Catholicism, and just about all other forms of right leaning, political right oriented, organized religion, has become repugnant to me. In particular, Catholicism - the religion I was raised with and participated in for many years and the religion that a number of my family members still practice - has become something I no longer recognize, i.e., something medieval. Given the existence of de facto Republican-supporting political branches of this denomination such as CatholicVote.Com and insane, patriarchal comments by Catholic authorities such as "Fifty bishops say US election is about abortion", I have no desire to set foot in a Catholic church ever again.
First, a personal note: I was raised Catholic. I attended parochial school in NJ, where I was an altar boy and sang in the choir, and then a Jesuit high school and college, where I hung out in the Campus Ministry office and helped to organize antiwar/social justice events on campus, such as calling attention to the rightwing atrocities in Central America. I continued to think of myself as Catholic well into my adulthood. When I got to college and then afterward did community organizing, I was inspired by the social justice emphasis of a more progressive Christian perspective. Obama deeply resonates with me in part for these reasons. A few years ago, I discovered Unitarian Universalism, joined a congregation in Manhattan before I moved up to the burbs, but remain interested in such a possible religious/philosophical connection. My wife, a Canadian, was raised without much formal religion; she has been exploring Buddhism; we are both live-and-let-live, secular-humanist leaning progressives who fully support gay rights and abortion rights.
Last night, along with millions of others, I watched Obama's very inspirational video. Video is powerful medium for conveying both factual arguments and an emotional tone. This morning, however, I watched this piece of propaganda.
I can't imagine where or when this is being shown, but I have visions of it being shown at various official gatherings of Catholic organizations or among Catholic leaders, such as the U.S. Bishops, many of whom were appointed by the last two popes, both of whom were, without a doubt, socially, politically, and theologically right of center.
So the article defining abortion as the number one electoral issue this year is not a surprise to me. This article suggests the following.
Some 50 out of the nation's 197 active bishops have published articles or given interviews during the run-up up to the election urging abortion as the key issue on which voters should decide which way to vote.
Senator McCain opposes the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade, which legalised abortion in the US, but has refused - most recently, at last week's final television debate between the presidential candidates - to impose an abortion-based "litmus test" on his Supreme Court nominees. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, has repeatedly indicated his support for the 1973 ruling alongside a pledge to sign a proposed Freedom of Choice Act that would invalidate any state or local ordinance intended to "deny or interfere" with a woman's choice to have an abortion.
Among the bishops who have intervened is Bishop Robert Hermann of St Louis who last Friday wrote: "the issue of life is the most basic issue and must be given priority over the issue of the economy, the issue of war or any other issue." His comment came in a column for the archdiocesan newspaper that appeared hours before Mr Obama addressed 100,000 people in the heavily Catholic city.
In Missouri - a normally Republican state where Mr Obama has taken a lead in the polls over recent weeks - Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St Joseph wrote in his diocesan newspaper that "despite hardship, beyond partisanship, for the sake of our eternal salvation", Catholic voters "should never" support a candidate who favours the continued legalisation of abortion.
In Colorado, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver made national headlines after calling Mr Obama "the most committed abortion-rights presidential candidate of either major party since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision". Later that same day, saying that he was speaking solely as a "private citizen", Archbishop Chaput told a dinner for a Catholic women's organisation in his archdiocese that the assertion by his Catholic supporters "that Senator Obama is this year's ‘real' pro-life candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse".
While the article and the voter guides mentioned also refer to other issues, the abortion issue, along with the denial of gay rights, are front and center.
There is also, relate to this, an organization within the Church called "Priests for Life," led by Father Frank Pavano. Here is an exampleof how they celebrate some of Bush's worst moments, such as the anti-choice "Born-Alive Infant Protection Act" or the horrendous Terri Schiavo law. These are seen as exemplary "accomplishments" and a model for what the next president ought to do.
Examining exit polls from 2004 just the other day, I was struck by one set of statistics. A majority of Catholics - 27% of the electorate that year - supported Bush over Kerry, 52% to 47%, though many of these voters were likely voting on a range of issues. However, for Catholics attending weekly mass, the margin for Bush was 4 points higher; irregular mass attenders were much more evenly divided; regular mass attenders supported a government that selectively supported its "prolife" stances, 56% to 43%.
Anyway, not only do I think that abortion and gay marriage are not the most pressing issues of the day, but I reject, fully, the stance of the Church, and of the rest of the Christian Right, on these issues. On gay marriage, we should be a society that allows two people - regardless of their gender - to love one another in any way they so choose. If particular churches don't want to sanction same sex marriages, they don't have to. But they should stop trying to dictate their moral conservatism on the rest of us. On the abortion issue, an issue which, as a male, effects me much differently than it does for the gender more likely to get pregnant, while the circumstances of an abortion might be a personal tragedy, and while unwanted pregnancy is something we can hopefully reduce, the fact that the Church opposes both abortion and nearly all forms of birth control under all circumstances - and sees a moral absolutism in its own stance - makes the Church medieval in my eyes; perhaps it has always more or less been this all along and I am just realizing it; or perhaps it has become much more so after nearly thirty years of ever more tiresome conservative rule. Again, my position toward antichoicers is this; if you so strongly oppose abortion, then don't have one; let the rest of us decide for ourselves, though.
UPDATE: Thanks for all the comments so far. Just to show a bit of balance here, here is a counter organization within the Catholic Church,Catholics for Obama. While they are obviously fighting the good fight, I am afraid that they are swiming upstream, not unlike those other conscientious Catholics who would like to see women be ordained and/or those who wish for the laity to have more of a say. The Church is anything but a democracy.