Benedict Not a Single-Issue Pope

By Thomas Reese - Washington Post, On Faith
Wednesday, April 09, 2008 - Web Link
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April 9, 2008

The arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in the middle of a presidential election is raising hopes among Republicans, fears among Democrats and excitement in the media. Republicans hope that the pope will strongly condemn abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research, while the Democrats fear that he will. The media is looking forward to covering the papal visit through this lens.

Everyone remembers the controversy during the last election when about a dozen bishops said they would deny Communion to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. That only about a dozen of the approximately 190 diocesan bishops said this is conveniently forgotten. No editor wants to run the headline “180 Bishops Say Nothing About Kerry and Communion.” Nor did many in the media notice that John Paul II gave Communion to pro-choice Italian politicians.

The media (except those who cover religion as a specialty) too frequently see abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research as the only issues in which the Catholic hierarchy has any interest. Even a superficial reading the “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” issued by the U.S. Catholic bishops last November shows that they have a big agenda that does not fit within any party.

Let no one misunderstand me. The pope and the bishops are very concerned about abortion and do not consider it just one issue among many. The pope will speak to this issue and the media should cover it. What I object to is the ignoring of everything else of political significance that he will say on Iraq, terrorism, poverty, refugees, disarmament, the environment, third world debt and trade. On these issues he is usually to the left of Democrats.

When Congressional Democrats lined up to vote for Bush’s Iraq war, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was opposing it like his boss John Paul II. Last Easter, he complained that “nothing positive comes from Iraq” as it is “torn apart by continual slaughter.” If he was not so diplomatic, the pope would turn to President Bush in the Rose Garden and say, “I told you so.”

The pope is undoubtedly looking forward more to his address to the United Nations than to his visit to the White House. In his UN speech he will make the point that international politics is not just about economics and power, but must be guided by ethical and moral principles. “[L]aw and order are guarantees of freedom,” he notes. “Yet law can be an effective force for peace only if its foundations remain solidly anchored in natural law, given by the Creator.”