The U.S. bishops will continue to highlight the threat of abortion as a “preeminent priority” in the introduction to a guide they’ll disseminate to Catholic voters ahead of the 2024 election.
That designation, the source of debate among some bishops in recent years, was retained when the bishops voted overwhelmingly (225-11, with seven abstentions) to approve a revised introduction to the guide, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” at their annual fall assembly Wednesday in Baltimore.
The bishops also voted to approve several brief excerpts from the guide to be inserted in parish bulletins during the upcoming election cycle.
“The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks our most vulnerable and voiceless brothers and sisters and destroys more than a million lives per year in our country alone,” the new introduction to the guide says.
The new introduction also lists euthanasia, gun violence, terrorism, the death penalty, and human trafficking as “other grave threats to life and dignity of the human person.”
The revised introduction also now states that the “redefinition of marriage and gender … threaten[s] the dignity of the human person.”
While the previous version of the guide included language condemning gender ideology, there was no mention of that issue in the document’s introduction.
In a press conference after the vote, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, vice president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that while many issues are important “not all issues are equal….”
From Angelus News
Without life, issues of food and water, healthcare, peace, housing, education, racism, religious liberty and more are all irrelevant. It’s not the only issue, but it is the first. And, like racism, it’s a disqualifying issue. How can anyone, Christian or not, vote for someone espousing racism or abortion?
And, may Catholic government officials especially repent of their complicity with mass killing of innocent babies and the violent violation of their mothers.
Lord, have mercy.
They have to have their “guts and death penalty” in there as an escape hatch for the Progressive Democrats.
Who are the 11 dissents and 7 absentees?
McElroy, Cupich, Joseph Tobin (nitey-nite, Baby) of Newark, Gregory, John Dolan of Phoenix, assuredly voted no.
John Stowe of Kentucky maybe?
Why not be transparent?
Archbishop Coyne is another suspect.
Do we really need to play “Who’s the rat?”
Not if there were transparency.
What difference does it make?
Yeah, why don’t the bishops have to go on record with their votes?
Why are people assuming that one sentence is why 11 people voted against the new intro?
Maybe it was something else.
Maybe they thought it was talking down to Catholics.
Maybe it was sentences 14-17.
Maybe they wanted a whole new document.
Stop assuming that it is the one sentence that you approve of that others don’t approve of.
Read it.
Unbelievable. I mean, there were only two bishops who objected to supporting St. John Henry Newman as a Doctor of the Church. And I love St. John Henry Newman, I want him to be a Doctor, don’t get me wrong- but there should be even more support for this important issue! Destroying abortion should be less divisive than St. John Henry Newman.
It was a vote on the new Introduction.
I do not believe those who abstained and those who voted no gave a reason.
Read it all.
“Peggy’s” comment is so wrong. No, they didn’t have the death penalty in there as an “escape hatch” for Democrats. The death penalty is there because the teaching against the death penalty is authentic Catholic magisterial teaching. This political ideologization of the Church, which Pope Francis taught against, is most distasteful.
It is a pro-life issue/
We definitely need the Catholic Voters guide every 4 years.
Our Bishops should also issue guidance regarding the man’s responsibility to protect and provide for their women and the children they create.
Our Bishops should also provide guidance for women so they can make better choices as to who they have sex with. Is he responsible enough to stand by you should you get pregnant?
For both men and women, we need a book (about 300 pages) that discusses human development at each day of pregnancy with appropriate photos that convince readers that there is innocent human life growing inside.
Nobody reads anymore. What good would a book or a voting guide do? Heck, Catholics hardly go to Mass anymore.
Look around. Wake up. Things are really, really, really bad. A voter guide won’t fix that.
Bishops and pastors need to get Catholics back at Mass first. Then worry about politics. The USCCB is wasting its time on blather, in my opinion. They are failing as pastors and as shepherds, so they resort to meetings and plans and proposals and lists instead of fixing their own dioceses and parishes.
So they have said that abortion is the preeminent priority. Mass attendance will still fall by at least 5% between November 2023 and November 2024, and that’s on top of the 20% decline over the past five years. There will be fewer weddings and infant baptisms. More young people leaving the church after Confirmation. The church is in a death spiral.
But whoo-boy… they sure clarified about abortion. That’ll solve everything. Not.
The Catholic Bishops cannot provide guidance for women so that they can make better choices as to who they have sex with.
Caption correction-Archbishop Lori
Are the bishops who voted no bound by the successful vote? I think technically they’re not. So they don’t have to accept or promote the new document or policy about abortion in their dioceses. So why have the vote then?
The threat of abortion remains our pre-eminent priority because it directly attacks our most vulnerable and voiceless brothers and sisters and destroys more than a million lives per year in our country alone.
Other grave threats to the life and dignity of the human person include euthanasia, gun violence, terrorism, the death penalty, and human trafficking.
There is also the redefinition of marriage and gender, threats to religious freedom at home and abroad, lack of justice for the poor, the suffering of migrants and refugees, wars and famines around the world, racism, the need for greater access to healthcare and education, care for our common home, and more.
All threaten the dignity of the human person.
This was the paragraph from the new Introduction. I am sorry that I forgot to cite.
This is the same USCCB that pushed the vaccine when Ivermectin was — and has now been proven to be — a surefire cure and preventative for Covid.
Abortion is the number one issue facing America and the world. Stop the killing of the unborn.