St. Patrick’s Church in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin / St. Patrick’s Facebook page
St. Louis, Mo., Apr 3, 2023 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
The Diocese of Madison clarified late last week that the Church does not endorse nor oppose specific political candidates after a Wisconsin pastor urged parishioners in his weekly parish bulletin message to vote against state Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz, who is openly pro-abortion.
“The Catholic Church’s involvement in public life doesn’t extend to endorsing candidates for election to public office nor calling for their defeat and thus refrains from partisan political activities. The Church does encourage voter registration and encourages Catholics, as citizens, to vote and to be civically engaged,” the diocese said in a statement sent to CNA.
“However, the Church also has both a duty and a right to call attention to the moral and religious dimensions of public issues, measuring social policies and political activities against the natural moral law and Gospel values. Since the first century, the Church has consistently affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law in its respect for all human life.”
The diocese’s response comes after Father Brian Dulli, pastor of St. Patrick’s Church in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, urged his parishioners to vote against the pro-abortion candidate in Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election, a race that observers say could have major effects on the legality of abortion in the state.
As reported by Wisconsin Public Radio, an attorney with the activist group Freedom from Religion Foundation, which is based in Madison, wrote to the IRS last week to complain about the bulletin, asking the IRS to revoke St. Patrick’s 501(c)3 nonprofit status.
The April 4 election is between former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly and current Milwaukee judge Protasiewicz. Protasiewicz has spoken openly about her pro-abortion views while insisting that she has made “no promises” to pro-abortion groups that she will seek to overturn the state’s current abortion ban.
In a March 26 parish bulletin, Dulli urged Catholics not to vote for Protasiewicz, saying she has “tried to make this race entirely an effort to legalize abortion in the state of Wisconsin.”
“Abortion is the intentional taking of a human life. It is murder. Our Catholic faith is clear that this is grave sin. It should never be controversial among Catholics to say that you can never intentionally take any action that knowingly will help in the taking of a human life. You cannot publicly support abortion or abortion advocates and remain a Catholic in good standing,” Dulli wrote.
“As a Catholic, I urge you, for the salvation of your soul; do not vote for her [Protasiewicz] in the Supreme Court race on April 4,” he continued.
“I encourage you to study the race carefully and form you [sic] conscience correctly in accordance with the truths of the Catholic faith.”
In his April 2 bulletin message, Dulli acknowledged that the March 26 bulletin “got much more exposure than usual” and reiterated that “given a choice between any two people, we must say ‘absolutely not’ to the person who says abortion should be on the table.”
“We need to say no to a system that demands human sacrifice of the unborn be on the table. Jesus said that we will be judged by what we do to the least among us. Babies are the littlest and least. If someone consents to the killing of unborn children, they will not stop at the destruction of you or your family,” Dulli wrote.
“Haven’t we seen enough destruction now to know it?”
Reached by CNA on Monday, Dulli declined to comment further, saying he believes the situation has been “talked about enough.”
What’s Tuesday’s election all about?
The 2023 Wisconsin judicial race, which might have remained obscure in other years even within Wisconsin, is garnering national media attention and record fundraising numbers for the candidates. The reasons have to do with a prediction — both among pro-life and pro-abortion groups — that the winner of the election could tip the scales in Wisconsin when it comes to the state’s current abortion ban.
Wisconsin is the only state in the nation with a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion ban in effect, at least on paper. Wisconsin’s ban, which is contained in Section 940.04 of the Wisconsin Statutes and dates to 1849, allows abortion only to save the life of the mother. The state’s Democratic governor and attorney general have said they will not enforce the ban and are currently suing in an attempt to have it overturned.
The law was previously unenforceable following the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, but Roe’s overturning last year allowed the statute to come into effect. So far, it has not been blocked in court, as has happened with pre-Roe bans in West Virginia and Michigan.
Pro-abortion groups within and outside Wisconsin have identified the state Supreme Court race as the key to getting 940.04 overturned. Gov. Tony Evers, along with Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, announced a lawsuit last year to attempt to overturn the law, arguing that it has been superseded by subsequent legislation and cannot be enforced.
