Did you find that debate as painful to watch as I did?

President Trump was beyond rude with his constant interruptions. While his target was Joe Biden, he deprived all of us of the opportunity to hear a clear, decisive exchange on the two candidates’ very different records, philosophies, and policy ideas.

In my view, Trump did himself no favors. He seemed to have some strong points to make, but by constantly intruding, he ended up struggling to be heard over Biden, and thereby stepped on many of his own lines.

Former Vice President Biden, for his part, resorted to childish name-calling, ranging from the petulant—calling Trump a “fool” and a “clown”—to the vicious: “liar” and “racist.” And he topped it off by telling the President to “shut up, man.” 

All in all, it was an appalling demonstration of the very breakdown in civil discourse that we’ve been lamenting on this blog site.

Which brings us to the coming battle over Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Because if the past is prologue, we are in for a nastiness that will make the other night’s debate seem like an afternoon tea. And in this context, sad to say, the viciousness has been all on one side.

I can think of not one instance in recent years where Republican senators engaged in protracted personal attacks against a Democratic president’s nominee. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan—all with well-known liberal credentials when they were nominated—sailed through with minimal Republican opposition, and relatively mild questioning by GOP senators.

Contrast that with how Democratic senators have repeatedly dragged Republican nominees through the mud, beginning with the disgraceful character assassination against Judge Robert Bork in 1987. Their preferred line of attack in the years since—smearing male Republican nominees with long ago, unreported, unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misbehavior toward women—will not be available to them now as they grill a female nominee.

Perhaps they will resort—as they did when Barrett was nominated for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017—to attacking her Catholic faith. They might think twice about that, however, given how soundly Sen. Dianne Feinstein was rebuked for it then—not only by Catholics, but by many principled people of varying faiths.

Perhaps instead they will disparage her family life. This is already happening in the blogosphere—with absurd characterizations of her and her husband’s loving adoption of two Haitian children as “racist.” Doubtless, some who favor abortion to reduce the numbers of disabled children—another manifestation of how the abortion mentality targets the victims, rather than the causes of human suffering—will fault Barrett for bringing a Down Syndrome child into the world.

And then there is the ridiculous effort to portray this very accomplished professional woman as a “Handmaid’s Tale” type of wife, totally subservient to her husband in all things, in line with Margaret Atwood’s fairy tale novel that’s treated like scriptural truth by radical feminists.

In fact, Amy Coney Barrett is the very model of what a true feminist would admire—balancing an extraordinarily successful legal career with a strong marriage and a commitment to motherhood. But that is not admired in radical feminist circles where—in addition to perceiving Barrett as being on the “wrong” side of issues like abortion—motherhood and marriage are seen as impediments to, rather than components of, a woman’s fulfillment.

Hopefully, Senate Democrats will see the folly of employing such lines of attack. Even Joe Biden has acknowledged that he is “not opposed to the justice (sic), she seems like a fine person.” They should stick to relevant questions for Judge Barrett about her judicial philosophy; and it is certainly legitimate for them to try to make the case, as Biden did, that Justice Ginsburg’s seat should not be filled until after the election.

But they should, for once, avoid bringing the politics of personal destruction into the confirmation process. It demeans them, it demeans the Senate, and it only further erodes any semblance of the civil discourse that we so desperately need right now.

I have tried to avoid using this site for direct political advocacy. I knew that would be difficult during a presidential campaign in these hyper-partisan times, and some commenters have expressed frustration that I have not been more pointedly political.

Of course, I know politics and government are central to most of the critical issues that confront us. But rather than join the cacophony of rancorous partisan debate, I wanted to try to objectively examine the moral imperatives at the core of Catholic social teachings, rather than erroneously reducing those teachings to partisan policy positions—as too many are doing already.

In that vein, I need to challenge an argument put forward virtually every election year—spearheaded this year, it seems, by several American bishops. It is the contention that the ongoing, intentional mass destruction of pre-born human life is reducible to a “single issue” interchangeable with other “social justice” issues.

