Opinion | How the Professional-Life Democrat Went Extinct

Following motion earlier this yr by the Home, the Senate not too long ago voted on the Girls’s Well being Safety Act, a invoice that may go far past Roe v. Wade by codifying into federal legislation essentially the most excessive pro-abortion measures. Twelve out of 23 Catholics within the Senate voted for the invoice, all of whom are Democrats. Seventy-six out of 134 Catholics within the Home voted for it, all of whom, once more, are Democrats.

It’s ironic that the Democratic Occasion, which is ostensibly constructed across the protection of the weak and the marginalized, is so fervidly dedicated to the proper to kill essentially the most susceptible. Roughly one-third of Democrats in Congress right now establish as Catholic, whereas concurrently advocating abortion. Apparently cultural ties to the Catholic Church are extra sturdy than doctrinal ties. Or, extra seemingly, these elected representatives are extra dedicated to their occasion platform than to their religion. (To be honest, this is also true of some Republicans.)

How did it get this unhealthy? In 1964 Sen.

Ted Kennedy

convened a bunch of distinguished monks at his Hyannis Port, Mass., compound to debate abortion coverage. The assembly largely initiated the Democratic Occasion’s embrace of abortion.

Having spent greater than a decade representing American Catholic bishops on Capitol Hill, I can attest to how dramatic the transformation of Democratic politicians from pro-life to pro-abortion was. In 2009, 64 Democrats within the Home voted for the Stupak-Pitts Modification to the Inexpensive Care Act, which might have prohibited any federal funds flowing by means of the invoice from getting used to underwrite abortion. The modification didn’t survive, however the 64 Democratic votes had been an indication of bipartisan power for the pro-life trigger.

All however a kind of Democrats has both left Congress or come to embrace abortion. There at the moment are numerous examples past Congress of distinguished politicians who’re Catholic talking out of each side of their mouths, together with President Biden and former Govs.

Mario Cuomo

and Arnold Schwarzenegger (the latter a Republican). Maybe most tragic is that these elected officers supply uncompromising assist of abortion but face little resistance from the church. This can be a scandal for the devoted, a pastoral failure to the politicians themselves, and a disaster for the unborn and girls who’re victims of the abortion business.

What is especially maddening is that that is the results of a 50-year trajectory that was there for everybody, together with the bishops, to see. Kennedy began the development, however the end result wasn’t inevitable. What if bishops had acknowledged that politicians who supported abortion had eliminated themselves from the Catholic group and responded accordingly? What if bishops or non secular superiors had ousted monks who excused abortion advocates? It’s not exhausting to think about that bishops taking a tougher line with pro-abortion politicians would have stemmed the conversion of the Democratic Occasion to a cult of dying.

The church management’s failure over the previous 50 years has been deadly. Some misapplied Cardinal

Joseph Bernardin’s

“constant ethic of life,” mistakenly seeing the precept as a so-called seamless-garment method that raised social justice and different pro-life points to the identical significance as ending abortion. Others, such because the disgraced former Cardinal

Theodore McCarrick,

known as for a delicate method to garner assist for different points.

Finally the Democratic Occasion, as soon as a pure dwelling for hundreds of thousands of Catholics, has change into unwaveringly hostile to the Catholic citizen. But pro-abortion Catholic Democrats act as if they’re in good standing with the church, and that’s considerably comprehensible as a result of there was no ecclesial consequence to their assist for abortion, the pre-eminent social challenge of this period.

Ought to the leaked draft of the Dobbs determination maintain, the battle for pro-life laws will transfer to the states. Allow us to pray that this would be the second when the church revisits its pastoral and civil method to abortion, recognizing not solely that Catholics who persistently advocate for abortion are now not in communion with the church, however that they need to be handled accordingly.

Mr. Henricks was govt director of presidency relations for the U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops (2011-17).