Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl was elected chairman of the powerful Committee on Doctrine by members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at their meeting in Baltimore this week. The Committee on Doctrine is a guardian of church canon in the United States, promoting the pope's teachings, clarifying church positions and studying the writings of Catholic theologians to determine whether they are adhering to the faith.
In the past, it has weighed in on some of the most sensitive and controversial areas of Catholic thought -- stem-cell research, contraception, same-sex marriage and abortion.
The current committee chairman, Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., was a point person when the group responded last summer to remarks about the church's historical position on abortion by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Pelosi roused the bishops' ire when she claimed in an interview -- inaccurately, they said -- that the question of when life begins has been a subject of controversy in the church over the centuries.
In 2007, the committee investigated the writings of the Rev. Peter Phan, a Georgetown University theology professor, and accused him of "significant ambiguity" about Catholic teaching regarding Jesus Christ in his 2004 book "Being Religious Interreligiously: Asian Perspectives on Interfaith Dialogue."
The committee said the book challenged the idea of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church as the absolute and unique means of salvation.
Wuerl, a committee member for 11 of his 22 years as a bishop, defeated Bishop Jerome Listecki of LaCrosse, Wis., 140-85. Lori, a former auxiliary bishop of Washington, will end his three-year term next November, when Wuerl will take over.
Wuerl said the main tasks for the committee are reviewing bishop conference publications on ethical and religious directives for religious hospitals, and material from a committee focused on strengthening marriage.
"Anything that touches on the Catholic faith and its teachings, this committee is asked to take a look at it," he said.
The issue of denying Communion to pro-choice politicians continues to roil the bishops. At a public discussion of a proposed statement on abortion at the bishops' meeting, Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, Pa., criticized his peers for their "reticence to speak to Catholic politicians who are not just reluctant, but stridently anti-life."
He took aim at Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who is Catholic and was raised in Scranton.
"I can't have the vice president-elect coming to Scranton saying he learned his values there, when those values are utterly against what the church teaches," Martino said.
Wuerl, who will be Biden's bishop when he becomes a full-time District resident, disagrees. He maintains that it is an individual Catholic's responsibility to follow his or her conscience, based on his or her faith, when deciding whether to accept Communion.
"You have to make that decision in your own heart," he said.
"I never said I'd refuse Communion to anyone," he said. "I've never thought that was the way to proceed."
A popular charity controlled by the bishops has cut off funding to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the controversial network accused of voter fraud during the presidential campaign.
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which funds anti-poverty and social justice programs, will no longer make grants to ACORN after learning that the New Orleans-based nonprofit had concealed a $1 million embezzlement, said Auxiliary Bishop Roger Morin of New Orleans, whose subcommittee oversees the charity.
Although a forensic audit determined that no CCHD funds were involved in the embezzlement, Morin said his panel voted this week to stop funding ACORN permanently.
Parishes traditionally take up a collection for CCHD the weekend before Thanksgiving.
Discrimination Against Unborn
Many bishops at the meeting wanted to use the excitement generated by President-elect Barack Obama's victory to link the plight of African Americans with that of the unborn. President Cardinal Francis George and others repeated comments that the unborn remain victims of legal discrimination.
"The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice," George said during the opening address.
"If the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision that African Americans were other people's property and somehow less than persons were still settled constitutional law, Mr. Obama would not be president of the United States. Today, as was the case 150 years ago, common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good."
Catholics remain victims of discrimination, he told the bishops.
"We are, perhaps, at a moment when, with the grace of God, all races are safely within the American consensus," he said.
"We are not at the point, however, when Catholics, especially in public life, can be considered full partners in the American experience unless they are willing to put aside some fundamental Catholic teachings on a just moral and political order."
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(Source: WP)