The Catholic Party

Thanks to Kelly for this one, a Detroit article about a Vatican statement saying its "ok" to vote for Catholics to vote for a pro-choice candidate as long as that candidate is "right" on other issues (presumably such issue as opposing a war that was also opposed by the Catholic Church).

I think that this is a good thing for the Vatican, because too often abortion has become "The Issue" for voters. Supposedly this is because the President gets to appoint Supreme Court Justices, but that isn't a good indicator of policy change. For one, it is getting increasingly hard to appoint Judges and Justices to any federal bench (Clarence Thomas, Charles Pickering). The Senate can do a lot to prevent nominations from getting far and sometimes the nominations implode before they get anywhere (see Zoe Baird).

But most importantly, no one knows how a person will rule when a case comes to the bench. There are too many factors. It doesn't matter if you are pro-choice are pro-life when you hear a case. The only thing that matters is the law, in this case the Constitution, and what the law says about an issue. No one thought Roe v. Wade would stand when O'Connor came to the bench, but she upheld it.

So maybe Catholics who feel a need to protect the needy, innocent, vulnerable, and poor will focus more on those who aren't in the womb thanks to this little statement.