The lawsuit is likely to be ultimately decided by the state Supreme Court, which has had a 4-3 conservative majority for the past decade and a half. The current election will determine who will sit in the open seat being vacated by retiring conservative justice Patience Roggensack. The winner will serve a 10-year term.
Pro-life advocates worry that should the state Supreme Court obtain a pro-choice majority, the state’s pre-Roe ban could be declared unconstitutional, as happened last year in neighboring Michigan.
Who are the candidates?
Kelly is a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who served on the court from his appointment by then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2016 until he was voted out in 2020. He describes himself as a “constitutional conservative” and on his campaign website charges that his opponents are “judicial activists who seek to impose their own political agenda on our state.”
Amid a contentious campaign, Kelly has earned the endorsement of three statewide pro-life groups — Wisconsin Family Action, Pro-Life Wisconsin, and Wisconsin Right to Life. He said during a recent debate that his numerous endorsements from pro-life groups came about after having conversations with them about his pledge to uphold the Constitution, not because of any promise to keep the abortion ban in place.
In contrast, Protasiewicz has garnered endorsements from numerous top Democrats in Wisconsin as well as from pro-abortion groups such as NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and EMILY’s List. Protasiewicz currently is a judge for Branch 24 of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court in Wisconsin, having been elected to that court in 2014.
Protasiewicz has insisted she has made “no promises” to pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List but also has made no bones about her pro-choice views. “My personal opinion is that [it] should be the woman’s right to make the reproductive health decisions, period,” she said during a March 21 debate.
What have Catholic leaders said?
At least two of the state’s bishops, including Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, have reiterated to Catholics that the right to life is a foundational issue that should form their consciences as they decide how to vote on Tuesday.
“Without the right to be born and to live, every other right is worthless,” Hying wrote in a March 30 letter.
“Do we want to live in a country that welcomes the wonder of every human life, supports marriages and families, helps the needy and suffering, seeks justice for all, and builds a civilization of love, or, do we want a society which aborts its children, leaves struggling parents without support, and lives a radical autonomy with no reference to the dignity of life and the common good? Do we elect civic leaders who stand on the unshakeable moral principle that every human life is sacred and of immeasurable worth, or, do we elect those who disregard the fundamental dignity of life and advocate for taking the life of the most innocent in the womb? Such questions we should ask ourselves as we exercise our moral and civic duty to vote.”
Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee also issued a letter, dated March 28, urging Catholics to vote for candidates that uphold the right to life.
“The killing of the innocent has never been supported by Catholic Church teachings. As citizens, we have an obligation to support the laws that protect the innocent. We must take our responsibility, as citizens before God’s judgment, for the times we have supported the destruction of the innocent. We must also take responsibility for the lack of support for the protection of the innocent when we vote for candidates and laws that liberalize abortion laws,” Listecki wrote.
“There is nothing enlightened about an individual who fails to realize that the denial of the right to life for the most vulnerable among us is an attack on the dignity and personal value of every citizen. I could not and would not support a candidate whose position on life is contrary to the teachings of the Church — a position contrary to the teachings and love of Jesus.”
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I’m sick of polls regardless of who’s conducting them..
Agree re the polls.
But when the Holy Eucharist is “handed out” so casually with little or no reverence by unnecessary lay ministers you have but one ingredient to the decline in this foundational belief.
I do grow weary of it all.
You sound very dejected yourself … do you not want to know how affected your work is as a Deacon? … no wonder Catholic are loosing faith when you seem to be losing your!
David Brown: I’ll let you know when your services as a psychologist or spiritual advisor are needed. Give me your contact information so that, if and when the need arises, I’ll know where to reach you. You’re obviously highly skilled since by reading one sentence written by someone you’re able to devine so much about him. Remarkable!
I’m sick of reading about polls, and most especially polls about Catholics. Tell me one instance when a published poll had any effect on this degenerate culture other than to amuse for approximately 30 seconds. Tell me, instead, about the individual hearts and minds that have been converted through God’s grace and the evangelization efforts of Catholics..
After some pondering, I think I agree with you. I recalled how our Bishop (a good sincerely believing Bishop) cracked in his Christmas homily the fact that, according to the recent survey, more than half of Australian Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence. Somehow, he made it a point of his homily. It was one of my early years of worshiping with Catholics and I was stunned and became depressed. I could not understand why so many Catholics do not believe but even more than that – if they don’t why do they come to the Church? In a word, it was all I could think about on that night in the Cathedral.
