"We are complicit in this" -- Bishop Michael Saltarelli on "pro-choice" Catholic politicians

In 2005, Ignatius Insight interviewed Bishop Michael Saltarelli of Wilmington, DE. One of the topics discussed was the matter of Catholic politicians who publicly take pro-abortion legislative positions, and the efforts he was making to engage them:

IgnatiusInsight.com: Last year, you wrote a statement on Catholics in public life. [http://www.cdow.org/political.html] You said: "No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’ Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’"

Bishop Saltarelli: We hear that so often. It’s such an excuse; to me it’s a cop out: "I’m personally opposed, but…" If someone would say I’m personally opposed to slavery but its okay, people would laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement. And yet we tolerate, don’t we–"I’m personally opposed to abortion, but…"? That "but" is translated into the destruction, the massacre, the holocaust of millions of innocent lives in our time.

IgnatiusInsight.com: You have lot of politicians in your neck of the woods. [Among the pro-choice politicians who say they are Catholic in Delaware are Sen. Joseph Biden (D) and U.S. Rep. Michael Castle (R)–the bishop did not want to discuss any politicians by name. Rep. Castle is the main sponsor of a bill that passed the House and is now before the U.S. Senate to expand the use of frozen in-vitro embryos for embryonic stem cell research.]

Bishop Saltarelli: Tell me about it, you’ve seen them on television, I’m sure. That’s what we’re dealing with.

IgnatiusInsight.com: How do you engage them?

Bishop Saltarelli: We do, again, without mentioning names. I have been in conversation with them. I have invited them to dialogue and it’s painful for them. It really is, they’re caught betwixt and between. They somehow have bought the package: "You can be personally opposed." And tragically, maybe some people who should not have been advising, have advised, that it is alright to hold that opinion, even as a Catholic.

And I think some of these people are products of some of our–what should I say?–our theologians of the past who got away with proclaiming this kind of stuff and they were their teachers. Tragically. And so, when you get so caught up in that and convinced of the righteousness and the rightness of your position, it is hard to dissuade–you know–"Who are you, bishop, against this teacher of mine who said it was okay?"

Respectfully, as I said. And I will continue to engage. I won’t give up on that. We pray.

We’re issuing once again on October 1st for Right to Life month the Litany of St. Thomas More that we composed ourselves. It is a litany for politicians, statesmen, and lawyers. And we hope by getting this prayer into the hands of all of the people of our diocese that they will pray that litany. More is wrought by prayer than by armies and battleships.

[The Litany to St. Thomas More that Bishop Saltarelli composed for the conversion of pro-abortion "Catholic" politicians was first distributed to parishes last October 2004. The litany asks St. Thomas More for his intercession to make politicians "courageous and effective in their defense and promotion of the sanctity of human life."

IgnatiusInsight.com: If you send the Litany to your parishes, do the parishes automatically distribute it and talk about it?

Bishop Saltarelli: Oh yes, it is distributed. There is no doubt about that. Now, some will cast it aside, some will see (this is what we’re dealing with) it as a violation of Church and state, the fact we even dare pray for politicians. Because they get what they say is a hidden message. But, that’s okay; that doesn’t stop us. We’re still going to do it. We’re still going to ask our people to pray the Litany.

I think for too long we have been silent and our people have taken that silence as part of an acquiescence of the status quo. We are complicit in this. So we have to step forward and say, "No, this is not right–it is wrong, it is sinful"–and somebody at least has to say it. Not that I’m being the brave man. I have a magnificent team here with me and wonderful people committed to the cause of life and the Gospel of Life and we push forward together.