Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, has called on all Catholics to “denounce” the evil rhetoric of Catholic politicians campaigning in favor of abortion.
“The evil rhetoric by so-called Catholic politicians should be denounced by every bishop, priest, deacon & every faithful Catholic,” Bishop Strickland wrote on social media Tuesday. “Their disregard for the rights of unborn children & their support for abortion at any stage of pregnancy is a blight on our nation & a travesty.”
The bishop was referring to efforts by high-ranking Catholic politicians to hasten codification of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide, following the leak of a draft Court opinion that would overturn Roe.
President Joe Biden, for example, responded to the leak by saying he thinks “the codification of Roe makes a lot of sense.”
Biden went on to say that “Roe says what all basic mainstream religions have historically concluded,” despite the absolute condemnation of abortion by his own mainstream religion: Catholicism.
The idea that “we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child based on a decision by the Supreme Court, I think, goes way overboard,” Biden stated.
For her part, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who identifies as an “ardent, practicing Catholic,” called the leaked ruling an “abomination” in a joint statement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
“If the report is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years – not just on women but on all Americans,” the statement said. “The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.”
“Several of these conservative Justices, who are in no way accountable to the American people, have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Constitution and defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court’s reputation – all at the expense of tens of millions of women who could soon be stripped of their bodily autonomy and the constitutional rights they’ve relied on for half a century,” it declared.
Last September, Pelosi said that passing the Women’s Health Protection Act, which the Catholic League has called “most radical pro-abortion bill ever written,” was a “very exciting day.”
“We’ve long been supporters of Roe v. Wade,” Pelosi said. “We haven’t been able to codify it because we never had a Democratic pro‑choice Majority with a Democratic President, and now we do, and now we do.”
“Every woman, everywhere has a constitutional right to basic reproductive health, yet for years that has been questioned by some,” she said.