Archbishop Chaput Denounces False Catholic Witness

If the Woodstock nincompoops ever overthrow the Catholic Church in the United States and we start 'electing' Cardinals, I'm voting for Bishop Chaput (among others!)


In a First Things column on Friday, Archbishop Chaput of Denver commented on how certain “Catholic” groups are working to undermine the U.S. bishops' stance on health care reform. Should the morally deficient Senate version of health care reform be passed into law against the will of the American people, he said, the dissenting “Catholic” voices will be among those responsible.

“On March 18, the advocacy group Catholics United, which worried so earnestly about Republican faith partisans controlling Catholic thought in the last election, rolled out an attack-ad campaign against Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak in his home state,” began Archbishop Chaput.

“Why?” he asked. “Because Stupak insists – along with the U.S. bishops and every major national prolife group – that the Senate version of the reform bill now being forced ahead by congressional leaders and the White House fails to exclude abortion and its public funding from the legislation.”

On that same day, the prelate continued, writer E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post “claimed that the president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Cardinal Francis George, had distorted the views of the Catholic Health Association, which voiced support of the legislation last week.” According the archbishop, Dionne then warned of a “moral opprobrium that would rightly fall” on the bishops if they succeeded in preventing the health care bill from passing.

“Dionne’s column came just days after Network, a Catholic 'social justice' lobby founded by women religious, also broke ranks with the bishops and endorsed the fatally flawed Senate version of health-care reform,” he added.

In consideration of the examples given by these three Catholic groups, said Archbishop Chaput, “what lessons can we draw...?”