As in past presidential election years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this summer sent a detailed questionnaire to both major party presidential candidates. And contrary to the public perception that the bishops only care about one or a few election issues, the survey asked both Bush and Kerry whether they "support" or "oppose" 41 different public policy positions of the USCCB spanning 21 issues as diverse as capital punishment, gun control, health care, housing, military policy and immigration.
The questionnaire was never made public by USCCB because both Bush and Kerry camps declined to answer the questions. But its existence and contents came to light in mid-August when the anti-abortion Culture of Life Foundation and conservative journalists at the National Review and the Washington Times obtained copies and published articles sharply critical of USCCB for including so many issues and for allegedly favoring traditional positions of the Democratic Party.
The articles complained that USCCB asked seven policy questions about immigration and refugees, but only three each about abortion and school choice. USCCB had two questions each on capital punishment, gun control, agriculture and rural development, economic help for low income families, housing, education and marriage. Fourteen other topics received only one question each including health care, decreasing nuclear weapons, cloning, physician assisted suicide, and embryonic stem cell research.
A release from the Culture of Life Foundation said a more useful voter guide was available from the group Catholic Answers, because it "leaves out prudential issues, like gun control and the minimum wage, focusing instead on what they call the five non-negotiable issues: abortion, euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, human cloning, and homosexual marriage."
Culture of Life Foundation president, Austin Ruse, said the USCCB questions "reflect the legislative priorities of the lay staff" at USCCB, and many of them are "partisan in nature." However, USCCB Director of Government Liaison, Frank Monahan, responded that the questionnaire "reflects the Bishops' public policy agenda."
• The Issues, the Bishops, and the Rest of Us. Catholics Speak Out (CSO) at the Quixote Center has prepared a detailed analysis of a wide range of social justice issues at stake in the election. As the title implies, it includes both what our bishops teach and information from various polls and studies about what Catholics at large actually think. Besides the war, the economy, abortion and stem cell research, the piece even tackles social security, Medicare, fair taxes and the deficit. It is written by Rea Howarth, coordinator of CSO. It is available from their website, www.quixote.org CTA also has a link to the material on its website: www.cta-usa.org
• NETWORK has excellent material at www.networklobby.org including their presidential election chart, voter registration instructions, and an engine to search and download printed materials.
• The Challenge of Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political
Responsibility is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' election-year
instruction on a full range of social justice and peace issues. It is available
at www.usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship/
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