The Bishops' Questionable Questionnaire

I'm passing this on...

Dear Friend,

I was afraid of this.

You'll probably remember that a few weeks ago, I told you that the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was working on
its presidential questionnaire. If you recall, the form asks the two
candidates where they stand on a number of issues important to
Catholics.

I had noted that the Left-leaning USCCB might try to bury the
pro-life questions in with a bunch of irrelevant issues... thereby
hiding Senator John Kerry's extreme pro-abortion voting record. They
did something similar with the 2000 presidential questionnaire
(wherein, they actually let Al Gore get away with claiming to be
"pro-life"!).

Unfortunately, it seems that the same thing is happening again this
election. The questionnaires are with the candidates right now, but
CRISIS has been able to get an early look at the document.

Here's what we discovered...

First, the questionnaire makes no distinction between life issues --
clearly of primary importance to Catholics -- and particular policies
that the conference supports on issues as wide-ranging (and
non-binding) as rural development, housing, and immigration.

The document has 41 questions, broken down into sections by topic.
The largest single section of the questionnaire is on... immigration.
Yes, immigration. That category gets a full six questions.

The next-largest section is education (five questions). Abortion
gets a total of three questions (tied with aid to low income
families).

In fact, in the entire questionnaire, only eight questions deal with
life issues -- including abortion, capital punishment,
physician-assisted suicide, cloning, and embryo research. Amazingly
enough, the section on broadcast communication had more questions
than any of the life sections except abortion and capital punishment.

But there's more.

The structure of the questions is such that they only ask for a
"support/oppose" response, which says nothing about the particular
details of a candidate's position. Nowhere is there room for the
candidate to explain, say, why he voted for partial-birth abortion
(as Kerry did) or voted against the Defense of Marriage Act (another
Kerry vote). In fact, neither are mentioned at all!

Of course, the conference did include this vital question:

"Will you support or oppose legislation to strengthen the reputation
of broadcasters to ensure that they meet their public service
broadcast license obligations?"

Look, it's not that I object to the questions per se. The problem is
that they ignore the hierarchy in Catholic values and issues.
Furthermore, this sweeping approach keeps the candidates --
particularly Kerry, who is almost always on the wrong side of the
life issues -- from having to defend themselves or explain any of
their choices.

Once again, the bishops conference has mixed up prudential issues
(like the particular points of broadcast law) with hard moral
absolutes (like the ban on abortion). In doing so, they've given
ardently pro-abortion candidates political cover.

Hopefully, when they eventually release the results of the
questionnaire, the conference will include some kind of commentary
that assigns real weight to the life issues. Without that, this
document is simply deceptive.

I'll talk to you again early next week,

Deal

The USCCB needs a thorough cleansing!