The public face of Catholic social teaching. Garments are rent, groans are uttered, and statements are drafted, resolving to do better. I have benefited enormously from Catholic thought, Catholic spirituality, and the personal influence of Catholic friends. Consider for example the remarks by Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles diocese, delivered at mass on Sunday, August 14, the day before Mahony was to give the invocation at the opening of the Democratic National Convention, as reported by the Associated Press. What is immediately apparent about this analysis is the way that it substitutes slogans and bromides for genuine engagement with social realities.
Abortion takes the lives of countless human beings every year.
It is an unambiguous evil and certainly one of the great ills of our society. Euthanasia has the potential to become an evil on the same terrible scale. But to lump capital punishment in the same category is preposterous, whether or not one is opposed to capital punishment. The Catholic slogan helps not at all here. The second and third threats Mahony lists are not clearly distinguished one from another, nor do they provide any practical guidance.