Communicate Principles

Church leaders failing to communicate help no one.

In 2010, the then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who was trying to pass the House version of the Affordable Care Act, called Cardinal Francis George looking for support from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

According to Speaker Pelosi, the cardinal, who was president of the conference, took her call but refused to communicate with her. She recenrly recalled the conversation to NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly:

“Well, I don't want to talk if you're going to talk about killing unborn babies.” She quoted the cardinal. “And I thought, well, this is a waste of time 'cause we're not talking about killing unborn babies. There's nothing in this legislation that funds abortion.” 

In fact, the House version did not include taxpayer funding for abortions. In the United States, all financial bills begin in the House of Representatives.

Michael Heinlein, Cardinal Francis George’s biographer, confirmed that position of the late Chicago prelate in a tweet on X:

“All these years after the ACA, Nancy Pelosi still has it in her craw that Cardinal Francis George—a tireless defender of preborn life—dared to challenge her by speaking truth.”

Notice, according to the speaker, the cardinal refused to talk to her unless abortion was removed from the ACA. As the speaker indicated, there was no taxpayer funding for abortions in the House version of the Bill. The USCCB agreed with that version of the Affordable Care Act.

Cardinal George

Cardinal Francis George was, rightly so, a highly respected prelate for the American Church. However, one’s excellence in spiritual matters does not make one a politician and it can be said makes one a terrible politician.

American Healthcare before the ACA

One of the great problems with the American healthcare system at the time is that it left people without any form of health insurance. A tragic accident or a serious disease can bankrupt people for the rest of their lives.

I once had to spend two nights in the ICU in a hospital in Lima, Peru, my final bill was in total—$1100. Granted they did not have the state-of-the-art equipment in every room but they had more than adequate staff, equipment and personnel to treat me.

The same $1100 would not cover a visit to the emergency room for three hours in the United States. Without affordable health care, many forego the hospital and resort to home remedies some of which work and others do not still others seek witchcraft cures. Health care is essential for all which is what the bishops teach as does the whole church.

Of course, the United States support of abortion and the final version of the ACA that did not give provisions for conscience protections is deeply concerning. The fact that an order of nuns had to sue the government for being forced to provide birth control is itself disturbing in a country that celebrates conscientious objection and freedom of religion.

Keeping communication channels open

However, to refuse to speak to the Speaker of the House is to cut one off from a channel of communication that could have made a change in the final version of the bill or other bills as well.

Cardinal George could have easily spoken with Speaker Pelosi but made it clear from the start that taxpayer funding for abortion was a non-negotiable for him and for the conference. He could have then addressed many items the Conference supported and those things the conference did not. The USCCB did support the house version of the ACA. It was the Senate version that presented the issue for the bishops.

The USCCB position

In February of 2010, the month before the bill was signed into law by President Barack Obama, the bishops outlined their position on affordable health care for all:

We will continue to work vigorously to advance true health care reform that ensures affordability and access, keeps longstanding prohibitions on abortion funding, upholds conscience rights, and addresses the health needs of immigrants. Dialogue should continue and no legislation should be finalized until and unless these basic moral criteria are met. Without commenting on specific proposals that may be brought to the summit, we will work to ensure that legislation meets these criteria and will oppose legislation that does not meet them. We hope and pray that the Congress and the country will come together around genuine health care reform that protects the life, dignity, consciences, and health of all.

The bishops standing on principles in the political arena may be speaking up for truth and truth cannot be compromised. One must ask if Cardinal George closed a channel of communication that could lead to a change in the final bill signed by Obama into law. After all, the conference stated that dialog must continue. It cannot continue if communication is rejected on a principle. It can if the principle can be stated as a non-negotiable within the dialog.

A veteran's perspective

As a veteran, I have no concept of not speaking to a leader of our country for any reason, whether or not you agree with the person’s political position.

While, I was in the Navy, I met many sailors who absolutely despised the then president of the United States—Jimmy Carter. Would they refuse to speak to him? Never.

There is ultimately nothing laudable about refusing to speak to a leader of our country if he or she calls. Principles do not have to be compromised in communication. Sometimes, when principles override communication then that is when problems begin. It is when principles are stated within communication that conversation can happen. This includes stated non-negotiables.

There is nothing laudable in Cardinal George's refusal to speak to Nancy Pelosi. What is worse is the naivety of most US Bishops. They just don't get the long term goals of people associated with research using aborted fetuses. The Catholic media is similarly lost. This is why communication must not again fall victim to principles but principles do not have to be compromised in communication.

That same conversation could have been, “Cardinal George would not compromise on abortion but we found common ground we could support and that made it into the final house version.” Apparently, that did not happen.

Communicate principles

I hope the bishops understand that if they want to have a voice in the political arena, they must stand on principles, but they cannot refuse to communicate because of them. Similarly the Catholic Media, equally naive, must understand this.

The real problem that Cardinal George may or may not have understood is that the fight is not over abortion; it is over anthropology. Who are we as human beings? Our Catholic vision teaches a Christ-centered understanding and the U.S. political world draws its anthropology from a materialism with no connection to the spiritual. That philosophy is the basis for the abortion policies in this country. I have yet to believe the bishops get this.

Of course, it may be worse. Naomi Wolf, a messianic Jewess and cultural critic raises the question of whether our nation is seeing the results of an abandonment of God which by default invites the pagan gods to return.

As a student of anthropology, I am fascinated when cultures who never crossed do similar things. For example, why did both Egyptians and Aztecs create divinely focused pyramids. Another is, why did the pagans practice human sacrifice. The Jews were forbidden from this gruesome practice after Abraham’s almost sacrifice of Isaac. However, the practice was endemic among the pagans until the Romans ended it.

Is our abortion a return to the time the Jews disobeyed God and sacrificed their children to Molech in the name of prosperity? After all fetuses are aborted by some to ensure a prosperous future and others harvested them for scientific experimentation. In order for this to continue, the Church must be silenced even in the name of the devil of Saul Alinky's Rules for Radicals. He supplies the instructions for destroying the Church following Lucifer's own model.

One bishop who does get this is Cardinal Robert Sarah. In his book The Day Is Now Far Spent (Ignatius Press, 2019) he explains that the Western World is in collapse because it is seeking an anthropology separate from God.

The Western project consists of detaching man from God so as to make him autonomous. (p.245)

The powerful media use every means to try to break up the remnants of Christianity. The media system, the one genuine thought police runs from one battle to the next in this campaign to transform man. (p.246)

I believe most of the U.S. Bishops do not understand this and neither does the U.S. Catholic media.

They were warned but did not listen

In 2004, I was at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston and I started witnessing the way the government, universities and media were seeking to silence the Church. I said they were trying to shut down our moral voice because of their focus on abortion, embryonic stem cell research and cloning. They also planned to teach a new morality to children and they wanted the Church out of the way.

Few of the bishops listened. One priest, now an Archbishop screamed at me that I had no idea what damage I had done but never told me what it is. I received several letters of reprimand from another. Now twenty years later, people ask me what I think of the state of country today and I just say, “I warned you twenty years ago this is what was going to happen.”

The bishops were not wise as serpents to understand what was happening and the Catholic media was and remains even more blind.

Cardinal George may have been a deeply holy man but few holy men are politically astute and he apparently was no exception.

Seek inspiration from his words to grow in holiness. Seek political strategy from those more astute in worldly affairs and pray for the wisdom to work with both.

Fr. Robert J Carr is pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA

The parish podcast is at https://catholicaudiomedia.com