And truly, why should I know those statistics? They achieve nothing. Our task is to live that Real Presence, nothing else. Whether others believe in it is between them and God. I think those surveys have something vulgar about them.
A quibble, but not really:
It’s amusing when people say “the Church.” That is a very sloppy and imprecise way of looking at things. Who, exactly, is “the Church”? Is it Pope Francis? Should we accept his teachings on global warming? Is it the people who put together the last catechism, with their teachings on nuclear war somehow being more evil than war with arrows and swords? Is it St. Augustine? Is it the people who wrote the Catechism of Trent? Is it the moderns who honor/worship Mary?
I think all intelligent Catholics need to get out of the habit of saying “the Church” and should, instead, be very specific on who in the Church is teaching what. It would be very enlightening.
BTW, if the writer of this article is the same Matthew Bunson who used to do the Catholic Almanac, then I say “thank you, thank you, thank you for all your work on those books!” I used many of them!
With such a watered down faith and the mindset of many which is, “Come let us worship each other”, or like the famous burger joint’s motto is “Have it your way”, which I call the Burger “K” Gospel, is anyone really surprised?
Another Catholic article focusing purely on externals and peripherals and calling it “spiritual”.
How about, “How many Catholics have sought God?”, “How many have loved God?”, “How many have found God?”, and “How many clergy have taught you how to find God?”.
The answers would show a generally dead spirituality from top to bottom, and explain quite handily the collapse.
This external-only observance was what the Christ spoke so stridently against, and that is pretty much all we have today, People Of The Book who have lost sight of to what the rules are supposed to lead.
Gloom and doom, an unhappy forecast by Real Clear’s poll the numbers reflecting in comparative accuracy Pew and other polls. Despite the slivers of resurgence by the Eucharist Congress and other attempts at revival of the faith they’re small in comparison.
Perhaps Catholics who are beginning to return to Mass and confession read the signs of the times. Many of us do sense this although others point to previous crises that eventually ended, doomsday syndromes that occur periodically in which people were convinced the Second Coming is at hand. Of course that would be a happy turn of events, except perhaps not for some who may have a desire for highly spectacular entertainment.
From observation as a priest it’s likely that the disaffection is centered on belief in the real Prince in the Eucharist. Several decades of distorted liturgy at the altar priests suddenly transformed into showmen, entertainers, and the more subdued flight attendant. Solemnity vanished along with the fire except for the resurgence of the TLM and those of us who offer the Novus Ordo Mass with reverence and love. They’re other factors: the explosion of sensuality in conjunction with the pill poor and frequently heretical catechesis and so forth and so on. Although it all comes back to that real belief in the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
It’s been argued then that we suffered and survived similar. Here is where there’s strong disagreement from some including myself. We’ve never had heresy flow down to the faithful from the apex of hierarchy. Example the Arian heresy began with a priest and assumed by hierarchy. All the major heresies I’m aware of were singular issues, theological misinterpretations. The other marked difference is that the current heresy seriously affects all Apostolic doctrine, the fundamental premise that intrinsic moral principles are not permanent, in effect that truth and permanence are not congruent, that human behavior need not be moderated in accordance with Christ’s.
What we may infer from this heresy is that if there are no permanent truths, the fallacy is revealed in declaring that itself to be a truth. In other words, the premise cancels itself. For the vast majority we’re basically talking over their heads when we argue this point. What the Catholic public perceives is a Church in which all is questioned now permanently by a process called Synodality. And a clergy bishops included who are basically, except for the rare few who are quickly suppressed, rendered catatonic. Anyone in the house with smelling salts?
Amen Father. Heretical Modernist have destroyed so much beauty and worse of all led so many souls to Hell.
The young will save the church from those that say in the pews and said nothing in the early 70s.
Yes. There’s reason why hope is a theological virtue, as evident in times like these when there seems no hope.
The Novos Ordo can sometimes be celebrated with dignity. TLM can never be offered with indignity. Which is most pleasing to God?
