This self-identified Democratic-leaning independent reader’s critique was, put simply, that even if they don’t object to women having access to contraception, people (such as [a small percentage of] Catholics) who object to contraception should not be forced to pay for other people’s use of it.

That this is also how the U.S. bishops are looking at the issue is shown in their response to the Obama administration’s recently proffered compromise (in which employees could receive free contraception directly from the insurer, paid for by the insurance company rather than by the Catholic hospital, university, or charity):

In the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage [read: contraception coverage], that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

In other words, the bishops, like my reader, object to paying for something they find morally offensive.

On the surface, of course, this is a very compelling argument. None of us likes for our money to fund morally objectionable practices. It’s the whole principle behind Fair Trade and socially conscious investing. I don’t want my money to fund the exploitation of farmers and their families because I find that morally evil and degrading to human dignity; similarly, objectors to the HHS mandate argue, why should they be forced to pay for other people’s contraception if they think it is a moral evil that degrades human sexuality?

Now, of course, the question of who is really doing the paying when it comes to private insurance plans (like these Catholic institutions would have) is a separate one entirely – but suppose that for the sake of argument, we grant that just by paying my bill at a Catholic hospital or university I am thereby paying for the health insurance coverage of employees. Thus, my hands are dirtied if that insurance coverage includes contraception – and likewise, if the administrators of said institution are required to offer such health insurance, they are being forced to implicate themselves in moral evil.

Here’s the problem with this argument. If an employee goes out and buys contraception with her salary because it’s not included in her health insurance coverage, aren’t my hands as a customer of that Catholic institution – or the “objecting employer’s” hands who paid the salary – just as dirtied, since her salary comes from this Catholic institution just like her health insurance does? Aren’t we – by this logic – therefore subsidizing her violation of Catholic teaching, simply by virtue of paying her a salary?

The point is, when it comes to paying for something one morally objects to, there is no meaningful difference between paying employees salaries (which they may as freely spend on birth control or donations to Planned Parenthood as on rosaries and prayer books) and providing health insurance coverage that simply subsidizes reproductive services. The money still comes from the same place, and it’s not like employees of Catholic institutions have any illusions about what the official Catholic position on birth control is, so it’s unlikely they’d take this mandated health insurance coverage as tacit approval by the institutional Church.

In other words, unless Catholic employers are willing to declare that they will not hire or pay employees who do not follow every particular of official Catholic teaching, they are just as much funding immorality (as they see it) whenever employees choose to purchase contraception (or anything else the employer morally objects to) as they would be by simply offering health insurance that covers contraception.

In short, what’s at issue in this debate over the “contraception mandate” is not religious liberty; rather, the issue is to what extent employers can and should control how employees choose to use their resources. This outrage about being forced to pay for other people’s abortions or contraception is really based in an anxiety over the personal agency of individuals employed in Catholic institutions – that if contraception is included in their insurance, they will of course choose to use it, and thus they must be protected from making that choice. Such an anxiety is fundamentally based on a patronizing and paternalistic view of employees and, ultimately, women, who cannot be trusted to make conscientious decisions on their own.

Now that’s something worthy of outrage.

Before responding, you see, I did a quick glance at CatholicVote.org’s website (the lead banner announces “CatholicVote.org endorses Rick Santorum for President!”), and in the process discovered that they’ve been having quite a field day with the “mandate.” Amongst other things, they’re keeping track of how many bishops have spoken out against it (169 as of Feb. 6, it seems), and they’ve listed my name (along with 25 others who signed the same letter as I did) asking if we will “disown” our support of “that rabidly pro-abortion woman” [read: Kathleen Sebelius] or “take Catholic off [our] names,” calling that the “only honorable choice” for us. The author of that post – Matt Bowman – goes on to say, “This is not political anymore. It never really was.”

Naturally, this got me thinking again about the “mandate” and the “war on Catholics” that it (supposedly) represents, and so it feels like finally the time for me to write something up about it all. Actually, what I have to say is rather simple, and perhaps not particularly new. It’s just this:

Has the meaning of Catholic faith and tradition come to be so impoverished that prohibiting artificial contraception (for Catholics and non-Catholics alike) is now its defining feature? (Even same-sex marriage is more consistently framed as anti-family rather than specifically anti-Catholic, after all.)

