{"id":1519,"date":"2004-08-11T16:28:20","date_gmt":"2004-08-11T20:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/08\/11\/shoe-on-other-foot-for-pro-life-cat"},"modified":"2004-08-11T16:28:20","modified_gmt":"2004-08-11T20:28:20","slug":"shoe-on-other-foot-for-pro-life-catholics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/08\/11\/shoe-on-other-foot-for-pro-life-catholics\/","title":{"rendered":"Shoe on other foot for pro-life Catholics"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

From the Catholic News Agency.  Apparently, a number of people are
\nunhappy that the US Bishops do not focus solely on abortion but on
\nother “traditionally Democratic” issues.<\/p>\n

Bishops questionnaire criticized for seemingly supporting Democratic positions <\/p>\n

WASHINGTON, USA, August 11 (CNA) – A political questionnaire,
\nissued by the U.S. Conference of Catholics Bishops and distributed to
\nboth major-party presidential candidates, has been criticized for
\npresenting questions that are traditionally associated with Democratic
\nParty policy positions, says a report by the Culture of Life
\nFoundation.<\/p>\n

The questionnaire contains 41 questions, asking the
\ncandidates to answer “support” or “oppose” to statements on a range of
\nissues. <\/p>\n

The report, published in Culture and Cosmos, indicates that the
\nquestionnaire had seven questions on immigration and refugees. Abortion
\nand school choice were each given three questions. Capital punishment,
\ngun control, agriculture and rural development, aid for low-income
\nfamilies, housing, federal education programs, and marriage each
\nreceived two. Fourteen other topics received one question each,
\nincluding health care, decreasing nuclear weapons, cloning,
\nphysician-assisted suicide, and embryonic stem-cell research. <\/p>\n

Patrick
\nF. Fagan, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, says that many
\nof the questions involve policies over which Catholics may properly
\ndisagree, but that this official questionnaire gives the impression
\nthat these are the only acceptable Catholic positions. *<\/p>\n

Robert Royal,
\npresident of the Faith and Reason Institute, said that many of the
\nquestions, such as those calling for more gun control and public
\nfunding of health care, are written in such a way as to endorse the
\nDemocratic Party approach. He says this gives the appearance of bias
\nand therefore undermines the usefulness of the questionnaire. <\/p>\n

Frank
\nMonahan, director of the Office of Government Liaison at the USCCB,
\ntold Culture and Cosmos that the questionnaire “reflects the Bishops’
\npublic policy agenda.” \n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(*Why can he pick and choose without being called a “cafeteria”
\nCatholic?  Does all of this — from both sides of the debate —
\nstrike anyone else as a bit hypocritical?)<\/p>\n

What’s more, when the chairs of both the Rep.
\nparty and the Dem. party were at the Catholic University of America
\n(they are both alums), RNC Chair Ed Gllespie could only point to the
\nRepublican Party’s abortion stance as being in line with Catholic
\nsocial and moral teaching.  DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe pointed to
\nmultiple teachings of the Church that the Democratic party is more in
\nline with.  According to my source, who was there, all Gillespie could
\nmention was abortion and gay marriage.  McAuliffe mentioned poverty,
\neducation, the war, income inequality, and racial inequality, to name a
\nfew.<\/p>\n

Ah, isn’t it wonderful how God’s on everyone’s side, ready to smite and
\ndestroy His enemies, who, if you listen to most political operatives
\nright now, is often Himself?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Catholic News Agency.  Apparently, a number of people are unhappy that the US Bishops do not focus solely on abortion but on other “traditionally Democratic” issues. Bishops questionnaire criticized for seemingly supporting Democratic positions WASHINGTON, USA, August 11 (CNA) – A political questionnaire, issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholics Bishops and distributed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rayleejun"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-ov","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}