Those turbulent bishops: the New York Tines is all for religious freedom - except when a religious body draws certain moral implications from its beliefs

National Review, Dec 31, 1989 by Richard Neuhaus

Those Turbulent Bishops

HENRY II had one Becket, but a batch of bishops is disturbing the peace of the New York Times. The editors' complaint is substantively indistinguishable from the railings of the late Paul Blanshard in his notorious 1949 book, American Freedom and Catholic Power. Recent editorials and op-ed pieces suggest that the Times is reviving the anti-Catholic bigotry that many thought had been laid to rest in the last several decades.

Consider an op-ed piece written by a former priest arguing that, with the crumbling of Communist tyrannies, the Pope will end up being the last dictator in Europe. Or consider an October 20 editorial, "Catholics, Condoms, and AIDS." The bishops criticized the promotion of condoms because, they said, it is, "in effect, promoting behavior which is morally unacceptable." This made the Times very unhappy. "Every religion," the editors generously allowed, "has the right to set its own doctrine without interference." Then they quickly add, "But when doctrine affects public health, that's everyone's business."

The implication is that the rights of religion end at the edge of the public arena. Condoms, the editors assert, are required "particularly among the populations most at risk," meaning promiscuous homosexuals, bisexuals, and intravenous drug users. "An infected person who does not use condoms endangers the lives of others. How can that be morally acceptable?" the Times asks. The bishops' answer is that it is not morally acceptable, but what is not morally acceptable is the sexual activity itself. What is not morally acceptable to the Times is that the bishops should persist in their quaint belief that people should not engage in illicit sexual intercourse. The editors proceed to instruct the bishops on their responsibility: "Their duty to the wider community is to ensure that Catholics who may choose not to follow doctrine do not endanger the lives of others."

One wonders how the counsel of the bishops can "ensure" the behavior of people who are determined to ignore the counsel of the bishops. The Times wants the bishops to help people to sin safely, while the bishops want to help people not to sin. A perhaps unbridgeable gap between the two is that the bishops believe sin offends a majesty higher than "public health," higher even than the New york Times. This is unacceptable to the Times, and the editors returned to the attack with "The Bishop and the Truce of Tolerance" on Sunday, November 26. If pleasure is permitted where he is now, Paul Blanshard must be pleased.

WITH "Truce of Tolerance" the ante is upped. While the Times is editorially devoted to routinized rutting, it is positively obsessed by the "right" to abortion. At their Baltimore meeting, the bishops did some plain speaking about the "unspeakable crime" (Vatican Council II) of abortion. They declared, "No Catholic can responsibly take a 'pro-choice' stand when the 'choice' in question involves the taking of innocent human life." A few days after the meeting, Bishop Leo Maher of San Diego notified a member of the state Assembly, one of California's more prominent pro-abortionists, that she was barred from Communion. An outraged Times indicated that such an action imperils the continued, and ever so fragile, toleration of Catholics in American public life.

Once again, the editors begin by acknowledging the existence of the First Amendment, noting that "outsiders have no business challenging Bishop Leo Maher's religious authority to take such action." But he and other bishops need to be alerted to the risk they are running in exercising their authority. Americans elected a Catholic President only after John Kennedy passed the religious test by assuring the Baptist clergy of Houston, "I do not speak for the church and the church does not speak for me." The editors hold up Mario Cuomo as another Catholic who passes the test. Since 1960 it has become more evident that John Kennedy was, to put it gently, not a very conscientious Catholic, and since the Webster decision Governor Cuomo has abandoned "personally-opposed-but" and come out flatly favoring the right to abortion. In the view of the Times, the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic.

The editors assert that, if the bishops continue on their present course, "many non-Catholic Americans may once again be moved to withhold their trust from Catholic candidates who could no longer credibly promise to follow the Kennedy and Cuomo examples." They add that "forced obedience to a religious political agenda could thus prove costly to all." And, just to drive it home: "To force religious discipline on public officials risks detroying the fragile accommodations that Americans of all faiths and no faith have built with the bricks of the Constitution and the mortar of tolerance." That barely veiled threat, one reluctantly concludes, is blackmail, precisely defined as extortion by threat.

The Time's "truce of tolerance," would extort from the bishops an agreement to lay off on abortion. If the bishops do not comply, if they forget that Catholics are permitted in public life on sufferance by the non-Catholic majority, the consequences are not left to speculation. The editors are saying that there is a great deal of anti-Catholic bigotry dormant in America, and that they would not be adverse to rousing it from its fitful sleep. None too subtly, the editorial observes that excessive aggressiveness in the political arena could pose a risk to the church's tax-exempt status.