I disagree. I believe, consistent with statements by the U.S. Bishops over the years, that legalized abortion violates a foundational principle, of our Declaration of Independence and the natural law of God on which it is based: that every human life, created by God, is sacred; and every human being, from the moment of creation, has a natural, unalienable right to life.

As such, legalized abortion—in the words of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, author of the “seamless garment” approach to life issues—”undermines respect for life in all other contexts.”  

It is as it was with the “single issue” of slavery in the 19^th century. There the foundational principle of individual liberty—also a part of the natural law of God and also cited as a natural right in the Declaration of Independence—was undermined by the enslavement of millions of people; and America’s great experiment in human freedom could not legitimately move forward until this unspeakable violation of that foundational principle was abolished.

Today, we cannot truly build a culture of life—nor can we consistently advocate for “justice” in any credible sense—until the massive denial of life and justice to the most innocent, most defenseless of human beings is ended.

Thus I adhere to the principle set forth by the U.S. Bishops in their 1999 document, “Living the Gospel of Life”: “We must begin with a commitment never to intentionally kill, or collude in the killing, of innocent human life.”

The bishops did not say “begin and end”; of course, we must go from there to address a wide range of issues of human suffering, threats to human life and justice. But we must begin by addressing the ONLY issue where the direct, massive killing of innocent human life is government policy. Because it is that reality—that this killing is carried out “under mantle of law,” in Cardinal Bernardin’s words—that “undermines respect for life in all other contexts.”  

Moreover, by invoking abortion as a “solution” to a range of social concerns—poverty, child abuse, disability—the abortion mentality invites us to destroy the victims, rather than the causes, of human suffering. And that has implications far beyond the millions of unborn children killed every year—as if that reality were not horrific enough.   

Consider a couple of examples of how the abortion mentality negatively impacts other issues of life and justice. 

Take our responsibility to protect the environment. We constantly hear that climate change is “settled science.” I’m not quite sure what that means. Do we know that certain changes are not just cyclical? Do we know if, and how much, human activity is a contributing factor? If so, do we know what the solutions are? More importantly, do we really know what the long-term effects are? I’m not debunking this; I readily admit I don’t know enough about it. I’m trying to learn, but it is sometimes difficult to discern what is science from what is ideology.  

Contrast this with what we KNOW to be settled science—that every child in utero is a growing, developing, LIVING human being. Yet we disregard that science, destroying these lives by the thousands every day. How do we allow that settled science to be ignored, but expect to convince people to respond to the relatively less settled science of global warming?

Or consider the death penalty, which I ardently oppose. But the death penalty is not used to intentionally kill innocent people. Of course, it does result in innocent people being wrongly executed. That is one of the reasons to oppose it, though our Catholic reasons run much deeper.

But how do we sensitize people to the value of the life of even the most hardened, violent murderer, when we have become absolutely morally numbed to the massive killing of the most innocent, most defenseless, of human lives?

Of course, giving special attention to protecting the unborn does not—and should not—preclude our also doing what we can to address other issues of life and justice (allowing, of course, for differing prudential judgements; agreeing on injustices to be addressed does not require being in lockstep on solutions. That is a topic for a future post.)

The problem comes when we have to make political choices, as between one candidate who opposes abortion and another whose stands on other “justice” issues we may like, but who supports the legalized killing of the unborn.

In such cases, I would never presume to tell my fellow Catholics who they must vote for. I will, however, try to persuade them that the injustice of abortion is so massive, and so all-encompassing in its undermining of respect for human life, that perhaps they might see it as I do: as a disqualifying issue that precludes my voting for a pro-abortion candidate.

And I would ask those who disagree: Would a Catholic in 19th century America have been justified in voting against a candidate solely because that candidate supported the continued enslavement of millions of human beings?

Or would that, too, have been unacceptable “single issue” voting? 

