How many times over these past few decades have we sought the Church's assistance in speaking out against Catholic-in-name-only politicians who use their powerful positions to promote evils such as abortion, homosexual perversions and other moral evils? We have seen, time after time, the hierarchy stonewalling our attempts to hold petition drives in Churches to combat gay marriage and other degradations of public morality. Invariably they always held as an excuse the canard that the Johnson Amendment prohibited political activity on the part of 501(c)3 charities. In reality, it only prohibited engagement in partisan politics, not ballot initiatives.
It was announced this week that this gag order has been lifted, and churches are now free to endorse political candidates. The naive individual might think that Catholic clergy would now jump at the chance of endorsing pro-life candidates and those in favor of curtailing the gay agenda. Alas, I have long been disavowed of such illusions, as I have come to understand that many clergy, including some in the highest echelons of power and influence, are actually just as much pro-abortion and pro-gay as are Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. Although a few still insist on hiding behind the "social justice" facade, a good number of them no longer make a secret of their heresies. Hitherto they could hide behind the Johnson Amendment so as not to have to take pro-life positions to save face. Now, however, the thought encapsulated in this post's title is the thought in many of their minds.
However, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has risen to the occasion. They have said that the Church will remain mum on all political races. So if pro-life candidate is running against pro-abort, they will simply zip their lips. Of course, in that article, they give "reasons" that sound so..so..pastoral! In other words, it's a lot of sanctimonious mumbo-jumbo.
So now we watch and see how consistent they are with their "mum's the word" script. My guess is that they won't be, and we know how the Cupich-McElroy-Tobin et al crowd will try to run with it. Pro-life candidates will continue to be treated as personae non grata at Catholic churches and there will be no campaigning for them on church property. It's worth noting that one of the two times that I was threatened with arrest happened on a church parking lot for leafletting cars during an election cycle. That will still happen, I surmise.
The good news is that other types of pro-life "C3s" now have the gags removed from their mouths. Let's run with that.
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