Every four years, an astonishing array of conservative commentators and Republican campaign strategists suddenly discover an intimate concern for Catholic consciences and an overriding preoccupation with the Roman church's sacramental and liturgical norms.
Last time around, for example, you couldn't toss a dart at the average Op-Ed page without hitting a right-wing columnist with a firm opinion on whether the Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, ought to be denied Communion because he's pro-choice. You could virtually feel the hunger for a good old-fashioned auto-da-fé and hear Karl Rove in the background disappointedly whispering, "Are you certain they don't burn people at the stake anymore?"
For a time, it looked as if war and recession would push "values issues" back into perspective in this election cycle, but abortion is too large a wedge issue to abandon casually. In the last few weeks, commentators began a campaign over the Democrats' failure to invite to Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput to their convention. Chaput was one of the handful of bishops who argued that Kerry and other pro-choice Catholic politicians should be denied Communion. More recently, Chaput's book, "Render Unto Caesar," argues that Catholics may not vote for pro-choice candidates. Under the circumstances, the Democrats' snub was graceless but understandable.
Pat Buchanan weighed in next, calling Barack Obama "the most pro-abortion member of the Senate, with his straight A+ report card from the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood."
Then online commentator and talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt, who has practically made Chaput a cast member of his show, recently expressed even more pointed sentiments about Obama's Catholic running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, "a candidate who by definition is deeply at odds with the core teachings of his own church."
All of this paled in the firestorm over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's answer to the question of when life begins, on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. Pelosi, who described herself as an "ardent practicing Catholic," gave a response that was not only incoherent but managed to get wrong virtually every fact that might have buttressed her pro-choice position -- which, by the way, is shared by more than half of all U.S. Catholics.
