The lawyers for the US bishops’ conference are advising dioceses and parishes not to use the Catholic Answers’ voters guide. The apologetics organization has put out a 10-page voter’s guide called “Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics.” In it, they list the five non-negotiable issues for Catholics: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and gay marriage. They are non-negotiable because it is a sin to endorse or promote any of them.
Sounds like standard Catholic moral teaching. It falls right in line with the Vatican’s document last year, “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life.” But apparently it makes the US bishops’ lawyers queasy. The lawyers told bishops who asked that they would prefer if they would had out only the USCCB guide, “Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility.” That product of liberal groupthink has been mired in controversy since it came out because it puts paramount issues, like abortion, on the same level playing field with social justice and global solidarity. It’s not to say that those aren’t important issues, but wages for coffee growers in South America is hardly as important as the slaughter of millions of babies each year.