My wife Eileen and I are hunkered down this week under Cuomo’s quarantine, following our trip to California last week to visit the Reagan Ranch. The visit was arranged by our daughter Clare, who works for Young America’s Foundation (YAF)—and we are so grateful to that organization and its president Ron Robinson, for preserving this historic and iconic site. 

For me, our visit recalled a decade, the 1980s, that was transformative—on a personal level, as those were the years in which Eileen and I met and married, and I finally finished college and embarked on my career in Catholic communications; but also on the national and international stage, as Reagan’s presidency revitalized America, St. John Paul II’s papacy rejuvenated the Church, and together they lit the spark and kindled the flames of peaceful revolution that ended the Cold War and freed millions from the yoke of Communist oppression.

It also seems, looking backward from the vantage point of 2020, to have been a much tamer time as well. Of course, in many ways it wasn’t. The world was gripped then as now by wars, terrorism, and threats to human survival; and domestically, many of the issues that still challenge us today—racial tensions, violent crime, immigration, health care, poverty, the mass destruction of pre-born human lives—were with us back then.

But I am thinking of the public discourse surrounding our politics—and the vital role that Ronald Reagan played in promoting civility in that discourse.

Of course, politics has always had a nasty edge to it; and we were reminded during this visit of the nastiness and ad hominem attacks to which Reagan was subjected by political opponents and media critics.

Remember, he was not just portrayed as wrong on the issues—that was fair game, as when then-GOP primary opponent George H.W. Bush termed Reagan’s tax cut plan “voodoo economics.” In that realm Reagan gave as good as he got—as when he said of the economic crisis, “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”

Hard-hitting, but the point was a policy one—Carter’s economic program was failing, in Reagan’s view, and a change in leadership was needed.

Contrast that with the constant portrayals of Reagan as a simplistic dolt who would starve the poor and plunge the world into nuclear annihilation. I cannot recall an instance when he responded in kind to such vicious personal attacks. If any readers do recall such an instance, I would appreciate your passing it along.

Instead, he sometimes deflected such personal attacks with self-deprecating humor. Most often he patiently strove to explain how he felt his policies would have just the opposite effect—uplifting the poor by stimulating economic growth, preserving world peace by being strong enough to deter aggression. That he did so, of course, in plain-spoken language that made his ideas accessible to all—earning him the “Great Communicator” sobriquet— drove his opponents crazy, and provoked their attacks on his intellect.

I would maintain that his civility and respect for his political adversaries was also a critical part of that “great communicator” persona. He was about persuading people as to the rightness of his ideas, not trying to demonize those who disagreed. He saved his strong moral condemnations for those world forces that were truly malevolent, like the Soviet “evil empire” that engaged in genocide and enslavement of its own people. Domestic political opponents were just that—political adversaries, not enemies—and while Reagan argued that their policy ideas were wrong-headed, one strains to recall him ever questioning their good intentions.    

His respect and civility seemed to draw out those qualities in his opponents as well. We were reminded during our visit to the ranch of his rather remarkable relationship with then-Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. Despite often bitter battles over tax cuts and various other legislation, the two seemed to have developed a genuine respect and even personal liking for one another. Can anyone even imagine, absent an overt act of God, a similar relationship developing today between President Trump and Speaker Pelosi?

Agree or disagree with President Reagan’s policies—I agreed with many of them—we all, I think, owe him a special debt of gratitude for modeling the art of civil political discourse. Like some others of that era—I’m thinking of the conservative Jack Kemp and the liberal “happy warrior” Hubert Humphrey—he showed how one can be a strong, emphatic advocate for the policies and principles one believes in, while respecting, not demonizing those who disagree.

How we miss that positive spirit; and how well it would serve us today, amid what has become an absolutely poisonous political atmosphere.  

Should Catholic clerics accept invitations to lead prayers at political conventions? 

This question resurfaces every presidential election year, and 2020 is no exception.

Writing a guest column for CNN, former Augustinian priest Brian Frawley scolded Cardinal Timothy Dolan for offering an invocation at this year’s Republican National Convention.

