“This is like deja vu all over again.”

 

Two weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi grievously misrepresented the Church’s teaching on life and earned herself an unprecedented rebuke from the nation’s bishops, Senator Joseph Biden, also a professed Catholic, answered the same question, from the same journalist, on the same show, in the same scandalous way.  Other than substituting the name “Aquinas” for “Augustine,” Biden simply copied Pelosi’s script when he claimed that medieval debates over delayed ensoulment reveal a loose thread in the Church’s otherwise seamless defense of life, a thread on which a Catholic politician may licitly hang a political defense of legalized abortion.  The argument made little sense when Pelosi made it, and after the corrections offered by the bishops it makes even less sense now.

In at least one way, however, Biden’s answer to the question “When does life begin?” does more damage than Pelosi’s to the public’s perception of the Church’s teaching.  More than twice on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Biden asserted that the statement ”life begins at conception” is an article of faith which a Catholic must accept under the authority of the Church’s Magisterium.  As a witness to his Catholic credentials, Biden proudly proclaimed his obedience and fidelity.  But Biden’s presentation of the Church’s teaching is not true.  The statement “life begins at conception” is not an article of faith.  It is a statement rooted in reason and science used by the Church to explain the full scope of the fifth commandment.  By arguing that “life begins at conception” constitutes a tenet of a religious creed, Biden erroneouly reduces the Church’s Gospel of Life to a sectarian, fideist claim unsupported by either reason or science.  As a definition of a particular creed, Biden argued, the statement “life begins at conception” can hold no sway in modern democratic debate.

As expected, the bishop’s have begun to respond.

Again, the first to issue a statement was Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver. Yesterday he released a text entitled “Public Servants and Moral Reasoning.”

To Catholics of the Archdiocese of Denver:

When Catholics serve on the national stage, their actions and words impact the faith of Catholics around the country. As a result, they open themselves to legitimate scrutiny by local Catholics and local bishops on matters of Catholic belief.  In 2008, although NBC probably didn’t intend it, Meet the Press has become a national window on the flawed moral reasoning of some Catholic public servants.

On August 24, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, describing herself as an ardent, practicing Catholic, misrepresented the overwhelming body of Catholic teaching against abortion to the show’s nationwide audience, while defending her “pro-choice” abortion views. On September 7, Sen. Joseph Biden compounded the problem to the same Meet the Press audience.

Sen. Biden is a man of distinguished public service.  That doesn’t excuse poor logic or bad facts.  Asked when life begins, Sen. Biden said that, “it’s a personal and private issue.”  But in reality, modern biology knows exactly when human life begins: at the moment of conception. Religion has nothing to do with it.  People might argue when human “personhood” begins – though that leads public policy in very dangerous directions – but no one can any longer claim that the beginning of life is a matter of religious opinion.

Sen. Biden also confused the nature of pluralism.  Real pluralism thrives on healthy, non-violent disagreement; it requires an environment where people of conviction will struggle respectfully but vigorously to advance their beliefs.  In his interview, the senator observed that other people with strong religious views disagree with the Catholic approach to abortion.  It’s certainly true that we need to acknowledge the views of other people and compromise whenever possible – but not at the expense of a developing child’s right to life.  Abortion is a foundational issue; it is not an issue like housing policy or the price of foreign oil.  It always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong.  If, as Sen. Biden said, “I’m prepared as a matter of faith [emphasis added] to accept that life begins at the moment of conception,” then he is not merely wrong about the science of new life; he also fails to defend the innocent life he already knows is there.

As the senator said in his interview, he has opposed public funding for abortions.  To his great credit, he also backed a successful ban on partial-birth abortions.  But his strong support for the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade and the false “right” to abortion it enshrines, can’t be excused by any serious Catholic.  Support for Roe and the “right to choose” an abortion simply masks what abortion is, and what abortion does. Roe is bad law.  As long as it stands, it prevents returning the abortion issue to the states where it belongs, so that the American people can decide its future through fair debate and legislation.

In his Meet the Press interview, Sen. Biden used a morally exhausted argument that American Catholics have been hearing for 40 years: i.e., that Catholics can’t “impose” their religiously based views on the rest of the country.  But resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion.  And the senator knows very well as a lawmaker that all law involves the imposition of some people’s convictions on everyone else.  That is the nature of the law.  American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year.  Other people have imposed their “pro-choice” beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades.

If we claim to be Catholic, then American Catholics, including public officials who describe themselves as Catholic, need to act accordingly.  We need to put an end to Roe and the industry of permissive abortion it enables.  Otherwise all of us – from senators and members of Congress, to Catholic laypeople in the pews – fail not only as believers and disciples, but also as citizens.

+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver

+James D. Conley
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver

Earlier today, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, DC, issued his own statement entitled “Science, Aquinas, and the Catholic Faith.”