To frame this policy decision – requiring religiously-affiliated employers whose work is not exclusively religious, like hospitals and schools, to include contraception coverage in their health insurance – as fundamentally anti-Catholic implies that opposition to artificial contraception is so defining of Catholic identity that to disagree with it is to be anti-Catholic.  That’s what all this talk of a “war on Catholics” is saying, as if subsidizing contraception in health insurance plans for employees (like married evangelicals) whose consciences do not prohibit birth control is somehow a direct assault on the very meaning of Catholic faith, tradition, and identity.

But seriously, if Catholics (or non-Catholics) who work in Catholic hospitals or schools out of a commitment to other elements of Catholic identity and tradition – like caring for the poor, or teaching the underprivileged, or comforting the aged – are able to have access to contraception equal to their counterparts in secular institutions, is their Catholic identity and religious freedom really undermined? Surely opposing artificial contraception is irrelevant to the day-to-day work of teaching elementary school kids math and reading, or providing hospice care to the elderly, or giving emergency care to burn victims. Are the Catholic institutions they work for really undermined by having these qualified workers follow their own consciences with regard to birth control?

Besides, it’s no secret that, before he published Humanae Vitae in 1968 (the encyclical that upheld the Catholic Church’s prohibition of contraception), Paul VI’s advisory committee of theologians, bishops, and laypeople overwhelmingly urged him to overturn that prohibition on artificial birth control.  It’s also well-documented that few Catholics today follow this particular church teaching, and that in fact contraception usage by Catholics and non-Catholics in the U.S. is pretty much indistinguishable. In other words, opposition to artificial birth control is effectively a footnote to the Catholic identity of most Catholics – if even that.

In short, there is no “war on Catholics” going on, however timely such language may be during election season. This outrage has very little to do with the realities of either Catholic identity or religious freedom – but as political rhetoric, it certainly is inspiring. What’s not inspiring is how widespread this unnecessary and artificial outrage has become, at least in the talking points of some Catholics on both the left (including Sr. Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association, castigated by conservatives in 2010 for her support of “ObamaCare”) as well as the usual suspects on right.

In other words: you’re wrong, CatholicVote.org. This outrage is, indeed, quintessentially political.

UPDATE: My response to the aforementioned CatholicVote.org interview has been posted in this article (at the bottom).

The ad has already inspired a number of parodies as well as criticism for what many perceive as a homophobic message. But little attention has been paid to its rhetorical moves—how the ad attempts to persuade its audience and make its argument. That’s where Religious Rhetorics comes in.

Some moves are more obvious than others. The war metaphor for instance. Perry depicts a war over religion in America between liberals and presumably conservatives, with liberals seeking to destroy the country’s historic faith. This sets the stage for Perry who, if elected president, will save the day from Obama, liberal of liberals, and defend America’s religious heritage.

But one rhetorical move is less obvious. It’s a move that has an archaic Greek name: ploche. Ploche is simply perfect verbal repetition and it occurs in this sentence:

But you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.

Ploche occurs here with the word “openly.” Ploche is a rhetorical means of bringing two separate phenomena together, linking them together and conceptually obscuring their differences.

Here Perry takes the adverb “openly” to modify the actions of gays in the military and children in public schools in order to argue that they are equal. Equality is a fundamental principle of America, therefore equal things ought to receive equal treatment. However, according to Perry, these two things are receiving unequal treatment. Gays can serve in the military, but kids can’t practice their religion, specifically Christianity, in public schools. America’s principle of equality has been violated.

But as stated before, ploche is a rhetorical means of conceptually obscuring the differences of unique phenomena. What if Perry’s ad said this instead?

There’s something wrong in this country when openly gay men and women can serve in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.

Note the difference. Now the first instance of “openly” modifies an adjective, “gay,” and the second instance modifies two verbs, “celebrate” and “pray.” In his ad, Perry obscures the differences between the two situations he compares. In the case of gays in the military, the issue was not whether lesbian, gay, and bisexual people could serve, as they were already serving, but whether they could serve in full disclosure of their sexual identities. In the case of children celebrating Christmas and praying in public schools, the issue is whether students are practicing certain religious acts in government-sponsored spaces that violate others’ first amendment rights, not whether students’ full disclosure of their religious identities risks their expulsion. Perry’s ad obscures these very real differences.

Please note that I’m not making any ultimate claims about the truth of Perry’s argument. I leave it to the reader to decide whether these are two comparable situations. But there’s no question that Perry makes a savvy political argument. An argument that’s not necessarily built on more knee-jerking homophobia.

