Does this look liberal to you AP? Paragraph 17. (emphasis mine)

A Well-Formed Conscience
17. The Church equips her members to address political and social questions by helping
them to develop a well-formed conscience. Catholics have a serious and lifelong obligation to
form their consciences in accord with human reason and the teaching of the Church. Conscience
is not something that allows us to justify doing whatever we want, nor is it a mere “feeling”
about what we should or should not do. Rather, conscience is the voice of God resounding in the
human heart, revealing the truth to us and calling us to do what is good while shunning what is
evil. Conscience always requires serious attempts to make sound moral judgments based on the
truths of our faith. As stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Conscience is a judgment
of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is
going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and
does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right” (no. 1778).

Do it cause it feels good ain’t in our book. The Bible or the Catechism.

BKennedy on November 16, 2007 at 3:05 PM

Nope. Neither does their position on abortion. But read through the rest, including the parts about social justice. Which way does the scale tip?

Allahpundit on November 16, 2007 at 3:08 PM

The long and short of it is they want programs that respect human dignity. When they talk about rights they do not mean that the government is required to have an entitlement program, they mean that society as a whole, private and public has a moral obligation to provide for the poor, the immigrant, the downtrodden etc.

Universal health care? I don’t know where you pulled that one from. Nowhere does it say “the state is obligated to take taxpayer funds and redistribute them,” what it does say is that health care reform needs to be rooted in values that respect human dignity, protect human life, and meets the needs of the poor. If a free market-based plan does all of these things the best, then the Church would be in support of it.

Now I grant you strengthening medicare and medicaid might be a boondoggle, but that sentence is incredibly vague.

Positions against the death penalty are not solely held by liberals, and the idea that prison is for rehabilitation is a staple of Catholic teaching because we believe, perhaps naively some might say, that sinners can repent and make straight their ways.

Same with combating discrimination. They mean legitimate cases should still be fought against, not that we should become a victim class crying “race! gender! sexual orientation!” at every turn.

The global climate change thing is troubling though, if only because they phrased it that way, but a deeper look, and in fact a recent article (I work for a Catholic newspaper) said an “inconvenient truth” about global climate change is that it is the poorest who get shortchanged by ridiculous environmental strictures.

Parental choice in education? Tell that to liberal public school bureacrats.

On housing they specifically reference public and private joint operations. Liberals would say leave it all up to Big Brother.

The bishops put a lot of thought into everything they publish, and they focus more on what moral principles Catholics should be considering when they vote rather than saying “support expanding government influence over Catholic moral obligations.”

BKennedy on November 16, 2007 at 3:32 PM