San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy called last week for the U.S. bishops to shift from focusing on Catholic principles and moral issues in the political arena to a “deep-level conscience formation” inspired by Pope Francis.
“As bishops, we tend to teach from principles and moral norms,” McElroy said. “Our approach is cognitive and exhortational, not affective and inspiring.”
“There are, of course, moments and purposes for which cognitive and exhortational treatments are essential in expressing the Church’s legacy of teaching that spring from Revelation and the tradition of reason,” he said. “But breaking through the hyper-partisan divide of American political culture at the present day is not such a purpose.”
McElroy, who has regularly voiced support for the idea of moral equivalency between the Church’s teaching on life and other subjects, gave the second “Cardinal Bernardin Common Cause Lecture” at Loyola University in Chicago Wednesday.
His address titled, Forming a Catholic Political Imagination, was the subject of a National Catholic Reporter op-ed, which said the bishop’s full talk would be subsequently published in Commonweal.
McElroy was part of an open clash at the November 2015 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) General Assembly over the conference’s voting guide. McElroy argued the revision of the bishops’ Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship voting guide document was a failure because it was out of step with Pope Francis’ priorities – specifically, in placing too much emphasis on abortion and euthanasia, while not enough on poverty and the environment.
“Specifically, I believe that the pope is telling us that alongside the issues of abortion and euthanasia which are central aspects of our commitment to transform this world, poverty and the degradation of the earth are also central,” he stated at the time.
Full story at LifeSiteNews.
National Conferences of bishops don’t have to take their marching orders about political issues from the pope when they write voter guides. It’s not necessary to be a papal fanboy to be a Catholic. Probably not healthy spiritually to do that either.
Catholic principles and moral issues ARE “affective and inspiring.”
Joel Fago, I agree with you!
I don’t understand the multiplicity of words by so many bishops. Please teach me about Jesus. Guide me to Him in prayer, worship, scripture — not using his name to justify a political plan — His miracles, His love, His freeing people from sin by forgiving them and telling them not to sin again, promise of eternal life. If the church lives in philosophy and principle teaching and a bishop’s personal idea of forming others’ consciences according to his ideas, our church will continue to slumber, to lose members, and fail to attract new ones. We need Jesus, His name, His love from all who minister.
Yes!
The choices one makes reflect Jesus within. No abortion (horrors!) No euthanasia (a false compassion). Help those in poverty or if you really follow Jesus and you live in poverty do what you can to show your fellow poor how to benefit from poverty. Environmental issues are just basic Christian teaching and common courtesy: Don’t make a mess and if you do, clean it up. Don’t throw your trash in your neighbor’s trash can. Don’t take more than you need and don’t waste what you take. Leave some for others. Be considerate of others. If you discover that a behavior of yours impacted another person negatively, apologize and try to right the situation.
From a person’s heart come speech, action. If Jesus is in the heart, that name will be spoken often and fervently. If one’s education is in ideas, then ideas are what come out.
Action, not just words.
Conscience formation will result in more activity on behalf of unborn babies and their mothers and more on behalf of marriage and family. But, there is not a moral equivalency between killing innocent human beings and the Delta smelt, for example.
It is the job of the bishops to form the laity. It is the job of the laity to effect the political sphere. Catholic politicians are part of the laity and the bishops have the job to form them. Many do not listen to their bishops. I disagree that the Faithful Citizenship document was a failure because it overemphasized abortion and euthanasia or that it did not emphasize poverty and the environment. Poverty kills people. Neglect of and abuse of the environment kills people but it is not direct murder like abortion and euthanasia.
Monica Geraty in the FB comments is correct. Forming people in holiness through the Immaculate Heart of Mary should come first. Jesus is formed in us through Her and the Holy Spirit.
Good post, Anonymous! How about yur real “moniker?”
I’ve considered that because there are a lot of complaints about using the default but I am not there yet.
Liberalism kills people, but you won’t hear MacElroy say that.
Who do bishops talk to everyday?
Do the bishops realize that there is a huge portion of Catholics who believe that the only thing you have to do to get into Heaven is to die?
Do they realize how many Catholics could not pass a simple quiz on Catholicism?
Do they realize how many Catholics support intrinsic evil?
I have had to tell a Eucharistic minister that they should not consult a psychic.
We need more focus from the bishops on Catholic faith, principles and morality, not less.
There really is not a hyper-partisan divide in American political culture. No more than there ever has been.
This has become a truism that isn’t true. There are media outlets who have this agenda. If they quit saying it and exacerbating it, it would go away.
Most of the news now is gossip. There was a school shooting in KY. The news story about “Did Melania have a bad anniversary?” got prominence over the school shooting.
Kanye West’s twitter posts are news now???
The innocent unarmed white man that got shot and killed by West Hollywood police never made the national headlines. But the police did say that shooting an innocent was their worst nightmare. They were very sorry.
“Fr. Perozich”: you are correct, there are too many words (which serve to mask evil). B. McElroy and all the rest (right up to the Vatican) focus on the conscience because it lets each person set their own morality, like Martin Luther believed. Bishops should be concerned with one and only one thing: salvation of Mankind.
But, they are not. And because they are not many, many people will fall and go to Hell. Yes, of course Hell exists and of course people go there. Is Christ a liar (yes, Hell is all over the New Testament)? Is Mary (at Fatima)? Fools.
Great suggestion. How about we start with the bishop first. We give you permission Bishop McElroy to take a 25 year retreat at a hermitage in the mountains of Honduras to contemplate how one might obtain the deepest level conscience formation. Why wait another minute? Start tomorrow. PLEASE! Then you can come back to the US with an illegal immigrant caravan. The ride back on top of a train will be free. Bonus!
He’d rather be appointed the next Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, D.C. That’s what all his posturing and speaking has been about over the past several months.