Abortion and the "Catholic Right," Part II

Human Life Review, Winter 2008 by Hitchcock, James

Last year I published an article in the HLR documenting ways in which elements of the "Catholic Right" had ceased to treat abortion as the primary issue in public life.

I pointed out the obvious fact that involvement in political action necessarily carries with it moral ambiguities, in that citizens cannot simply will into being a political movement that perfectly satisfies all their principles and therefore of necessity must work with existing parties and groups. Over time, abortion brought many Catholics into an alliance with the Republican Party, an alliance that necessarily forces voters to buy a whole political package, and my thesis was that some on the Catholic Right, in repudiating that alliance, have been forced to retreat from the abortion issue itself.

There were, expectedly, spirited responses to my article, some from conservative Catholics expressing their whole-hearted agreement, omers from people who accused me of distorting the facts. Oddly, however, those in the latter category often ended by confirming my original contention.

Christopher Ferrara, for example, a regular contributor to The Remnant newspaper (January 7, 2008), extracted from my article the proposition "Since the Republicans are not serious about ending legalized abortion, Catholics should focus energy on issues that present a more immediate prospect of success, including ending the war in Iraq," a proposition Ferrara then dubbed "self-evidently true." Despite this admission, however, Ferrara and some other respondents (primarily in the pages of The Wanderer) simply assumed that I could not have been sincere in my critique, that my essay was nothing more than special pleading for the Republican Party. Thus C. Joseph Doyle, identified as "executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts," asked "what sane and lucid person could possibly repose faith in the Republican Party on moral issues?" (The Wanderer, September 20, 2007), and "S.C. from Las Vegas" (October 11, 2007) characterized me as "akin to a suitor refusing to acknowledge the unfaithfulness of his beloved" and accused me of expecting the popes to behave as "team players" of the Republican Party.

In the same (October 11) issue "Dr. M.H. of Northern Virginia" claimed that I even equate loyalty to the Republican Party with eternal salvation, and Rupert Ederer, an economist who cheered the Democratic victories of 2006, sneered that "conservative cradle Republicans cannot leave the cradle." (I am in fact a cradle Democrat who did not leave that cradle until I was 38 years old.)

The most common response to my article was simply to change the subject-from abortion to the war in Iraq, the economy, or whatever else seemed important to a particular individual, without apparently realizing that changing the subject exactly proved my point.

Scott P. Richert, an editor of Chronicles magazine, began his response (The Wanderer, November 18, 2007), "I do not believe in conspiracy theories-at least not in most. But from the moment that I heard about James Hitchcock's rather strange and unexpected attack . . . I've had a feeling there must be more to the story." He then revealed that the "more" was an attempt by Father Richard John Neuhaus and myself to defuse Catholic opposition to the Iraq war. ("Whatever the reason, something is afoot.") Richert lamented that "more conservative Catholics in America agree with Dr. Hitchcock in supporting the war in Iraq and pledging undying fealty to the Republican Party than in heeding the admonitions of two consecutive Pontiffs regarding the immorality of the war and judging candidates by their adherence to the culture of life rather than to party affiliation."

I did not praise any presidential candidate in my essay, but Richert speculated further that both my article and a response to it by Neuhaus were attempts to convince Catholics that voting for Rudolph Giuliani for president in 2008 would be better than voting for Hillary Clinton, an arguable position but not one that I attempted to make nor one that I could make with much conviction. Likewise, nowhere in my article did I defend the war or imply that Catholics have an obligation to support it and, far from believing that Catholics ought to be blindly loyal to the Republican Party, G am happy to support the occasional pro-life Democrat and would never support a proabortion Republican.

Although the crucial distinction may seem subtle to some, it is itself virtually self-evident: Pro-lifers are in no way obliged to support the war, but in supporting particular anti-abortion candidates they may be forced to vote for people who do support the war, because there are few candidates who are both anti-abortion and anti-war.

Contrary to Richert's assertion, I have never said or implied that Catholics should address only the abortion issue, something that would be absurd on its face. Rather, I questioned the priorities that some on the Right seem to have adopted. Remarkably, Richert mentioned abortion in his own essay only in order to justify, quite explicitly, its relegation to a subordinate moral position, since "there is a war going on," a reference to Iraq, not to the battle over the lives of the unborn. Richert then demanded to know, "Which is paramount for Hitchcock: The Catholic Church or the Republican Party. Abortion or the war in Iraq?," a formulation that can only mean that abortion is merely a Republican issue, while the Catholic Church emphasizes the war.