Knitting a Conundrum

Pope Admonishes US Bishops to Teach Laymen to Form Conscience According to Church Teaching

ROME, December 6, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pope John Paul II, in meetings with some US bishops, said that the office of the bishop is one in which there is a 'clear duty' to instruct and encourage the laity to adhere to Catholic teaching "in every temporal affair." The Pope, quoting the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, said, "there is no human activity - even of the temporal order - that can be withdrawn from God's dominion."

Now that the electoral dust has settled, some bishops are saying that the issue of doctrinal adherence among the laity is not concluded. Pope John Paul has exhorted the bishops of the US to reacquaint themselves with their role as teachers. He referred to the "serious pastoral problems created by a growing failure to understand the Church's binding obligation to remind the faithful of their duty in conscience to act in accordance with (the Church's) authoritative teaching."

The US election laid bare the conflict that has been brewing in the US Catholic Church since the period of the civil rights movement, when most Catholic bishops became associated with the Democratic Party. Since then, the conflict between many bishops' partisan support of favorite Democrat economic and social policies and their duty as faith and morals leaders in the Catholic Church has become acute. With the Democrats' adoption of the abortion/euthanasia agenda as a key platform plank - followed by the candidacy for president of the nominally Catholic, stridently pro-abortion John Kerry - the conflict has reached a crisis.

The bishops' Kerry fiasco illuminated the lack of awareness, fostered by 40 years of what one bishop called 'failed catechesis,' that a Catholic's conscience, including that of a Catholic politician, is only as good as its formation. The Pope said, "There is urgent need for a comprehensive catechesis on the lay apostolate which will necessarily highlight the importance of a properly formed conscience."

There is reason to question whether the pope's message will hit home, however. In the October 10th online edition of the American Spectator, George Neumayr observed that Kerry's liberal politics coincided with that of most US bishops. "They have no problem supporting an open heretic like Kerry, because their faith in Catholicism is as ambivalent as his. Kerry is their idea of a good Vatican II Catholic - liberal on economics, avant garde on morality."

John Paul told the bishops in attendance that their mission was to teach the laity, including politicians, that "for the faithful Christian there can be no separation between the faith which is to be believed and put into practice and a commitment to full and responsible participation in professional, political and cultural life."

To read the full text of the Pope's address:
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/bulletin/news/...