Dear Brother Priests,

In late August, I wrote to you following a discussion in the national media regarding what our Catholic faith says about when life begins and about abortion.  Many of you took the opportunity to present and affirm the teaching of the Catholic Church on this important issue with your parishioners, and I thank you.  These are teachable moments, and present an opportunity to highlight the consistency and clarity of our Catholic faith. 

Unfortunately, again this week on Meet the Press, the Catholic teaching on human life was not clearly presented by a public official.  In an interview, Senator Joseph Biden said he is “prepared to accept the teachings of my church” on when life begins, but would not “impose that judgment on everyone else.” 

When asked about his stated belief that life begins at conception and his public record on abortion, he said, “I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously-based view that it’s at the moment of conception.  There is a debate in our Church…that’s existed…Thomas Aquinas said…it didn’t occur until quickening, 40 days after conception. How am I going out and tell you, if you or anyone else that you must insist upon my view that is based on a matter of faith.”

The role of elected officials to address the public policy issues before them must be respected, but the interpretation of the Catholic faith is the responsibility of the bishops. To avoid confusion among people of goodwill about the Church’s teaching on human life, it is important to state once again the Catholic Church’s constant teaching on human life, as well as clarify the difference between science, the theories of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the faith.

When life begins is not a matter of faith, but a matter of science.  The scientific research available to us today confirms that the joining of the human egg and sperm begins a new human life.  There is overwhelming empirical evidence that once conceived, that life will continue through its many natural stages, from embryo to fetus to infant to child and on until death.  Religious belief does not change this scientific fact.

However, faith and the natural moral law guide us in how we treat this human life.  The Catholic Church has been unwavering in its teaching, as we are told in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception…Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.” (paragraphs 2270-2271)

As you are aware, Saint Thomas Aquinas, who lived 800 years ago, shared this belief. Even while speculating on when the soul enters the physical body in light of biological theories of his time that have long since been disproved, Aquinas rejected abortion at every stage, calling it a sin “against nature” to reject God’s gift of life. 

Our Catholic faith proclaims what is already written in our human hearts and recognized in our conscience – to kill innocent human life is wrong.  The commandment “you shall not kill” is, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, “a privileged expression of the natural law” (2070).  Modern science has demonstrated beyond any doubt that this innocent human life begins at conception.  Defense of innocent human life is not an imposition of personal religious conviction but an act of justice. 

In gratitude for your own teaching ministry and with every good wish, I am

Faithfully in Christ,
Donald W. Wuerl
Archbishop of Washington

Finally, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops released the following statement earlier this evening.

Recently we had a duty to clarify the Catholic Church’s constant teaching against abortion, to correct misrepresentations of that teaching by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on “Meet the Press”.  On September 7, again on “Meet the Press,” Senator Joseph Biden made some statements about that teaching that also deserve a response.

Senator Biden did not claim that Catholic teaching allows or has ever allowed abortion. He said rightly that human life begins “at the moment of conception,” and that Catholics and others who recognize this should not be required by others to pay for abortions with their taxes.

However, the Senator’s claim that the beginning of human life is a “personal and private” matter of religious faith, one which cannot be “imposed” on others, does not reflect the truth of the matter.  The Church recognizes that the obligation to protect unborn human life rests on the answer to two questions, neither of which is private or specifically religious.

The first is a biological question: When does a new human life begin?  When is there a new living organism of the human species, distinct from mother and father and ready to develop and mature if given a nurturing environment?  While ancient thinkers had little verifiable knowledge to help them answer this question, today embryology textbooks confirm that a new human life begins at conception.  The Catholic Church does not teach this as a matter of faith; it acknowledges it as a matter of objective fact.

The second is a moral question, with legal and political consequences: Which living members of the human species should be seen as having fundamental human rights, such as a right not to be killed?  The Catholic Church’s answer is: Everybody.  No human being should be treated as lacking human rights, and we have no business dividing humanity into those who are valuable enough to warrant protection and those who are not.  Even this is not solely a Catholic teaching, but a principle of natural law accessible to all people of good will.  The framers of the Declaration of Independence pointed to the same basic truth by speaking of inalienable rights, bestowed on all members of the human race not by any human power, but by their Creator.  Those who hold a narrower and more exclusionary view have the burden of explaining why we should divide humanity into the moral “haves” and “have-nots,” and why their particular choice of where to draw that line can be sustained in a pluralistic society. Such views pose a serious threat to the dignity and rights of other poor and vulnerable members of the human family who need and deserve our respect and protection.

While in past centuries biological knowledge was often inaccurate, modern science leaves no excuse for anyone to deny the humanity of the unborn child.  Protection of innocent human life is not an imposition of personal religious conviction but a demand of justice.

In what may prove to be another statement in need of public correction, Senator Biden today expressed his support for embryonic stem cell research.

UPDATE:  Click on the names below for additional episcopal responses to Senator Biden’s Meet the Press interview.

Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison (audio file)

Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa

Justin Cardinal Rigali of Philadelphia

Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo

Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City

Bishop Paul Coakley of Salina

Sean Cardinal O’Malley of Boston (halfway down blog post)

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