Given that Catholic legislators were actually decisive in a move protecting abortion, Monday's vote was particularly damaging to the credibility of Catholic witness to the sanctity of human life.
Many of these senators, no doubt, proudly and sincerely claim that their Catholic faith has taught them to see public policy as a means for defending the vulnerable and promoting the common good. And yet when it comes to abortion, their bold conviction about the moral imperatives of their faith suddenly evaporates, and zeal for justice gives way to timid excuses about "personally opposed" and "wouldn't want to impose."
This inconsistency leads otherwise sensible people to espouse the least defensible and most monstrous of all positions on abortion: Professing that, as Catholics, they believe abortion is just what the Catholic Church says it is-"an unspeakable crime" (Vatican II) and "the murder of an innocent person" (Pope Francis)-and then, without missing a beat, fighting tooth and nail to ensure that nothing endangers the legal protection of this same atrocity.
One can already hear the objections: This sort of inconsistency isn't just a problem for Catholic Democrats! There are pro-choice Catholics in the Republican Party, too! And there are any number of issues on which Republican-preferred policies aren't with the Church. What about immigration? Or economic justice? Or the environment?
The point here isn't about parties, it's about priorities. There are many ways that human dignity and life are attacked. But the scale of the slaughter-almost a million abortions every year-and the gravity of the evil demand that ending or curbing abortion be a top priority.
There has been a revival recently, in part thanks to Pope Francis, of the "consistent ethic of life" (or "seamless garment," as it's sometimes called) popularized by the late Cardinal Bernardin. It begins from the premise that all issues affecting the dignity of the human person are essentially interrelated: Yes, life in the womb is precious and deserves legal protection, the theory goes, but the same commitment to human dignity that leads us to protect that precious life also requires us to defend human dignity elsewhere-in the sick and poor, the elderly, immigrants and refugees, even those who have been convicted of terrible crimes and are sitting on death row.