CNA Staff, Jan 1, 2021 / 04:09 pm (CNA).- During his upcoming administration, presumed President-Elect Joe Biden will have to deal with the issue of abortion, and Catholics must engage with him says Charles C. Camosy in an op-ed published by First Things on the last day of 2020.
Camosy, an associate professor of Theological and Social Ethics at Fordham University, says that “Biden doesn’t agree with the U.S. bishops about everything, but he does care about what they say and regularly tries to fit their concerns into Democratic policy proposals.”
“Perhaps Biden’s newly-created office dedicated to reaching out to conservatives should at least be something worth paying attention to,” writes the theologian, but warns that “if there is to be any outreach, then the Biden administration will need to address the greatest problem with today’s Democratic party. And that is abortion.”
“No one supports a consistent life ethic more strongly than I do,” says Camosy, author of ‘Resisting Throwaway Culture: How a Consistent Life Ethic Can Unite a Fractured People.’ “But in advocating for the full vision of St. John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae, it does not follow that we must give all issues equal weight.”
“The U.S. bishops, though they rightly have many priorities, are quite right to claim that abortion must remain the ‘preeminent priority.’ How could ‘the greatest universal genocide’ be anything else?” Camosy writes.
The author observes that “Joe Biden used to be something close to a pro-life Democrat, but he has dramatically changed his views in recent years, especially in the lead-up to the 2020 campaign. If his administration shifts the so-called Mexico City Policy so that U.S. tax dollars fund abortions overseas, as he has promised to do, Biden will become more directly complicit in abortion than at perhaps any other time in his life. He has also reversed himself on the Hyde Amendment, which means he is in favor of forcing pro-life citizens to pay for abortions with their tax dollars.”
But, “Biden has supported Hyde and even late-term abortion bans in the past. He has said he believes there should be room in the Democratic Party for pro-lifers. In the past he has supported conscience protections,” writes Camosy, asking: “Is there any hope we can get that guy back?”
“Given what is at stake for millions of prenatal lives—as well as their mothers (who are often coerced into abortions they don’t want)—Catholics have no choice: We must engage Biden after his inauguration.”
Reminding readers that “Biden is a political animal,” Camosy argues that Catholics could push for “a grand bargain” that would entail “much lower thresholds for legal abortion and much higher levels of support for pregnant women and families. The combination of socially conservative and economically progressive policies fits well with Catholic teaching. And it would save hundreds of thousands of prenatal lives by reducing both supply and demand for abortion.”
“Catholics committed to the fullness of the teaching of the Church have an opportunity. We can encourage Biden to return to his pro-life roots, pointing out the moral urgency of the pro-life cause.”
Charles Camosy resigned from the board of Democrats for Life of America (DFLA), writing in a column in the NY Post that the Democratic Party’s extreme support of abortion left him “no choice” but to leave his party.
Read Comosy’s full op-ed here: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/12/catholics-and-the-incoming-biden-administration
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Engagement can be a good, moral idea. If two parties have mutual respect and can truly discuss ideas and circumstances it can be the absolute best path toward conversion. If one side of the “engagement” de-humanizes the other then “engagement” becomes something closer to the nazi guard engaging a mother at the train station asking her to pick which child will be saved and which will die. Former Vice-President Biden is a complete political animal and the pro-life people did not help him to this point where it looks like he will become the president. The party that now embraces the dehumanizing of pre-natal babies and increasingly the dehumanizing of those who want to spare those lives are the people who got him to this point. He will clearly based on his history bend to those who elected him and likely with a pleasant smile.
As Catholics and the USCCB, and people of good will, engage president-elect Biden regarding abortion and much else(e.g., mandatory gender theory; and especially including access to the Eucharist…?), perhaps the thinking of St. Francis—the namesake of our Pope Francis—can be of some help in something even more than any “grand bargain” (pact with the world?):
“To all mayors and consuls, magistrates and rulers throughout the world, and to everyone who may receive these letters: Brother Francis, your little and despicable servant in the Lord God, sends (his) wishes of health and peace to all of you.
“Pause and reflect, for the day of death is approaching (cf. Gen 47:29), I beg you, therefore with all possible respect, not to forget the Lord or turn away from His commandments by reason of the cares and preoccupations of this world, for all those who are oblivious of Him and turn away from His commands are cursed (cf. Ps 118:21) and will be totally forgotten by Him (Ex. 33:13). And when the day of death does come, everything which they think they have will be taken from them in this world, so much the greater will be the punishments they will endure in hell (cf. Wis 6:7).
“Therefore, I firmly advise you, my lords, to put aside all care and preoccupation and receive with joy the most holy Body and the most holy Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in holy [that is, for Biden and for all of us: non-routinized, non-double-lived, non-scandalizing and non-sacrilegious?] remembrance of Him [….].
(Source: “Letter to the Rulers of the People: to All Leaders and Representatives of the People,” from Francis and Clare: The Complete Works, translation by Regis J. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap. And Ignatius Brady, O.F.M.)
Camosy reasons that if material support (particularly by conservative Catholics) for mothers of would-be-aborted children were to increase, the demand for abortion would decrease. Camosy knows economic terminology but fails to grasp its principles. He either ignores or is truly ignorant of the U.S. welfare state. Tax money began to support unwed mothers and their children in the 1930s. LBJ’s 1964 Great Society opened the floodgates. That social-political program took money from middle-class working families to support fatherless children and unwed mothers.
Result? Increased numbers of unwed mothers, increased numbers of children from fatherless and broken homes, and increased numbers of families in poverty. Concomitant with those social ills was a decline in the number of middle- and working-class families.
Add to the above elixir the increased number of non-practicing and non-faithful Catholics, and the increased number of apostates, homosexuals, and heretics within the Catholic hierarchy. Now we have a university Catholic theology Ph.D. fronting delusions of Marxism as the answer for which the world awaits. A Ph.D. in Catholic theology by any other name, doing the same, still stinks.
I suppose an attempt must be made but why would Biden listen? His record on listening thus far doesn’t inspire confidence.
Me again.
Just read Mr. Camosy’s interview with Terrisa Bukinovac, founder of Pro-Life San Francisco and new leader of Democrats for Life. Maybe there’s hope yet.
Make that Bukovinac.
why because biden is catholic? He ain’t. Biden has been excommunicated latae sententiae the instant he supported abortion. He should be treated like an apostate.
Let’s note that this piece was written on Jan 1, meaning Biden was not yet president.
“Catholics must engage Biden on extreme abortion position” “expert” claims.
That is the job of the Bishop, and on numerous occasions before and since this article he has made it extraordinarily, unmistakably clear that he has ABSOLUTELY NO INTENTION of doing so.