In this post, I’d like to suggest that an analogous shift predicated on technological innovation may be underway. (Whether it’s on the same scale or will have the same historical significance remains to be seen.)

I’d like to draw your attention to Shop My Church. On the face of it, Shop My Church, which went live on July 22^nd, is like any other online church directory. On the website, you will find a growing list of churches (at the publishing of this post there are nine) with basic information like physical address, contact number, denomination, and service times.

What makes Shop My Church different from other online church directories is that the site is social. According to Jason Stambaugh of Westminster, MD, creator of the site and founder of Wevival, one of the partner companies, along with Trinity Education Group, that produces the site, Shop My Church is the world’s first online social church directory.

What makes Shop My Church “social?” In the first place, Shop My Church’s directory is built by individual people not by Shop My Church. Any user, as long as they have a Facebook account, may list a church on the site. Second, the site focuses on “stories,” users’ individual accounts of their experiences of a church. Users who attend listed churches are encourage to add “stories” or testimonials about how their churches are “making a difference” in their lives and in “the lives of those in [their] community.” Third, Shop My Church’s directory is integrated with Facebook Connect so that users can only list churches and post testimonials with their Facebook account. According to Mr. Stambaugh, this integration is in place, in part, to achieve authenticity and accountability. Finally, Shop My Church seeks to help Christians find churches not based on mission statements, doctrinal beliefs, services times, or worship styles, but on the very people who make up a church.

Herein lies the potential shift in how believers organize themselves into faith communities and view their relationships to their churches. While the Church has never been a collection of people with homogenous beliefs or people wholly loyal to or supportive of the current authority, doctrine and authority have often been two of the major organizing principles in the Church’s history (besides factors like location or compulsion). In Protestantism in particular, believers can organize around very specific points of doctrine, authority structures, and even specific leaders’ personalities.

Shop My Church offers, and consciously so, a new organizing principle: personal affinities. While individual churches or church movements may have attempted this before (non-denominational churches, the emerging church, the house church movement), and while personal ties are certainly an important aspect of anyone’s church experience, Shop My Church suggests that this is a viable organizing principle for all denominations because it invites churches of all stripes to participate on its site.

That Shop My Church de-emphasizes denominational boundaries, even though church listings must indicate a denominational affiliation, is reflected in the language and affordances of the site. For example, listings must indicate a church’s “leader,” rather than a label that might be more denominationally specific like priest, pastor, minister, elder, etc. Mr. Stambaugh says this (rhetorical) move was a conscious effort to cater to all Christian denominations. This move represents a larger attempt to structure the site around the lowest common denominators of Christian religion.

More profoundly, Shop My Church, as a social media tool, shifts power away from the officially sanctioned leaders of the church to the laity to not only promote their churches but also to represent them. Lay people have always had an important role in spreading the word about their churches, but in the past they’ve had limited access to methods of mass public broadcasting. But today, anyone can have a Facebook, Twitter, or WordPress account, giving them the potential to reach a large number of people. Savvy church leaders are looking to these new media tools to help grow their churches, but they can’t do it alone. It’s doubtful, however, that congregants will allow themselves to be the mouthpieces of their leaders, and leaders should take notice. The ordinary churchgoer now has the power to promote their church to an audience of potentially millions—for better or for worse.

Will social media further decentralize authority in the Church? Will it reshape how believers organize themselves into communities?

I’ll leave the answers to those questions to the history books.

(Disclosure: I’ve known Mr. Stambaugh personally since 2004 and my own faith community is listed on his site.)

Image and link to Google cache snapshot courtesy of Slog's Eli Sanders

Driscoll’s words, unsurprisingly, drew rapid and sharp criticism from the Christian blogosphere. Seemingly in response to the swift reaction he received to his post, within a few days Driscoll removed the status, which had garnered hundreds of comments.

This incident suggests that the nature of accountability in non-denominational evangelical Christianity, and perhaps the church at large, is evolving as the internet, especially social media, becomes more and more a part of church life, ritual, and public relations.

Churches have always been in the business of broadcasting. But in the social media age, that sense of broadcasting has been amplified, especially for someone like Driscoll who is trying to reach a younger population that generally interacts through the web.

Apparently, Driscoll’s hyper-masculine image and posturing is attractive—thousands attend his multi-campus church—so it’s unsurprising that he sometimes broadcasts that image online (he has over a hundred thousand followers on twitter).

