Staten Island Chapter-Knights Of Columbus

Bishops Take Action

Emboldened by their success in inserting restrictive abortion language into the House health care bill, Roman Catholic bishops say they’ve found a lobbying model that could provide them a louder voice in future policy debates.

“It was a good example of how we, as a conference, can work together to have a positive influence on legislation,” Bishop William Murphy, head of the domestic justice and human development committee of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, told the Catholic News Service last week.

Success in the House came after the church ran a classic lobbying operation: deploying paid staff to Capitol Hill, tapping influential bishops to make private appeals to key congressional leaders and distributing bulletin inserts to 19,000 parishes with easy instructions — and sample wording — for sending a message to local representatives.

But it remains to be seen if the bishops can have the same results as the broader health bill moves forward or on more complex life issues such as embryonic stem cell research.

In the health care debate, for instance, the bishops have consistently identified three priority areas: abortion, religious conscience clauses and immigrant rights.

“I don’t think the Catholics in the pews will get quite as focused on a message of immigrants as they have been on the question of abortion,” said Stephen Schneck, a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. “And I’m not convinced the church leaders are willing to expend the political capital with those Catholics in order to promote the cause.”

Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), a Catholic who participated in the intense negotiations over the final abortion language, said the pressure from the church to ease restrictions on immigrants was “not even close” to the abortion language tug of war.

The church’s strategic decisions are significant because — with Catholics representing, at 30 percent, the largest single religious group among members of Congress — it can gain access across party lines.

While pressuring Democratic leaders to adjust the abortion coverage language earlier this month, the bishops simultaneously contacted House Republican leaders and warned them against using procedural tactics to torpedo any amendment.

The church’s engagement also could help scramble some long-held partisan divides, given that its policy platform is more diverse than traditional Capitol Hill religious players — evangelicals on the right and Protestant groups such as the National Council of Churches on the left.

While taking conservative stands on life issues, the Catholic bishops have also allied themselves with advocates for labor rights and the poor because of the church’s traditional advocacy for the downtrodden. One reason the bishops could gain entry into the health care debate is the church’s vast array of clinics and hospitals that often serve those in most need, including legal and illegal immigrants.

But the church’s liberal positions on many social issues and strong anti-abortion stance have put it at odds with politicians who hold more traditionally liberal or conservative views. No dispute has been more contentious than the one with Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), nephew of the nation’s only Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, and a supporter of abortion rights.

In an interview with The Providence Journal on Friday, Kennedy said that Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin has forbidden him from receiving Communion because of his advocacy of abortion rights.

As the health care debate has intensified, Kennedy has called into question the anti-abortion credentials of the churchmen, and Tobin has responded that the bishops are firmly committed to health care reform but not without the abortion provision.

Tobin said in a statement Sunday that he “has never addressed matters relative to public officials receiving Holy Communion with pastors of the diocese,” according to The Associated Press.

An official familiar with the bishop conference’s strategic positioning on health care said the different engagement levels on abortion and the treatment of immigrants can be explained by the stakes in each debate.