Archbishop Burke: Catholic News Service (CNS) Needs 'New Direction'

ROME (LifeSiteNews.com) � A document of the U.S. Catholic Bishops is partly to blame for the abandonment of pro-life teachings by voting Catholics and the election of the �most pro-abortion president� in US history, one of the Vatican�s highest officials said in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, named a document on the election produced by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops that he said �led to confusion� among the faithful and led ultimately to massive support among Catholics for Barack Obama.

The US bishops� document, �Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,� stated that, under certain circumstances, a Catholic could in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports abortion because of "other grave reasons," as long as they do not intend to support that pro-abortion position.

Archbishop Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louise Mo. and recently appointed head of the highest ecclesiastical court in the Catholic Church, told LifeSiteNews.com that although �there were a greater number of bishops who spoke up very clearly and firmly ... there was also a number who did not.�

But most damaging, he said, was the document �Faithful Citizenship� that �led to confusion� among the voting Catholic population.

�While it stated that the issue of life was the first and most important issue, it went on in some specific areas to say �but there are other issues� that are of comparable importance without making necessary distinctions.�

Archbishop Burke, citing an article by a priest and ethics expert of St. Louis archdiocese, Msgr. Kevin McMahon, who analysed how the bishops� document actually contributed to the election of Obama, called its proposal �a kind of false thinking, that says, �there�s the evil of taking an innocent and defenceless human life but there are other evils and they�re worthy of equal consideration.�

�But they�re not. The economic situation, or opposition to the war in Iraq, or whatever it may be, those things don�t rise to the same level as something that is always and everywhere evil, namely the killing of innocent and defenceless human life.�

Archbishop Burke also cited the work of the official news service of the US Catholic Bishops� Conference, that many pro-life observers complained soft-pedalled the newly elected president�s opposition to traditional morality.

�The bishops need to look also at our Catholic News Service, CNS, they need to review their coverage of the whole thing and give some new direction, in my judgement,� he said.

Thank you Archbishop Burke for speaking out about the need to reform Catholic News Service. This organization supplies many of the news articles for diocesan newspapers across the country. They have many fine writers but also many who write articles that spread doubt and confusion on profound issues such as respect for human life.

A recent article focused on professors at Catholic universities who thought our current President's thinking was more in line with Catholic social teaching than previous ones. Another spoke with glee about the record numbers of Catholics in office even though so many are at odds with Catholic teaching.

Until reading Christopher Mannions recent article in the Wanderer I was unaware that the CNS was owned by the NCCB. Please consider writing your bishop and ask him to appoint a staff that truly faithful to the Catholic Church. And to the rest of the Catholic media how about some coverage on this most important topic.

Michael | 3/2/2009

Chris,
Thank you for being so calm in your comments. It is dishearteing the in the past 8 years the Republicans have not helped the movement out as you are saying. How couldn't they help the prolife movement get more funding and cut the funding for the PP. This could be one reason that the liberal Catholics decided to stop being misled by the Republican party. They repeatedly use this one issue as a "ok, I have the Catholic vote".
I promise you that they are in the "wilderness" reevaluating all of their stands on all of the issues. They will keep this one only because it works. It kills me that we on the pro-life side will settle for so little from our government. When my parents were younger and involved there was so much more talk of social justice, so much more action about helping the poor find a support system that could help women in this situation. Our side does not have that. My parents were one of the 1,000 points of light, not getting any government assistance and making it work for many women and families. So please keep up the fight and help people stop looking to the government for help on this. It will get you no where! Do it grassroots.

Vonada | 2/3/2009

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