Disappointment reigns a year after leader of tiny diocese emerges as politician, not prophet
_________________________________________________ In the summer of 2004, the Catholic bishop of Colorado Springs appeared on ABC-TV’s Nightline to explain a controversial essay he had published that May in his tightly controlled diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Herald. In the piece, Bishop Michael Sheridan instructed Catholics that they vicariously participate in abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage when they vote for any candidate who supports making or keeping any of those activities legal for all Americans. Thus guilty of serious sin, these Catholic voters must voluntarily abstain from the Church’s sacraments until they had repented and been sacramentally forgiven.
Sheridan was the only U.S. bishop, out of nearly 300, to extend such a warning to voters. A handful had limited their call for what amounts to voluntary excommunication to pro-choice Catholic candidates. The vast majority of bishops, however, took the high road, urging Catholic voters to weigh all of a candidate’s positions and allow their consciences to consider political nuance and the concept of greater and lesser evils. Nevertheless, many agree that Sheridan’s lonely stance, with the help of the controversy-hungry media, achieved sufficient national attention to influence a tiny fraction of Catholic voters. Considering the incumbent President’s fraction of 1% victory margin in Ohio and Florida, the deciding states, Sheridan’s tiny following may have included enough voters to change the election’s outcome.
Consequently, it can be said that the religious leader of a few thousand Rocky Mountain Catholics was instrumental in the re-election of a U.S. President. This in spite of the fact that a large percentage of members of his small diocese, who helped elect a pro-choice Catholic Senator and a Democratic state legislature that day, rejected Sheridan’s single-issue voting instructions as politically naïve, theologically misguided and strategically counter-productive.
With the perspective of a full year, it is possible to evaluate the wisdom and efficacy of Sheridan’s decision to seek the national spotlight in this way. Is he a moral theology ideologue who clings to strict Catholic doctrine regardless of political consequences? Or is he merely a politically conservative Republican who happens to have a theology degree and who chooses to apply Church teaching selectively in order to promote his chosen candidates? Conscious of the restrictions imposed by his tax-exempt status, he did not mention Kerry or Bush by name in front of the ABC cameras. What he did say on Nightline was, “It would be a very short leap for people to figure out who I am talking about.” A short leap indeed, shortened further when Sheridan offered the opening invocation at a Bush campaign appearance in Colorado Springs just days before the election.
Today, residue from Sheridan’s 2004 campaign appearances, written statements, and Q&A meetings continues to cast a pall over his relationship with his diocese, even its Bush supporters. Many indicate their displeasure by continuing to withhold payments pledged to his several fundraising campaigns. Though some mistakenly reduce the episode to a mere 1st Amendment violation, the majority knows that Sheridan disappointed U.S. Catholics on a far more profound level. Faced with an opportunity to be prophetic, he chose to be merely political.
When Democrats and Republicans presented the nation with two presidential candidates, neither of whom holds a “Seamless Garment” pro-life stance suitable to satisfy Catholic moral doctrine, Sheridan could have put on the stole worn by the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago and prophetically called both candidates to task. He could have pointed out that they both promote killing, and that each one’s chosen killing method is no more admirable than the other’s.
Such an opportunity to speak truth to power comes along rarely. Even rarer are the prophets who appear on the world stage at just the right moment and grab those rare opportunities. Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs could have chosen to be a prophet. Instead, he chose to merely take sides, to reduce the Catholic pro-life ideal to a useless liberal vs. conservative debate. He made a name for himself, momentarily grabbed the national spotlight, and squandered the opportunity. Imagine the good he could have done with that spotlight if he had had the courage to use it the way Cardinal Bernardin did.
Instead, he helped re-elect the President, thousands more have been killed and maimed in Iraq, more and more federal dollars are diverted from social programs to military programs and to welfare programs for oil companies. And the budget deficit and the number of abortions continue to rise.
Oh, and Bernardin’s stole? It has been picked up by Jim Wallis, an Evangelical Protestant who embodies the spirit of the late Cardinal more than any U.S. bishop, certainly more than the Republican ideologue who leads the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs. Wallis’ books, magazine and online articles and public lectures explain the late Catholic Cardinal’s seamless garment approach to the sanctity of life better than any of Bernardin’s rightful Catholic heirs.
# posted by Truth Chaser @ 11:02 AM