Frawley apparently had no objection to Jesuit Father James Martin leading a prayer at the Democratic National Convention. For as he made clear, the issue for him was not the propriety of a Catholic cleric praying at a political convention. The issue for him was Donald Trump.

After listing a range of issues on which he finds Trump unacceptable, Frawley concluded: “Dolan should understand the power of his presence at the convention and be mindful that this gesture will be seen by many as an affirmation of the President.”

Of course that was not Cardinal Dolan’s intention, anymore than it was his intention to be politically partisan when he gave the benediction at the 2008 Republican convention—and was vilified for it, until he silenced his critics by accepting a subsequent invitation to also pray at the Democratic convention. Doubtless he would have done so again this year, if asked.    

The point is that—even as we exercise prudential judgment in choosing which candidates and political parties to support—we, and certainly our faith leaders, are called to pray for all who aspire to positions of leadership. Whether we agree with some, all or none of their policy positions; whether we find their rhetoric inspiring or offensive, we pray that God will guide them, in their words and actions, toward service to the common good.

“Pray we must,” Cardinal Dolan intoned: yes, for the baby in the womb, but also for immigrants and refugees; for those suffering from hunger, addiction, or war; for the sick and the elderly; for those afflicted with the coronavirus and those treating them; for those suffering from religious persecution; for peace in the world and in our own city streets; for religious freedom.

There was nothing partisan about his prayer; which will not, of course, stop those with their own agenda from reading into it.   

Others were troubled by Father Martin’s prayer at the Democratic convention, given that party’s increasingly extreme pro-abortion absolutism. But Father Martin too included the unborn among “those most in need” for whom he prayed, including those unemployed, immigrants, the homeless, those on death row, blacks threatened by racism, LGBT teens who are bullied.

Not so the prayer of Sister Simone Campbell. The leader of Network, which calls itself a “Catholic social justice lobby,” joined the Democrats in pointedly excluding the unborn from her social justice agenda. Protection of the unborn is “above my pay grade” she had said before delivering a convention prayer for the “most marginalized”—the poor, immigrants, victims of racism, bigotry, sexism—but not unborn children. Several years ago, in fact, she stated her opposition to making abortion illegal.  

Republicans, too, featured a Catholic nun at their convention: Sister Deirdre Byrne of the Community of the Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

Sister Deirdre spoke forcefully in defense of the unborn—not, she made clear, to the exclusion of other marginalized groups, but precisely because of her consistent commitment to the sacredness of all human life. This has been manifest in her decades as a doctor and a Catholic missionary, “working to serve the poor and the sick in Haiti, Sudan, Kenya, Iraq and in Washington, D.C., ” and ministering to refugees “fleeing war-torn and impoverished countries all around the world.”

While these suffering peoples “have all been marginalized, viewed as insignificant, powerless and voiceless,” Sister Deirdre stressed, “the largest marginalized group in the world can be found here in the United States. They are the unborn.” Hers is a truly consistent ethic of life, that holds all life as sacred but recognizes that true social justice is contingent on our protection of the “innocent, powerless, voiceless life” in the womb.

Recall these words from none other than the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, author of the “seamless garment” approach to life issues:

“A society which destroys human life by abortion under the mantle of law unavoidably undermines respect for life in all other contexts. Likewise, protection in law and practice of unborn life will benefit all life, not only the lives of the unborn.”

Obviously, Sister Deirdre would agree. Sister Simone apparently not, as she could not bring herself, while praying as a Catholic sister on national television, to include the unborn in her prayers for the vulnerable.

Frawley wrongly suggested that Cardinal Dolan treats abortion “as the only Catholic issue that ever matters.” In fact, three of these four Catholics who offered prayers at the conventions included the unborn within a wide range of marginalized, vulnerable people they prayed for.  Only Sister Simone did not. Instead, she treated the mass destruction of unborn human life as virtually the only issue that does not matter to her. And that, not Cardinal Dolan’s non-partisan prayer at the Republican convention, is what should sadden us.