WASHINGTON -- More than three dozen leading conservative Catholics urged church bishops on Monday (Sept. 8) not to give prominent platforms to liberals who may disagree with church teaching on abortion, homosexuality and other issues.
In a private six-hour meeting with Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, conservatives said lay Catholics are confused when church leaders "fail to clearly define and defend the teaching of the church."
"It doesn't help instruct the faithful when publicly dissenting Catholics are rewarded with positions of participation and official roles in the church," said Deal Hudson, publisher of Crisis magazine, who co-hosted the meeting.
The meeting followed a similar off-the-record session in July that featured business and media executives. Conservatives complained they were shut out from that meeting and asked for equal time.
Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, chief spokesman for the bishops conference, attended the meeting as an observer but declined to comment about it.
Among those attending the Monday meeting were five bishops; U.S. Rep. Michael Ferguson, R-N.J.; Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele; political commentators Robert Novak and Kate O'Beirne; Greg Erlandson, publisher of Our Sunday Visitor; Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League and the Rev. David O'Connell, president of Catholic University.
Hudson said the group showed no "substantive differences" with the bishops on most issues. "We do not dissent in any way from the teachings of the church," he said.
The focus of the conservatives' ire was public officials who publicly disagree with church teaching, especially abortion. The conservatives are still angry that Leon Panetta, a former chief of staff to President Clinton and abortion rights advocate, was named to a review board on the church's sex abuse crisis.
Conservatives say the abuse scandal was fueled by a growing lack of fidelity to church teaching, including a growing subculture of homosexual priests. Robert George, a professor of political and legal philosophy at Princeton University, said the abuse problem was "fundamentally a matter of homosexual seduction of teenage boys."
"Honesty and integrity require that the matter be described accurately and dealt with as it is," George said. "Don't use euphemisms, don't misdescribe. First describe it accurately, say what it is, and then deal with it."
The National Review Board, on which Panetta is a member, will issue a preliminary report in January on the roots and causes of the scandal. Panelists have said homosexuality will be discussed as part of their report.
There appeared to be some division, however, on Catholic politicians who break with church teaching against capital punishment. Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, for example, served as the review board's first chairman even though he supported the death penalty while opposing abortion.
"There is room to differ" on the death penalty, George said, because church teaching is less clear on the death penalty but "beyond dispute" on abortion and euthanasia.
The conservatives said they also urged the bishops to publicly defend priestly celibacy. Last month, more than 160 priests from Milwaukee asked for a discussion of the issue; Gregory and Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan said last week that the topic is not up for debate.
"No voice to the contrary was heard at any time during the course of the discussion," said Russell Shaw, a Catholic writer and former spokesman for the bishops' conference, who served as co-host for the meeting.
© 2003 Religion News Service
