is essentially acting as a McCain/Palin surrogate today. As the NYT notes, his pastoral letter today has told local Catholics that a vote for Obama/Biden is a vote for homicide:
"Being ‘right’ on taxes, education, health care, immigration and the economy fails to make up for the error of disregarding the value of a human life," the bishop wrote. "It is a tragic irony that ‘pro-choice’ candidates have come to support homicide — the gravest injustice a society can tolerate — in the name of ‘social justice.’ "
The good bishop has a very constricted view of "homicide." If abortion constitutes homicide, then going to war for oil is, obviously, homicide as well. Joking about expanding that war next door by adapting a Beach Boys' lyric could also be deemed to be supportive of homicide.
One certainly can argue that the protection of human life is a value that trumps all others. There is no logical reason whatsoever, however, for the issue of abortion to trump all other "life" issues. Even if one believes that abortion is the taking of innocent life, hundreds of thousands of equally innocent lives have been taken in our name in Iraq in the past 5 1/2 years. Even worse, the GOP nominee wants to continue taking them in the name of an evanscent "victory" there, and he has publicly promised to start additional wars in coming years.
If the taking of human life is an absolute evil, then it logically follows that the torture of other human beings is similarly evil. In the past 7 years, our country has openly discarded 2 centuries of opposition to the use of torture. That utterly revolting development has apparently escaped the notice of the American bishops. Sadly, it also appears to have largely escaped notice in the course of this campaign.
Instead, considerable focus has been placed on the issue of gay marriage. That clearly non-"life" issue has been emphasized in Biden's home town:
The Cathedral of St. Peter in Wilmington, Del., where Mr. Biden lives, is promoting a video produced by the conservative Catholic group Fidelis that is intended to persuade Catholic voters to put opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage above all other issues.
I have seen similar things in my own local parish. Several weeks ago, I found a voting guide prepared by the group Catholic Answers in the back of the church. That guide includes same sex marriage as one of the five "non-negotiable" issues for Catholics.
I subsequently contacted my pastor in an attempt to get a little equal time. I offered to purchase voting guides from the group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good if I could place the guides in the back of the church. My pastor, a basically good and decent man, initially returned my call raising the issue. He has yet, however, to respond to my e-mail w/ the link to the Common Good site.
The retrograde elements of the Church like Bishop Martino may be playing w/ fire this time. It is one thing to help provide a critical boost to the Bush/Cheney ticket in '04 when they are ekeing out victory. It is another thing entirely to openly side w/ a ticket that is going down in flames.
There's nothing quite like doing poorly by doing badly. That's exactly what seems to be happening w/ a number of Catholic bishops in this year's campaign. They may be in for a very rude awakening when they arise on 11/5 and realize that they have totally lost their flocks.