Bill Cork takes me to task for my criticisms of the US bishops’ conference bureaucracy’s new political position papers. I had given a list of the documents and said that many of them reflect a left-wing liberal bias on matters where there is room for prudential disagreement on how best to address them. Unfortunately, Bill focuses only on the position paper on religious liberty and seems to question why I would be against religious liberty.
For one thing I’m not against religious liberty, and I could sign on to some of the position paper’s prescriptions for improving that liberty in oppressive countries.
As I said in the comments, I guess I should have been clearer. Some of the position papers address issues that are important, but most of them take a liberal view of the issues. Most of all, what makes the pronouncements of this bureaucracy at all relevant? Like I said, it’s not like this is the magisterium or anybody authoritative. Most of this stuff is written by non-bishops, yet they put it out there in their names. I think it’s deceptive for them to do so.
