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Some thoughts about "confusion" re: a Catholic president that led a USCCB working group: (1) The confusion isn't about content; everyone knows the church is pro-life/anti-abortion. The confusion is about why the church can't get Biden to obey the teaching. https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/11/17/bishops-joe-biden-catholic-usccb
(2) The danger here isn't so much confusion about what moral teaching _is_ but confusion about how binding the church's authority to teach is.
(3) That confusion has several (other) important sources, beyond the incoherence of a personally-opposed-but… attitude toward abortion.
(3) That confusion has several (other) important sources, beyond the incoherence of a personally-opposed-but… attitude toward abortion.
Among those other important sources:
(a) The perception that in the church's practical opposition to abortion, partisan politics has become more important than morality. (The last few months of "no good Catholic can vote Democrat …" nonsense have made this much, much worse.)
(a) The perception that in the church's practical opposition to abortion, partisan politics has become more important than morality. (The last few months of "no good Catholic can vote Democrat …" nonsense have made this much, much worse.)
(b) The erosion of the church's moral authority (and the moral voice of the conference of bishops especially) because of the sex abuse crisis and lay Catholics' frustration with the episcopacy's response, which they judge as anemic, self-protective, and morally unserious.
So this working group on how to deal with a Catholic president should also think about how confusion on the church's authority to teach is exacerbated by the attempt among some to dictate Catholics' political choices in partisan terms and practical failures to respond to abuse.
Especially, there's no practical way to reduce this confusion without dealing with the voices claiming to speak with the authority of the church (including priests and bishops) attempting to dominate the consciences of Catholics in the voting booth. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/10/29/talking-jesus-voting-freedom-fear-election-2020
