NCR Editorializes about HHS Decision: I Respond

Unsurprisingly, the National Catholic Reporter took an editorial position yesterday against the Obama administration's decision re: the HHS guidelines.  NCR editorializes,

Those realities notwithstanding, it becomes clear in this discussion that conscience, not contraception, is the essential issue. Should the official Catholic voice be silenced on birth control, it is logical to worry that it will be silenced on a range of other issues that invoke questions of conscience.

And since almost all Catholics practice contraception and approve of its use, and since a solid majority of Catholics report in polls that they think employers should be required to cover contraception in health care plans, I have to assume that when NCR speaks of the "official Catholic voice," it's speaking of the bishops' voice.  Otherwise, the preceding assertions would make no sense at all, because they fly in the face of empirical reality, when we're speaking of the American Catholic church as a whole.

And my question to NCR in response is this: really?  The bishops really have been speaking to the public square on "a range of other issues that invoke questions of conscience" in recent years?

They're really been defending a Catholic pro-life ethic in some credible way in recent years, as they cozy up to Mr. Ryan and remain totally silent about Mr. Santorum's overt rejection of one Catholic pro-life teaching after another?  While they rake Democratic political leaders over the coals repeatedly insofar as those leaders try to expand the range of human rights of women, gay folks, and other minorities?

The bishops have been making their pro-life voices heard in the public square by being totally silent about the epidemic of suicides of teens who are gay or perceived as gay in American schools in the past few years?

What NCR is hearing, I'm simply not hearing, and I suspect I'm far from alone in finding that my Catholic ears haven't been hearing the loud, clear voice of conscience articulated by the U.S. Catholic bishops in recent years.  I suspect I'm far from the only Catholic around who thinks that the American Catholic bishops have not been merely poor leaders when it comes to making the Catholic pro-life voice heard in American society in recent years, but that they've been outright countersigns to the Catholic pro-life voice.  If pro-life is what the bishops are, then I want no part of the pro-life platform.  I'm not buying the product they're selling.

In fact, and I say this with full intent and with no intent to overstate the case, I find a lot more death in the official Catholic brand than I find life, and, as I said yesterday, I stand with Marie Collins and other survivors of childhood clerical abuse (and with many other Catholics, as well) whose respect for church leaders that persistently promote a culture of death is now dead.  For me, the gospels are about remaining on the side of the living, about choosing life, about helping people find and live fuller lives.

And that's not where I see the American bishops and their allies in the American Catholic church headed.