Denver, Colo., Nov 5, 2008 / 23:10 pm
In a genial but critical exchange reproduced on The Witherspoon Institute’s web site Public Discourse, Pepperdine University law professor Doug Kmiec and Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput have exchanged further remarks concerning Kmiec’s advocacy for President-elect Barack Obama. The archbishop told the professor he welcomes a civil dialogue but also called on Kmiec to convince Obama to change his position on life issues.
Kmiec, a pro-life Republican, wrote in response to the archbishop’s Oct. 17 address to an ENDOW dinner, titled “Little Murders,” in which the archbishop commented that Kmiec has a “strong record of service to the Church and the nation” but claimed Kmiec and other pro-Obama Catholics “have done a disservice to the Church, confused the natural priorities of Catholic social teaching, undermined the progress pro-lifers have made, and provided an excuse for some Catholics to abandon the abortion issue instead of fighting within their parties and at the ballot box to protect the unborn.”
In a public letter to the archbishop dated Nov. 4, Kmiec called the archbishop “as well spoken a defender of the faith as I remember.”
However, Kmiec repeated his concern that the archbishop’s approach to the abortion issue “will lead many in parishes around the country to neglect what they can do to build up the culture of life through the promotion of the social gospel in its fullest sense.”