In terms of outside institutional accountability, Driscoll has none. Mars Hill Church is not tethered to any particular denomination. This (rhetorical) situation gives Driscoll quite a bit of latitude to do and say what he wants. He is institutionally unconstrained (which is not to say that we would like the constraints placed on him if his church were a part of a denomination).

One could argue that his congregation acts as a constraint on what he says and does, but this seems improbable. Mars Hill itself is built on the Driscoll brand and has grown phenomenally, arguably in large part because of Driscoll himself, hyper-masculinity and all. Driscoll appears to be at the top of the power pyramid at Mars Hill as evidenced by the job descriptions on the church’s website. (To be fair, the other two “Executive Elders” may exert some influence on Driscoll, as Driscoll claims he considered their opinions of his controversial Facebook status.) Further, we can reasonably assume that his congregation generally consists of self-selected individuals who are attracted to Driscoll’s ethos and/or the kind of culture that has grown up around that ethos. Therefore, we can reasonably assume that a large portion of his congregation either supports his words and actions, is generally unfazed by them, or finds them relatively unimportant given what else he and his church have to offer. Also, given the hierarchical nature of the church and its emphasis on authority, we can reasonably assume that the congregation has little power over his words or actions.

The internet, however, yields a different kind of audience. Unlike Sunday mornings, which consist of a self-selected and relatively silenced audience, the internet consists of a vocal, interested, and even partisan audience, some of whom desire to shut Driscoll down (unlikely). It’s difficult to know Driscoll’s own thoughts on the incident—if he was simply being provocative, seeking attention, even if it was negative, or if he really thought he could get away with what he wrote. But whatever his thoughts, it seems that he could not ignore this internet audience. While it’s hard to estimate how many people tweeted, blogged, and reposted Driscoll’s words, enough pressure seems to have built up that Driscoll apparently felt the need to in essence retract his statement (though he certainly has not retracted his views or positions as no apology was issued). Driscoll’s free reign was circumscribed by his internet audience.

As what once used to go on within the closed walls of a church moves to the public, indefinite memory of the internet, with an audience that has the potential to pounce at any misstep, a new kind of accountability, a new set of constraints emerge. The independent church is no longer independent, at least not if it wants to thrive in the social media era (i.e. if it wants to attract younger members). This phenomenon is not limited to the Mark Driscolls of the world who pastor churches of thousands. The world, Christian and non-Christian alike, pounced on Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who threatened to and eventually did burn the Koran. At the time, his church had no more than a few dozen members.

Welcome to accountability in the social media age.

Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America – not in China or North Korea.  In those countries, government presumes daily to “redefine” rights, relationships, values, and natural law.  There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of “family” and “marriage” means.

But, please, not here!  Our country’s founding principles speak of rights given by God, not invented by government, and certain noble values – life, home, family, marriage, children, faith – that are protected, not re-defined, by a state presuming omnipotence.

Please, not here!  We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought; we acknowledge that not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a “right.”  And, what about other rights, like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad?

Whoa — those are some pretty impressive rhetorical gymnastics.

Ok, it’s not really new — the whole government-as-evil-agent-of-godless-control image is pretty common. I’m more comfortable hearing it from Rush Limbaugh and Michele Bachmann than from the Archbishop of New York, however. But tell me, how exactly does a gay or lesbian couple being able to legally marry in the state of New York equate to forced abortions under the one-child policy in China, or the famine and political imprisonment of North Korea?

Last time I studied logic, expanding the rights of people to marry is not oppression — and that seems to be a “true meaning” that the archbishop has overlooked.

Susan Donnelly, a member of the parish council of St. Cecilia Parish, said the scheduled Mass had not sparked controversy at St. Cecilia’s. She said the criticism has come from outside. [She said,] “I find it hard to believe that Christians don’t believe the great variety of people as God made them is a lovely thing,’’ she said. “Nobody’s trying to celebrate people living in denial of what the church is teaching; it’s more we’re trying to celebrate the people who sit next to you in the pew. There’s no agenda other than that.’’

The article goes on to tell of the conservative Catholic blogger who spearheaded the campaign against the inclusive Mass and who, by going to the archdiocese with complaints of relativism, was able to disrupt a local community’s religious expression, declaring with apparently no sense of irony that “There’s not a place for a Mass like that in the Catholic Church.”

