The Catholic Bishops: Sleeping in the bed they feathered

The Catholic hierarchy is no doubt disappointed that the Blunt-Nelson amendment – designed to provide accommodation for those who, for reasons of conscience, find paying for contraceptive devices and abortifacients unpalatable – failed to pass in the Senate today, and I can easily understand why. Eighteen years ago, as John McCormack pointed out on Tuesday in an article posted on the website of The Weekly Standard, the precise language of that amendment was, as a matter of course, included in the healthcare proposal that came to be called Hillarycare. But, of course, that was then, and this is now. In 1994, the Democrats in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives were eager to avoid offending the Roman Catholic Church and its faithful adherents, and now, with exceedingly rare exceptions, they are intent on humiliating that church and its adherents.

The bishops, priests, and nuns of the American Catholic Church may be dismayed, but they should not be in any way surprised. The situation that they now find themselves in is one of their own making. Thirty-eight years ago, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision inRoe v. Wade, the country was resolutely hostile to abortion on demand. At that time, many Democratic politicians, not all of them Catholic, announced their opposition to abortion. For a time, Bill Clinton and Al Gore were in their number. Had the Church pressed the question resolutely at the time, the 5-4 court decision would quickly have been reversed. As Mr. Dooley was wont to say, the Supreme Court follows the election returns.

Read he rest here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

A very good article.  The Roman Catholic bishops have done some good things over the last few years.  Unfortunately when they spent the preceding several decades making themselves the religious arm of the Democratic Party their moral authority is likely to be seen as questionable.