Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego slammed people questioning Biden's personal Catholic faith based on his positions on abortion rights. McElroy said that when it comes to questions of public policy, abortion legislation is a matter of prudential judgment.
"One very sad dimension of the election cycle we are witnessing," said McElroy, is "the public denial of candidates' identity as Catholics because of a specific policy position they have taken. Such denials are injurious because they reduce Catholic social teaching to a single issue. But they are offensive because they constitute an assault on the meaning of what it is to be Catholic."
During the campaign Republican political operatives, Catholics hostile to the Holy Father, and some others have crudely attacked Joe Biden's Catholic faith.
"Being Catholic means having a grace-filled relationship with God. Being Catholic means loving the Church. Being Catholic means participating in the sacramental life of the church. Being a Catholic means trying to transform the world by the light of the Gospel," McElroy continued. "To reduce that magnificent, multidimensional gift of God's love to a single question of public policy is repugnant and should have no place in public discourse."
On the question of abortion, he said that because Catholicism teaches that some actions, including abortion, are "intrinsically evil," meaning that they are "always and everywhere wrong," some church leaders have claimed that "candidates who seek laws opposing intrinsically evil actions automatically have a primary claim to political support in the Catholic conscience." McElroy rejected that claim, telling attendees that "the framing of legislation is inescapably the realm of prudential judgment, not intrinsic evil."
"While a specific act of abortion is intrinsically evil, the formulation of individual laws regarding abortion is not," he said. "It is an imperative of conscience for Catholic disciples to seek legal protections for the unborn. But whether these protections take the form of sanctioning the doctor or the pregnant mother, whether those sanctions should be civil or criminal penalties, and the volatile issues pertaining to outlawing abortions arising from rape, incest and danger to the mother are all questions of deep disagreement among advocates wholeheartedly devoted to the protection of unborn children. Like the issues of fighting poverty and addressing climate change, the issue of abortion in law and public policy is a realm where prudential judgment is essential and determinative."
McElroy encouraged all Catholics to approach the ballot box with a thorough examination of their consciences, prayer and commitment to fully advancing the Gospel, and said that it is "morally legitimate" for Catholics to come to different conclusions as to for whom to cast their vote.
San Diego is the second largest diocese in California, after the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Other American bishops and cardinals have made comments similar to Bishop McElroy including Cardinal O'Malley of Boston, Cardinal Cupich of Chicago, Cardinal Tobin of Newark, Archbishop Gregory of Washington, Archbishop Wester of Santa Fe, Bishop Stowe of Lexington, Bishop Callahan of La Crosse, Bishop Seitz of El Paso, and Bishop Zubik of Pittsburgh.
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