Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S. will be voting next month on a document designed to help guide Catholic voters in the upcoming 2008 elections. According to an AP story written by Eric Gorski: ...A draft of the document calls abortion and euthanasia "intrinsically evil" and "pre-eminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others." The bishops then cite other threats that can never be justified: human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, racism, torture, genocide, and "the targeting of noncombatants in acts of terror or war."
Throughout the 37-page document, opposition to abortion gets special attention. "The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many," the draft says.
At the same time, the bishops say Catholics must not dismiss racism, the death penalty, unjust war, torture, hunger, health care problems or unjust immigration policy. "A consistent ethic of life," the document says, "neither treats all issues as morally equivalent nor reduces Catholic teaching to one or two issues."
Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, [left] one of the country's most vocal bishops about Catholics' need to speak in the public square, criticized the previous version of "Faithful Citizenship" for not being strong enough in underlining abortion's pre-eminence.Chaput said in an e-mail Tuesday the revised document "is better and clearer than any version in the recent past" but isn't ideal. He said would be offering suggestions, but wouldn't be specific. Chaput wrote that "all bricks in a building are important, but the ones in the foundation support everything else. The latter aren't just important; they're indispensable."...
