Bishop Bernard Schmitt of Wheeling, West Virginia, joins his brother bishops Burke, Bruskewitz, Sheridan, et al in deciding to take canon 915 seriously.
I join with Pope John Paul II, who has reiterated the constant teaching of the church that all legislators have a “grave and clear obligation to oppose” any law that attacks human life.
It is morally inconsistent for them, as for any Catholic, to promote such laws or to vote for them; it is a grave, objective evil for them to vote against laws that would restrict abortion and other attacks on innocent human life.
The bishop was writing his commentary in response to an incident in which a priest of the diocese gave the invocation at Kerry-Edwards event and some commentators took that to mean an endorsement by Bishop Schmitt. But the bishop says the priest spoke without his prior knowledge and permission and would not have given it had he known.
