American Life League responds to the bishops.

WASHINGTON, June 19 /U.S. Newswire/ — The following is a statement of the American Life League in response to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops statement on Catholics in political life:

“The American bishops have failed,” said American Life League president Judie Brown. “The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had an opportunity to provide strong leadership on the question of Catholic public figures who favor legal abortion. However, their statement misses the mark on several points. As a result, election year politics has trumped the right to life of the innocent and the protection of Christ from sacrilege.”

As Pope John Paul II teaches in the encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “in cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail to feel directly involved. The Code of Canon Law refers to this situation of a manifest lack of proper moral disposition when it states that those who ‘obstinately persist in manifest grave sin’ are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion (Canon 915).”

The Catholic bishops of the United States have a moral obligation to teach the truth, to preach it without apology and to defend it unto death, as St. Thomas More was ultimately called to do. “The ‘polarizing tendencies of election year politics’ cited in the bishops’ statement have nothing to do with Catholic teaching and the infallibility of those teachings,” said Brown. “Christ is truly present in Holy Communion; the act of abortion is intrinsically evil. To somehow suggest that politics alters either of these truths is to suggest that either the Holy Eucharist is really not all that good or abortion is not all that bad.

“Had the bishops united in their commitment to enforce Canon 915, they could have prevented Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life from being misused for political ends by being represented as nothing more that a matter of “choice” in a pluralistic society. They failed to do that.

“Had the bishops united in their commitment to enforce Canon 915, they could have prevented abuse and desecration of the sacrament of Holy Eucharist by making it clear that allegedly Catholic public figures who support the direct killing of the innocent by acts of abortion cannot receive the body and blood of Christ in Holy Eucharist. They failed to do that as well.

“The wording of the USCCB statement represents a problem of enormous proportions,” said Brown. “This statement does not adequately address the question. We call on each bishop to respond in a manner consistent with protecting the body and blood of Christ from sacrilege,” concluded Brown

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