As the bishops gathered in Baltimore this past week for their annual
meeting, they like everyone else in the country were talking about
last week’s election.
The U.S. Catholic bishops took a beating at the
polls.
Not only was President Obama reelected, despite their attacks on
him, the bishops also lost on state referendums on same-sex marriage.
Like all Americans, the bishops have a constitutional right to
participate in the political process. They can debate the issues,
criticize candidates and publicly express their views.
They can even
endorse candidates as long as they don’t do it on church property and
don’t use church funds in supporting a candidate or party. In fact, they
can even run for president as did Rev. Pat Robertson and Rev. Jesse
Jackson. The U.S. Constitution does not forbid this; Roman Catholic
canon law forbids it.
But what is constitutional is not always effective or prudent.
Clearly the political strategy of the bishops is not working.
A majority
of Catholics voted for Obama and gay activists won every referendum.
The Missouri and Indiana Republican senatorial candidates, who took the
toughest positions on abortion, were also defeated when the Republicans
were expected to win these races.
So where do the bishops go from here?
Some of the bishops will blame
Catholic pro-choice politicians and urge excluding them from Communion.
The nuns, priests and theologians who urged voters to consider a wide
range of justice issues will also be blamed. These bishops will see no
need for a change in political strategy. “The bishops need to be
tougher; dissidents need to be punished; full speed ahead!”
Many bishops, who stayed quite during the election, are tired of the
notoriety that the political bishops invite. They prefer that their
parishes be free of partisan politics.
But since the media has trouble
covering silence, the political bishops get all the ink and airtime.
This makes it look like these bishops are speaking for all the bishops.
Hopefully, behind closed doors, some bishops will acknowledge that
the current strategy is not working and ask, “Is there a better way? Is
there a plan B?” Here I am writing as a political scientist, not as a
priest or theologian. I am not challenging church teaching; I am
questioning political strategy.
The first step in plan B should be “listening.”
The bishops need to
listen to those Catholic voters who ignored their advice and find out
why. The whole premise behind “No Child Left Behind” is that when
students fail it is not always their fault. Teachers need to examine how
they teach so that the students can learn. Bishops need to listen.
Second, any new strategy needs to be realistic. Granted the current
political situation, what is possible? Political strategy cannot ignore
data. In the last election, Republicans ignored poll data and truly
believed they would win the presidency and the senate. The great wave of
Republican voters never appeared.
What is the data the bishops need to examine?
First, it is clear that there is an approaching tsunami of young
voters who will eventually make same sex marriage legal in most states
of the union. The likelihood of stopping this tsunami is very low.
As
the older opponents of gay marriage die, they are replaced by younger
voters who have friends who are gay. This is a new world. If you know
you are going to lose a fight, you want to fight in a way that does you
the least amount of damage. Tactics that enrage their opponents will
make it more difficult for the bishops to get the exemptions they desire
under this new reality.
For example, after the bishops spent $1 million fighting gay marriage
in Massachusetts, it was not surprising that gay activists fought
exempting Catholic foster care and adoption services from serving gay
couples. They saw it as political payback.
Ultimately, the bishops may
be forced to treat same-sex couples the same way they treat divorced and
remarried couples whose marriages are not approved by the church. The
church does not like these marriages but they are acknowledged as legal
under civil law.
Second, despite all the efforts by the bishops and by pro-life
activists, the country is just as divided on abortion today as it was
decades ago. Public opinion polls show people do not like abortion but
they do not want to make it illegal. No one has come up with a strategy
to change the public’s mind. Even if Roe v. Wade were overturned,
abortion would still be legal in most of the country. Those living in a
state where it is illegal could easily drive to a state where it is
legal.
If making abortion illegal is an impossible dream in the current
political environment, what is plan B? Plan B has to be working with
politicians of any stripe (including pro-choice politicians) in
supporting programs that will reduce the number of abortions.
The bishops must reach out to all politicians and groups who are
willing to support programs that help women to keep and raise their
children. It is possible to agree with politicians on some things and
disagree with them on other things.
Simply aligning the church with
Republican politicians, who promise to do something about abortion but
then cut programs that help women, is a failed strategy. Instead of
making things better, it makes them worse.
Plan B means returning to the
consistent ethic of life promoted by the bishops in the past.
Some bishops will reject such a strategy as pragmatic and not
prophetic. But we live in an imperfect world. Granted the impossible
dream of making abortion illegal, then the moral imperative is to do
everything possible to reduce the number of abortions.
The bishops also need to put aside tactics that are
counterproductive. Using excessive rhetoric, like comparing the
president to Hitler or Stalin or accusing the administration of waging
war on religion, makes it difficult to form coalitions to reach
achievable goals.
Banning pro-choice Catholic politicians or Catholic voters from
Communion is counterproductive. Such banning is not the official
position of the church, but enough bishops are doing it (and few bishops
are criticizing the practice), that many see it as church policy. Any
time you have to use power rather than persuasion in a political debate,
you have lost. It also reinforces seeing abortion as a Catholic issue
based on faith rather than a human rights issue based on reason.
Banning pro-choice politicians and gay-marriage supporters from
Catholic universities is also counterproductive. It makes the bishops
look weak rather than strong. It tells the world that the bishops think
their arguments are so weak that they cannot allow students to hear
their opponents. Any strategy based on censorship rather than persuasion
has failed before a word is spoken.
The church should be on the side of
free and open debate because “Catholic tradition maintains,” in the
words of Benedict XVI, “that the objective norms governing right action
are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation.”
I do not claim to have an infallible strategy for the bishops, but
after such a momentous defeat, it is time for the bishops to reexamine
their political strategy.
The current strategy is not working and there
is no indication that it will work any better in the future.