As much as I would like to believe these results, there is absolutely no way the results are close to accurate – unless the people polled are CWR readers or were leaving Mass on a Sunday morning. CARA has been doing polling since 1964. From their 2023 poll: “Prior to the pandemic 23% reported attending weekly. By comparison 21% said they were attending this frequently now. There are also slightly fewer saying they attend almost every week (10% now compared to 13% prior to the pandemic).” https://nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2023/ As for the “12% that attend daily” I think they need to move the decimal point one place to the left.
I do not believe that this poll agrees with the CARA polls (Center for Applied research on the Apostolate. It makes a difference whether the poll was in person, phone, or questionnaire. People tend to exaggerate their performance. when talking to a live person. Was Mass attendance done on a survey or by head count? Different methodologies produce different results.
Crusader – full agreement. If these numbers were even close to the facts, then we should see traffic congestion on Sunday mornings.
Harris’s support for a constitutional amendment that would legalize abortion without any restrictions, including allowing an infant surviving an abortion to die, is barbaric. This woman also supports gay marriage and the mutilation of children through transgenderism. Thus, she openly opposes basic moral principles thar are foundational to Catholic teaching. This woman is an arm of Satan. These policies along with her economic and immigration policies will destroy this country
The US has a problem of passing ANYTHING as law so long as it got duly voted. Is that in the US Constitution? It is asserting that “we the people” clause is MEANT to give such a reading to the whole document but without actually saying so.
In typical law-making down through the ages except the 20th Century, abortion is crime as it always is and should be; PLUS, merely SPEAKING about certain things so as to promote them, is subversion, i.e., is treated as subversion as it always was and should be. The idea that law is found ONLY through a vote is unjustifiable.
Please do not use the term “gay” to mean homosexual.
As the Stonewall Institute has told us, homosexuals prefer not to be called homosexual, and to use the term “gay” is to be an ally of the LGBS community.
I disagree, as a priest, I see first hand the state of things, we in the US have about 12% of Catholics coming to Mass every Sunday. If you count REGISTERED CATHOLICS, who are registered in a parish, that number goes up, but when you consider a huge number of Catholics who never register in a parish, that number goes down.
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I would be interested to know the reason why Catholics go to Mass (when they go), if they don’t believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? I would also challenge the accuracy of that 52% belief number in light of the low weekly Mass attendance. If people really believed in the Real Presence, they would go to Mass at least weekly. How is it they see the importance of Christ in the Eucharist, but fail to see the importance of going to meet Him?? And what, to them, is more important?? This is a problem within the Church, when people become accustomed and conditioned to thinking that going to Mass is just something we do and there’s no reflection on how this might affect my life spiritually. Not to mention how the dismal confession numbers indicate that the vast majority of people presenting themselves for communion are not properly disposed to receive it.
I applaud the comments of Fathers Dan and Peter Morello. I hope more and more priests will adopt their manner of thinking.
Jesus Christ must be treated with all dignity, respect, reverence and solemnity. Unfortunately, since Vatican II and the Novus Ordo Mass many of the above characteristics were taken out of the Mass and the structure of Churches. The altar became a supper table and Communion became a communal meal. Many priests and lay people adopted a casual, nonchalant attitude toward the Eucharist which diminishes the importance of the Eucharist. The concept that The Holy Mass is a sacrifice was forgotten. I’ve talked to some priests that actually said that the Eucharist distracts from the Mass. The congregation was there to worship God in one another.
Protestant concepts were introduced into the NO Mass which helped to undermine the belief that the Eucharist is God. Churches lost their beauty and became very ordinary. The tabernacle was move from an elevated position in the front of the church to a “Eucharistic Chapel” which essentially was a walk-in closet. No wonder people lost the belief of the Real Presence.
Fortunately, the TLM and conservative NO Masses are being said more often and with growing attendance. God will eventually give us back our churches and our true Mass.
One more item: A number of people dress very casually for Mass. One should at least wear dress clothes to Mass and not t-shirts and shorts. Imagine, if a lawyer showed up in a courtroom to litigate a case, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. What do you think the judge would do to that lawyer? Doesn’t Jesus Christ deserve even more respect than a civil judge?