While the Church leaves room for reasonable and well-meaning people to disagree on how best to achieve a host of desirable social goals, she leaves no room for reasonable people—politicians or otherwise—to disagree on abortion

Catholic Politicians Betray the Faith… Again

by Matthew Hennessey

For a long time, Catholics have struggled with the question of whether it is appropriate for Catholic politicians to draw upon Church teachings in the conduct of public life. The Church has a lot to say about the way laws are made and executed. Are Catholic politicians required to act on these principles when crafting policy or selecting personnel? Can they trade one teaching of the Church off against another?

Such questions have animated the debate about what it means to be an American Catholic politician for at least the last half century and probably longer. There can be no doubt that certain privileges accrue in the public mind to those who self-identify as members of a faith community or who present themselves as adherents to a religious tradition. Yet, perhaps out of fealty to the traditional notion of a separation of church and state, many American politicians who identify as Catholics have perfected the art of the split personality, deploying the I-would-never-impose-my-beliefs-on-others expedient at the first hint of association with an unpopular position championed by the Church. Vice president Joe Biden, one of the more prominent Catholics in American politics, has said, “I accept my church’s position that life begins at conception…[but] I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that women can’t control their body.”

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