Yesterday, in an interview, Archbishop Raymond Burke, the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, said that the American bishops' documents, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" and “Faithful Citizenship” created serious confusion for American Catholic voters.
“While it stated that the issue of life was the first and most important issue, it went on in some specific areas to say ‘but there are other issues’ that are of comparable importance without making necessary distinctions."
“But they’re not. The economic situation, or opposition to the war in Iraq, or whatever it may be, those things don’t rise to the same level as something that is always and everywhere evil, namely the killing of innocent and defenseless human life.”
Archbishop Burke pointed out that, although many of the US bishops spoke out and clarified the primacy of the abortion issue over all other issues, "many did not".
To me, this is a key point here. We, the lay people, need our bishops to lead us. We need their direction in these grave matters. We need them to speak for us to the public at large. We need them to guide and encourage our parish priests to speak out.
I know of several parishes in my own diocese (which is considered to be one of the most conserative) where the priests never preached on the issue of life and the primacy it must be given over all other issues when deciding how to vote. Our priests, our bishops, must speak out. They must guide there parishoners to do the right thing.
And we, the lay people, need to support our bishops and priests through encouragement, prayer and fasting. We need to be authentic Catholics.
In the recent words of Bishop Hermann, "In order to bring about a transformation from a culture of death to a culture of life, we have to restore our Catholic identity. This means that all of us, as Catholics, have to undergo a profound transformation. It means that we have to take a good look at every facet of our Catholic life, including the serious study of life issues, the regular and devout use of our Sacramental system, especially the devout and weekly attendance at Mass, the regular reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the devout praying of the daily Rosary, and then the faithful, loving and firm witness to lax Catholics about our Catholic beliefs and practices. We have to live our lives in such a way that we will be unafraid to witness to what we believe and live."
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