Opposition to the Mass grew out of a post by a local blogger who writes under the pseudonym Joe Sacerdo and who has criticized the Archdiocese of Boston for what he describes as “relativism’’ and deviation from doctrine…“I think it’s the right thing to do,’’ [Sacerdo] said yesterday of the archdiocese’s decision [to cancel the Mass]. “There’s not a place for a Mass like that in the Catholic Church.’’

But anonymous self-appointed doctrinal police don’t make for nearly as sexy an image as irate gay folks during this season — after all, isn’t that why gay folks march at Pride? To threaten all values and order that heterosexuals hold dear? And surely an inclusive mass is simply meant to subvert the Catholic Church, not to provide spiritual succor and community for an often marginalized group of Catholics?

It’s disappointing that, faced with such eloquent expressions of faith as supporters of the Mass at St. Cecilia’s offer, the archdiocese would instead bow to disgruntled outsider pressure like this. It’s also disappointing that the Boston Globe would play up the ‘angry gays’ image. But overall this was a fine piece of reporting, telling an important, if sad, story.

This wouldn’t be the first time RR has tackled science. That’s because both science and religion can act as “overarching paradigms” in modern society. And because they both can stake this claim, they often clash: stem-cell research, homosexuality, evolution, the list goes on.

In his recent NPR blog post, “Science Deniers: Hand Over Your Cellphones,” astrophysicist Adam Frank criticizes a “vocal minority out there who see[s] scientific activity as [a] buffet of ideas.” From creationists to climate change deniers, these groups generally “allow scientific authority to determine the contours of their life” except when that authority goes against “pre-established beliefs.” Dr. Frank concludes by arguing that we need to make the distinction between science and policy. If we can’t then we need to be consistent: we need to “cho[o]se between science and no science at all.”

Fair enough. But Dr. Frank risks turning science into the very thing he is criticizing.

In his post, Dr. Frank reduces medical, climate, evolutionary, and signal sciences, each with their own methods, instruments, standards of evidence, and applications, into the monolith of science, with what might as well be a capital S. By doing so, he taps into the oft-hailed singular ethos of science. It’s a powerful ethos, one that can heal the sick, predict the future, and even read minds. In his post, Dr. Frank uses this ethos to draw a definite line: either you believe in science or you don’t. It’s all or nothing. Such a tactic is reminiscent of the fundamentalist sects of many religions where you accept all of the teachings of a religious figure or a sacred text, or you’re out.

Besides misrepresenting the diversity and specialization of modern science—I wouldn’t want a climatologist to be my neurologist, thank you very much—this reduction doesn’t persuade people to believe in science anymore than they did before.

As it stands, most people have a rudimentary understanding of science. When they are presented with questions of policy that rely heavily on science, their level of engagement largely consists of talking points they pick up from pundits. Dr. Frank wants us to distinguish between science and policy, but given the US population’s general science illiteracy, those who produce science are also in the best position to determine science policy. In a democracy, this is a less than ideal situation. As a consequence, those not on-board with proposed science policy make the only rhetorical move they feel they can make: they deny the science itself.

Rather than ostracizing people for doubting a slice of science—which scientists themselves do, though perhaps not to the same degree as “deniers”—we need to beef up our science education so that we have a more science literate population. This way people can make informed decisions about science policy.

If Dr. Frank is going to take a page out of the book of religion for science, it should be the page of evangelism not exclusion.

Want to know more?

• Reduction, also known as “composition,” is a common, long recognized rhetorical tactic. We can either augment the differences between objects in the world, thus dividing them, or we can diminish those differences, thus unifying them. The latter is an act of reduction or composition, and this is exactly what Adam Frank does in his post. For more information see Kenneth Burke’s work on terministic screens in his books of essays Language as Symbolic Action.
• Although Aristotle originally defined ethos as the construction of the speaker’s character within the speech itself, that definition has since broadened. Here I use it to designate the identity of Science, with a capital S.
• If you’d like to read more about science and public relations, start with Dorothy Nelkin’s Selling Science.

With that said, I’d like to offer a reflection on education, politics, and the ever fascinating rhetoric of American Catholicism.

In particular, I’m interested in an interview yesterday between Minnesota Public Radio’s Tom Crann and Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis John Nienstedt, the topic of which was a DVD being mailed (by the Archdiocese, funded by an anonymous donor) to over 400,000 Catholic households across the state. The DVD, which the Archbishop says is the first of its kind that they’ve sent out, is called Preserving Marriage in Minnesota, and is on the topic of (you guessed it) same-sex marriage. Specifically, the Archbishop is calling for Minnesota Catholics to vote for a constitutional amendment “to put the one man, one woman definition of marriage beyond the reach of the courts and politicians.”

