In a column published in the Archdiocese’s weekly newspaper, the Archbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput, sharply rebuked politicians who declare themselves Catholic while supporting contrary doctrines such as abortion, and stated that such a stance is “making a pact with the devil.”
In his column, the Archbishop of Denver recalls that forty-four years ago this month (September 12, 1960), John F. Kennedy delivered his historic —and fateful— message to the Houston Association of Evangelical Ministers, where, in practice, he “separated his Catholic identity from his public service.”
“By committing himself to place ‘the national interest’ above ‘religious pressures or dictates,’ Kennedy created a mold for an entire generation of Catholic candidates: be American first, Catholic second,” the Archbishop adds.
“This was an easy calculation for Kennedy —the column notes— who in any case lived his faith rather loosely. And this was certainly what the American public, with its historic anti-Catholic prejudice, wanted to hear.”
However, as Archbishop Chaput points out, “beginning in 1973, following the legalization of abortion, elected Catholic officials faced a choice. They could work either to change or at least to mitigate the permissive abortion laws while trying to repopulate the courts with pro-life judges. Or they could abandon the unborn and seek ways to morally justify their decision.”
The Archbishop also notes in his message that twenty years ago, on September 13, 1984, the then-governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, delivered a lecture at the University of Notre Dame that sought to give intellectual force to the concession made by Kennedy.
For, as the Archbishop of Denver explains, he argued that “he could privately oppose abortion but, in his view, had no right to ‘impose’ his faith on others.”
“In the end —Archbishop Chaput explains—, Cuomo argued that ‘the approval or rejection of legal restrictions on abortion should not become the exclusive measuring rod of Catholic loyalty.’”
For the Prelate of Denver, “with those words, he wrote the alibi for any ‘pro-choice’ Catholic who has held public office since then.”
“In short,” according to that doctrine, “it is fine to be Catholic in the public sphere as long as one is willing to eliminate everything that is inconveniently ‘Catholic.’”
But according to the Archbishop, “That is not a concession. That is a pact with the devil, and it carries a cost so astronomical that no nation, no public servant and no voter can afford it”
Source: DENVER, Sep. 21, 2004 (ACI)
