What changed?

During the 2004 presidential campaign Catholic Democrats on Capitol Hill claimed they were the ones following Church teaching in a “Catholic Scorecard.” Now, 55 House Democrats admit that they oppose Church teaching — but say that Church teaching isn’t the point in a “Statement of Principles”

In the run-up to election day, Catholic Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., led the scorecard effort to support Sen. John Kerry’s presidential candidacy.

The scorecard’s main purpose, according to its creators, was to help Catholic voters “understand the full range of issues that have been identified by the USCCB as priorities for public life.”

The authors claimed that, while someone like John Kerry fell afoul of the Church’s teachings on the killing of unborn children, he was actually more Catholic than many pro-lifers, because he supported government health care and anti-poverty programs and voted with the Catechism on war and the death penalty.

“What we have done today,” said Durbin, “is to use the criteria established by the U.S. Catholic bishops to give voters an insight into the voting records of Catholic senators.”

That was 2004. In 2006, pro-abortion Catholic politicians have taken a new tack. Their “Statement of Principles” no longer uses the criteria established by the U.S. Catholic bishops. The document speaks of the primacy of each individual Catholic’s beliefs, not the Church’s.

It says: “We acknowledge and accept the tension that comes with being in disagreement with the Church in some areas.”

Both these two approaches can’t be right. One of them has to be wrong.

If Durbin’s Catholic Scorecard’s approach is right, then what the Church teaches is normative. The familiar line of authority we’ve all learned is still in place. Christ made Peter the head of the apostles. Peter’s successors, the popes, have primacy over the apostles’ successors, the bishops. The bishops interpret and apply the Church’s teachings in their own dioceses.

When Durbin goes on to argue that a pro-abortion politician meets the bishops’ criteria better than others, this approach makes it easy to argue with him.  All you have to do is quote the bishops.

In their document Faithful Citizenship, the bishops cite Pope John Paul II to say that, if you’re for abortion, it doesn’t matter whatever else you support: “Abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human life and dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental good and the condition for all others.”

End of argument.

But the Democrats’ new approach claims that what the Church teaches isn’t the point. It’s what each politician personally believes that is important.  If that’s true, it’s no longer possible to have a Catholic scorecard at all.

As U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro. D-Conn., put it, Catholic Democrats “have decided to stop letting others define us.”

Think of the consequences. Pick any issue: health care, the death penalty, war. The new Catholic Statement of Principles has given Democrats’ opponents a great argument on any of them: “Don’t define me! My conscience tells me otherwise!”

It isn’t so much a statement of principles as it is a renunciation of principles.

We propose a different statement of principles, one that would truly be bold and courageous — and Catholic:

“We are Catholics, which is to say we are the newest generation of many who have followed Christ. We didn’t invent the Catholic Church. It came to us down the centuries because men and women died for it, missionaries suffered for it and the greatest scholars in history devoted their careers to it. We aren’t here to use the faith to prop ourselves up, because that would disrespect their sacrifice. We aren’t here to change the faith to suit our careers, because that would disrespect God.

“Instead, we seek only what they did: To learn, honor and follow the truth, which is ultimately Christ.”

This statement of principles could end with the very same words the new statement uses, only with a key change:

“We acknowledge and accept the tension that comes with being in disagreement with the activists and funders of the Democratic Party, but we must follow our consciences. We must protect life.”

That would really win Catholics over.