Throughout the MPR interview, Archbishop Nienstedt frames his rationale for mailing the DVD in terms of “teaching.” It is not a matter of politics, but simply of education and truth, and it should thus be outside the reach of “politicians.”

In using the word “frame” here I’m not so much trying invoke a particular term of art (although plenty has been written on the concept of frames), but rather what I hope is a more common sense usage – namely, a way of presenting and categorizing information that guides how the information is interpreted.

At the start of the interview Nienstedt tells MPR’s Crann that “The bishops of the state have an obligation by ordination to be teachers.” He goes on to explain that, therefore,

“we intend to and have been teaching what we believe is the God-given reality of marriage. Marriage isn’t something that we create as human beings. It’s already a given from the work of creation by almighty God.”

Crann, however, seems wary of the “teaching” frame, asking at one point,

“Of all of the many of the issues the church champions, issues like social justice and poverty and speaking out against abortion, why this issue, and specifically why now?”

He goes on in this vein a little later, asking,

“And so I’m wondering how is this position not partisan politics, especially timed as it is, six weeks before the election?”

In other words, perhaps this mailing might in fact be influenced by more temporal concerns.

In both cases, Nienstedt replies from his “teaching” frame, saying that it’s simply

“one piece of an overall teaching that we’ve been doing here in this archdiocese” and that “as a religious leader in this state, as a pastoral leader, I have a right to raise the issues and bring that to the attention of my people.”

This is not political advocacy, he insists – this is simply education.

At the end of the interview, Crann finally gets the Archbishop to concede that there might be something political about this mailing.

Crann: You also make a political statement at the end [of the video segment] that you feel that this issue should come before the voters of Minnesota.
Nienstedt: Well, that’s not so much a political statement as it is saying that, as other states have done, we need to bring this to the people, rather than have it decided by the judiciary or by the legislature… We need to let the people say what the reality of marriage is going to be. I don’t see that as that big of a political statement.
Crann: Let’s hear that, if we could.
Excerpt from Nienstedt in the DVD: The archdiocese believes that the time has come for voters to be presented directly with an amendment to our state constitution to preserve our historic understanding of marriage. In fact, this is the only way to put the one man, one woman definition of marriage beyond the reach of the courts and politicians.
Crann: Is that, in fact, a political statement?
Nienstedt: I don’t believe so, no. I think that’s a reasonable, common sense thing.
Crann: And you’re calling for something to be put to a vote. Isn’t that a political action?
Nienstedt: That is a political action, yes, but I think it also, in the context of the whole video, I think it makes sense.

What’s most interesting to me about this excerpt is is how explicitly it demonstrates the clash of frames between “teaching” and “politics.” According to Nienstedt, he and the bishops of Minnesota are simply exercising their pastoral role as bishops, teaching Catholics about the nature of marriage and, more specifically, the danger that same-sex marriage poses to society (which he specifically mentions earlier in the interview). Since they are being pastoral, the bishops are de facto not being political. Being political is not only bad because it would compromise their tax-exempt status; it is also bad because that which is political is not eternal – unlike “teaching,” which deals with “reality.”

That which is “political” is based on uncertainties; that which is “teaching” is based on certainties – at least, according to this worldview. Thus, that which is presented (or framed) in terms of “teaching” can be clear and certain, in contrast to the ambiguity of that which is merely “political.” So, calling for a political action like voting to define marriage as “one man, one woman” is not really political, because it’s based on something eternal – something “given from the work of creation by almighty God.”

This is the same basic assumption that motivates and justifies the oft-heard argument during election years that Catholics must simply “vote pro-life,” which always means voting for candidates who promise to overturn Roe v. Wade (regardless of whether the abortion rate is likelier to go down with another candidate). Abortion is a moral issue, not a political one, they tell us – as if the moral and political aren’t inescapably intertwined when it comes to electoral politics.

This disassociation between the moral and the political has dangerous consequences for religion in the public sphere, because by ignoring the complexity of politics, it leaves room for well-intentioned voters to be manipulated by behind-the-scenes power brokers – and, in the case of this DVD mailing, “anonymous” donors. It’s also dangerous because such supposedly timeless teachings can have very tragic, time-bound consequences – like the gay teen suicides reported on Minnesota Public Radio today in Archbishop Nienstedt’s own Twin Cities.