The Bullied Pulpit

Remember last year, in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, when Kansas referred a constitutional amendment banning abortion to a popular vote…

…and it lost?

In deep-red (but for Wichita and Kansas City) Kansas?

Big Left took it as a bit of great news – “Even Red America is pro-choice!”

Smarter Americans read it this way: America is divided on abortion:

  • About 15% want abortion through all forty weeks, and maybe even a little after (no, I’m not bveing hyperbolic).
  • 20-odd percent want to ban abortions completely – many with exceptions in the rare cases where the mother’s life is at risk.
  • The remainder support some form of abortion, with support sloping steadily downward from six to 20 weeks, and nearly vanishing after the halfway point in the pregnancy.

The DFL, dominated by that first 15%, has jammed down the most extreme interpretation of “choice” this side of California. Will the people lash back from the extremes, the way they (arguably) did in Kansas?

Well, if I have anything to do with it.

One group that should, doctrinally, be in the second 20% – or at least the most moderate parts of the larger 60% – is Catholics. Of course, we know Catholics oppose abortion, because Catholics never get divorced or eat meat on Fridays, either…

…but if there was ever a time for a hypothetical archdiocese to get serious about doctrine, one might think this would be it.

Ten Catholics in the House, and three in the Senate, voted for the “PRO Act”.

Now, at least a few Catholic bishops and priests have invoked ecclesiastical sanctions against some “pro-choice Catholics”, so it’s not without precedent.

So the question remains – is Archbishop Hebda going to do his job, or find some artful and obtuse grounds to evade it?

51 thoughts on “The Bullied Pulpit

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.