(RNS) — The U.S. bishops’ meeting in Baltimore this week had the potential to reinvigorate the American church, but instead it showed that people should not look to the bishops for leadership. On the agenda were numerous minor items that most organizations would deal with in some other way, but two items were important enough to require the undivided attention of the bishops: synodality and global warming. These items were not given the attention they deserved.
Every four years, a year before the presidential election, the bishops provide advice to American Catholics about how they should fulfill their political responsibility. Their document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” has not been revised since 2015 because the bishops are too divided to agree on what to say. Instead, they drafted an introductory letter in 2019 to go with the document.
Even that letter was contentious because of language saying abortion is the preeminent priority for the bishops. Some fear this language is being used to urge Catholics to ignore all other issues as less important than abortion.
The letter also says, “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.”
If these “other grave threats” hold less priority than abortion, then Catholic voters may believe they should only consider abortion when voting even though “Faithful Citizenship” does not say that.
This year’s letter once again states that “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.”
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