Yesterday at the excellent Catholic Key blog, there was an interesting piece regarding the bishops' attempt to stem speculation regarding the U.S. Bishops' position regarding the Senate Health Care Reform Bill. Here is the statement of a spokesman for the U.S. Bishops' Conference:
Recently a reporter asked the staff of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops whether, if the House of Representatives sent a health care reform bill to the Senate that includes acceptable pro-life language like the Stupak amendment, the Conference would defend the pro-life language against efforts by members of either political party to strike it from the bill. The staff answered yes. Some took that answer out of context, and misinterpreted it as a commitment by the bishops to endorse an overall health care bill as long as it includes pro-life language. No such position has been taken. The Conference has said the Senate-passed health care bill fails our moral criteria and must be changed; if changes do occur the bishops would study the new bill, then develop a position based on our moral criteria.
This response was clearly predictable, in a good way and in a potentially troubling way. The "good" part was that the USCCB unequivocally opposes the current version of the bill, and it will not accept any version of the bill that would in any way fund abortions. In the above-referenced blog there is also a helpful synopsis of the abortion-funding provisions of the current bill provided by the U.S. Bishops' pro-life office. They really seem to be on top of this issue.
While the above statement is "prudent" and sound, I am troubled by what will happen if the bishops are successful on the abortion issue. After all, the above statement was issued in response to some confusion regarding the bishops' support for the bill if the abortion-funding provisions are removed. The statement (thankfully) denied that the bishops supported the bill, but it also denied that they opposed the bill, opting instead for a "wait and see" approach regarding the other provisions.
While the use of taxpayers' money to pay for abortion coverage is far and away the most significant (and from a Christian morality standpoint, the most black and white), the bill even in its underlying principles and assumptions is highly problematic. This has been pointed out in many places, including by some bishops as well as leaders from other faith traditions. We will get into more detail on these concerns as this legislation continues to evolve.
My concern here is that while the bishops are rightly--even heroically--on board regarding abortion, the signal being given seems to be that aside from the abortion-related issues (including conscience protection), the bishops as a united body have no other moral objection to what seems to me to be a patently irresponsble and unjust piece of legislation.
Here's a simple analogy. My most-hated food is beets (even after the usually reliable Alton Brown of "Food Channel" did an episode of "Good Eats" on this disgusting vegetable). I used to joke that the worst thing that could happen to me was to commit a mortal sin, eat beets, and then die.
The health care bill is like a bowl of beets with poison (abortion coverage) sprinkled in. Of course the first order of business is to get rid of the poison. But then what? We're still stuck with the beets. Yes, we need to eat (i.e., we all agree that some reform is needed), but I want a different chef!
Some people like beets--it's largely a matter of taste (or lack thereof!). But the objective difficulties with the health care bill, even with the poison taken out, should disgust every Catholic and indeed every person of goodwill.