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...trouble. During a September 7 appearance on Meet the Press, moderator Tom Brokaw asked Biden to answer the question "When does life begin?" From a Catholic standpoint, the Democratic candidate started off well, telling Brokaw, "As a Roman Catholic, I'm prepared to accept the teachings of my church - I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception...
...stopped there, Biden would have been fine. But he went on to argue that there was a debate about the question in the Catholic Church, throwing in a Thomas Aquinas "Summa Theologia" reference for good measure. It was that extra flourish that got the attention of the bishops, according to Father Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center. "Politicians should not do theology," says Reese. "Whenever they start interpreting Catholic teaching, they invite Catholic bishops to jump all over them." Within days, Cardinal Justin Rigali, who heads the USCCB committee on pro-life activities, and Bishop William Lori...
Biden may have had Nancy Pelosi to thank for the fact that the bishops were already on a hair-trigger alert. Two weeks earlier on the same program, Brokaw had posed the same question to Pelosi, who had refused to answer. "Over the history of the Church," she insisted, "this is an issue of controversy." It is true that lay and church scholars engaged in a vigorous debate in the 1960s over the acceptability of contraceptive use before Pope Paul VI ended the discussion by reiterating official Church opposition to birth control. But the issue was separate from the question...
Pelosi's statement provoked swift response. Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl issued a statement calling her comments "incorrect," while her own archbishop in San Francisco characterized them as "in serious conflicts with the teachings of the Catholic Church." Pelosi and her archbishop are in the process of setting up a meeting to discuss their differences. But one prominent liberal Catholic privately called the episode "a disaster...
Chris Korzen of Catholics United agrees that the Democratic forays into theology have not helped their cause. "There's a legitimate conversation to be had about how best to translate the teachings of the Catholic faith into public policy," he says. "But as far as the Church is concerned, doctrine is off-limits. When public officials make those comments, of course the bishops need to correct that error...