Now, the parallel I want to draw here is not between or among what we Catholics believe to be moral wrongs. It is in the Catholic political response to those wrongs. Church teaching on abortion and slavery is clear. But in the application of those teachings -- the exact way we translate them into political action, the specific laws we propose, the exact legal sanctions we seek -- there was and is no one, clear, absolute route that the Church says, as a matter of doctrine, we must follow.
The bishops' pastoral letter, "The Challenge of Peace," speaks directly to this point. Quote: "We recognize," they wrote, "that the Church's teaching authority does not carry the same force when it deals with technical solutions involving particular means as it does when it speaks of principles or ends." With regard to abortion, the American bishops have had to weigh Catholic moral teaching against the fact of a pluralistic country where our view is in the minority, acknowledging that what is ideally desirable isn't always feasible, that there can be different political approaches to abortion beside unyielding adherence to an absolute prohibition.
This is in the American-Catholic tradition of political realism. In supporting or opposing specific legislation the Church in this country has never retreated into a moral fundamentalism that will settle for nothing less than total acceptance of its views. Indeed, the bishops have already confronted the fact that an absolute ban on abortion doesn't have the support necessary to be placed in the Constitution. The bishops agreed to that. In 1981, they put aside their earlier efforts to describe a law that they could accept and get passed, and supported the Hatch amendment instead. They changed their view. Some Catholics felt that the bishops had gone too far. You remember the discussion. Some Catholics felt that the bishops had not gone far enough. Such judgments weren't a rejection of the bishops' teaching authority. The bishops even disagreed among themselves about how to proceed. Catholics are allowed to disagree on their technical political questions without having to confess.
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