The United States bishops will continue to highlight the threat of abortion as a “preeminent priority” in the introduction to a guide they’ll disseminate to Catholic voters ahead of the 2024 election. Source: CNA.
That designation, the source of debate among some bishops in recent years, was retained when the bishops voted overwhelmingly (225-11, with seven abstentions) to approve a revised introduction to the guide, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship”, at their annual November assembly in Baltimore this week.
The bishops also voted to approve several brief excerpts from the guide to be inserted in parish bulletins during the upcoming election cycle.
“The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks our most vulnerable and voiceless brothers and sisters and destroys more than a million lives per year in our country alone,” the new introduction to the guide says.
The new introduction also lists euthanasia, gun violence, terrorism, the death penalty, and human trafficking as “other grave threats to life and dignity of the human person.”
The revised introduction also now states that the “redefinition of marriage and gender … threaten[s] the dignity of the human person.”
In a press conference after the vote, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, vice president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that while many issues are important, “not all issues are equal”.
“We are called to stand in radical solidarity with women in difficult pregnancies and their unborn children and to provide them with the kind of support and services and public policies that they need,” he said.
“So, it’s not simply a public policy issue. It is a deeply, deeply pastoral issue of loving the moms in need, walking with them, helping them bring their babies to term, and then providing them with what they need to move forward,” he said.
FULL STORY
US bishops approve voting guide that calls abortion ‘preeminent priority’ (By Peter Pinedo, CNA)
