(MintPress)— It’s no surprise where the Catholic Church stands on the issue of abortion. Its message is heard loud and clear in the public and is echoed through the media.
The same goes for contraceptives, as the Catholic Church has emerged as a major voice in the battle over the Affordable Care Act and whether it should mandate employers provide health insurance that includes the birth control pill. Clearly taking on President Barack Obama and Democrats, the Catholic Church seemingly put itself on the side of the Republican ticket, finding comfort in the notion that presidential candidate Mitt Romney will favor their side.
Yet the church’s stance on another issue surrounding the sanctity of life, the death penalty, is often dealt with in a secondhand manner, with many U.S. Catholics failing to follow the anti-death penalty teachings altogether.
Politically speaking, the Church is split between two parties on these very issues. The Church, unofficially of course, supports the Republican ticket, often highlighting the need to overturn Roe v. Wade and rid society of legal abortion. It’s that very same party, however, that promotes capital punishment.
This has put the Church in an interesting situation. While religious institutions recognized by the government would be in danger of losing their tax-exempt status if they were to politicize the pulpit by publicly endorsing a candidate, there’s no secret where most priests stand on the issue.
Attending a Catholic Church every Sunday for one year straight would likely include more references opposed to abortion than those opposed to capital punishment.
The question is, why? Does the Church hold one issue to be more important than the other?
The argument often presented by those within the Church is that the unborn are given priority, because they are defenseless humans living in a mother’s womb. While the Church hasn’t turned its back away from those who perish under capital punishment, the time and resources spent defending such people is not given the highest priority.
A cry for change? Is it loud enough?
On Tuesday, a man considered mentally retarded by national standards was put to death in Texas. Before his execution, anti-capital punishment advocates, including the ACLU and Amnesty International, worked to spread the message that such actions were a violation of a precedent set in a previous case. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that those who are mentally disabled cannot be executed — the Court did, however, leave it up for states to enforce this on their own.
In keeping with Texas tradition, the state has its own set of standards needed to qualify under such a title.
Marvin Wilson, who was 54 when he was put to death by lethal injection, had an IQ of 61. Under American Association of Intellectual Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), that’s low enough to constitute mental retardation.
In Texas, however, they have their own way of assessing mental retardation. The state uses the Briseno factors, which some advocates say are not supported by the scientific community. In a blog post for the ACLU of Texas, writer Nimrah Siddiqui says Texas’ standards are not recognized by the AAIDD.
“In fact,” she writes, “the AAIDD criticized the Briseno factors in another case (Chester v. Thalei), stating that the test is ‘impressionistic,’ and uses criteria ‘based on false stereotypes about mental retardation that effectively exclude all but the most severely incapacitated.’
Clearly, there were issues with the national and state interpretation of what constitutes mentally disabled. Yet while this was a case highlighted by human rights groups, including the ACLU and Amnesty International, the Catholic Church did not launch a widespread campaign.
When MintPress asked about this particular case, Don Clemmer, a spokesperson for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), pointed to a press release, in which Texas Bishops did, in fact, present their case, specifically to Gov. Rick Perry.
“The Catholic Church has long opposed the death penalty out of respect for all human life and sees capital punishment as perpetuating a cycle of violence and vengeance,” the press release states.
Clemmer also forwarded MintPress the website of the USCCB dedicated to the issue of capital punishment. The site includes a number of links to letters and press releases on behalf of the organization, all of which send the message: The Church is against the death penalty and urges states to overturn laws that allow execution as punishment.
While that is the official stance of the Church, it still does not explain the widespread movement among those within the Church to think of abortion first, capital punishment second, if at all.
Gallup polls carried out from 2001 to 2004 showed a majority of practicing Christians — not necessarily Catholic — favored capital punishment. According to the data, 65 percent of people who attended church service weekly were supportive of the death penalty.
It could, perhaps, have to deal with the fact that the issue of birth is all around us — learning that someone is pregnant is a somewhat common occurrence in American society. Learning that a close friend or acquaintance is facing the death penalty, however, is quite rare.
With that argument in mind, it would make sense for the Church to focus on the issue of abortion, as it’s something that hits home for parishioners and the general public. Yet it doesn’t necessarily explain why those within the Church still cling to that as the most important issue, politically speaking. The power of the vote has just as much impact on abortion-related issues as it would have on death-penalty related issues.
It could be argued that a Catholic parishioner, acting outside of the political realm, would have more success in their goal of preventing abortions, through counseling or other person-to-person means, than they could with a vote for the Republican ticket. Yet the Church seems to encourage parishioners to vote for the party that ‘favors life,’ at least when it comes to abortion.
Nuns criticized by Vatican for not focusing enough on anti-abortion measures
The issue of abortion as one of the Church’s top concerns was revealed this spring, when the Vatican labeled American nuns as “radical” for focusing on social justice issues.
The concern wasn’t necessarily that the issues that they were concerned about — poverty, capital punishment, social justice — were against the Church’s teaching, it was that the nuns were not focusing enough on anti-abortion messages.