ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Apr. 29 2007

Bishops have a right to speak out, too
by Colleen Carroll Campbell

Ever since Archbishop Raymond Burke resigned as board chairman of the Cardinal
Glennon Children's Foundation last week, he has been clobbered with criticism.
Detractors have labeled him a bigot and bully, slammed him for mixing religion
and politics, and accused him of allowing personal bias to trump concern for
sick children.

The proximate cause for Burke's public lashing was his disapproval of the
foundation's choice of abortion-rights activist Sheryl Crow as the featured
performer at its Catholic fundraiser. Burke had privately asked the board to
replace Crow because her public support for abortion rights and embryonic stem
cell research could confuse or scandalize Catholics. The board refused his
request. So Burke resigned and held a news conference to distance himself and
his Church from Crow's views.

Those views are well-documented. Crow is among the most strident and outspoken
celebrity supporters of abortion rights and embryonic research. Whether
headlining a Rock for Choice concert or the NOW-sponsored March for Women's
Lives, lobbying Iowa legislators to kill a cloning ban or urging Missouri
voters to enshrine embryonic research and research cloning as constitutional
rights, Crow frequently uses her fame to promote positions contrary to Catholic
moral teachings.

Crow has the right to her opinions. But it makes no more sense for Burke and
the Catholic institutions he oversees to lend Crow a platform than for Planned
Parenthood to appoint Burke emcee of its next Gala for Choice.

Some critics have argued that Burke had no business objecting to Crow because
many Catholics disagree with his views on these issues. Yet Burke's stance
reflects more than his private opinion; it is also the official teaching of the
Catholic Church. The Church holds that abortion is a serious moral evil
because it destroys innocent human life, and it opposes embryonic stem cell
research and cloning for the same reason. Church teaching insists that one
must never cooperate in these acts or give even tacit approval to them. There
are no exceptions allowed — not for socially conscious rock stars, not for
fiscally conscious charity organizers, not even for bishops operating under the
glare of media scrutiny.

That glare can be intense and intimidating. Many religious leaders have
learned that they receive more flattering press if they focus their political
pronouncements on the fight against poverty or global warming and avoid issues
such as abortion. Burke surely learned this lesson. The same critics who
loudly told him to stay out of politics in 2004, when he criticized
presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry's views on abortion, voiced no such
concern in 2005, when he protested Medicaid cuts.

Today's religious leaders increasingly face a double standard when it comes to
their public pronouncements: They can say what they want as long as they
express politically correct views or stay mum on hot-button social issues.
This stifling of religious voices is intended to prevent religious conflicts in
the public square. But it also prevents the most fundamental form of
deliberation necessary to the functioning of a pluralistic democracy: honest
debates about right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood.

Burke's resignation from the foundation board clarified how seriously the
Catholic Church takes its teaching about the sanctity of human life from its
earliest stages. That teaching may not be popular or politically correct, but
Burke has the right to defend it. To vilify him for speaking out because he
wears a bishop's mitre is the epitome of religious intolerance. Such
intolerance should frighten religious believers and free speech defenders of
all political persuasions.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, TV host and St. Louis-based fellow at
the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is www.colleen-campbell.com.