NCR's John Allen's Word from Rome

The Catholic Herald recently carried an interesting item about Julian Hunte, a pro-choice Catholic politician in the West Indies who was awarded a papal knighthood Sept. 19. Hunte was made a Knight of the Grand Cross Pian Order. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano bestowed the honor in a New York ceremony.

As the Herald story notes, the award is especially interesting in light of the debate currently swirling in the United States over the eligibility of pro-choice Catholic politicians for the Eucharist.

Hunte, the Minister for External Affairs of Santa Lucia, recently concluded his term as president of the United Nations General Assembly. The Vatican recognized him for his role in a resolution regarding the work of the Holy See in the United Nations.

Hunte was also, however, the deciding vote last year on a bill in the upper chamber of the St. Lucian parliament that decriminalized abortion in that Caribbean nation. In December, that measure passed by five votes to four, with Hunte in favor.

"I think every woman must have a choice. I am a pro-choice man," Hunte said during a parliamentary debate before votes were cast.

"A woman must be the one who will decide what she wants to do in any given situation. I respect the views of those who feel it is wrong. This is their right. I will give them that right, as I will give the woman the right to determine how she wishes to treat her life," he said at the time.

Some Catholics in St. Lucia were, therefore, opposed to the Vatican honor.

Fr. Linus Clovis, for example, was appalled, according to the Herald.

"It makes a mockery of what we stand for and it compromises us because now the public perception on abortion will be: 'What are you complaining about? The Vatican does not see anything wrong with it.' "

Clovis has appealed to the pope to overturn the decision.

American Catholics will no doubt be struck by the contrast between the Vatican award to Hunte, and the refusal of some American bishops to allow pro-choice Catholic politicians to speak on diocesan property or at Catholic colleges, and most recently, to receive the Eucharist.

For anyone familiar with the patterns of Vatican diplomacy, however, Hunte's knighthood is hardly surprising. The Vatican's classic approach to political forces with which it disagrees might be dubbed "constructive engagement." The idea is that it's better to keep lines of communication open than to burn bridges. It's as important to encourage positive acts as to condemn negative ones; after all, Hunte was honored for supporting the Holy See in the U.N., not for his vote on abortion. Public excoriations may be momentarily satisfying, seasoned Vatican diplomats argue, but they rarely produce forward movement.

A senior Vatican official once expressed the idea to me this way: "Not every sentence of a heretic is heresy."

Outside the Eucharist debate, one clear example of the principle would be John Paul's 1987 visit to Chile, when the pope appeared on the balcony of the presidential palace alongside Augusto Pinochet. John Paul was criticized for doing so, but behind the scenes, Vatican sources say, he warned Pinochet that he had to go. The year after the visit, a national plebiscite rejected military rule.

The same psychology was implicit in John XXIII's and Paul VI's Ostpolitik, the policy of engagement with the Socialist world. Obviously the Catholic church did not approve of atheistic Communism, but these two popes calculated that their capacity to steer the Soviet bloc in a positive direction would be enhanced by dialogue.

Not all Catholics, of course, find this logic morally persuasive. During the Cold War, many felt that the Vatican, especially in the person of Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli, had sold out believers suffering behind the Iron Curtain, and had confused the broader public about the Church's anti-Communist stance. (Indeed, some within the Vatican itself held this view). Similarly today, some Catholics argue that "constructive engagement" with Catholic politicians who defy church teaching on a matter as fundamental as abortion amounts to fecklessness in the face of evil. Again, there are some officials in the Holy See who lean towards this position.

Yet the center of gravity in the Vatican is closer to constructive engagement than to public confrontation. That's one reason the American debate over pro-choice politicians and the Eucharist seems destined to remain just that -- an American debate.

I suppose it would be too much to ask for a similarly wisdom/prudence-filled approach by the U.S. Bishops and archconservatives to the pro-choice issue here in the US. The rabidness of the other side is enough to forestall even the semblance of a civil discussion. The Church has no inherent competence on political issues, but what she does have is a couple millennia of wisdom and that's what's at work in the Vatican's dealings in the above story: know your goals, know what's practical, and set about on a long term pragmatic solution.

The American Catholic arch-right lacks the same sophistication and understanding of strategy. It is a fast-food mentality, if you will. It is a mentality that does not understand strategic thinking needed to accomplish longterm goals in an effective way. It is a strategy that insists on instant gratification even if it hurts its cause irreparably down the line. One simply does not get the sense that coherent thought is going into this strategy, rather there is more of irrational "they-all-are-baby-killers" screed that is unaffected by any nuance or discourse.

On the issue of denying the Eucharist to pro-choice Democrats. If the point of denying Kerry and other Democrats the Eucharist is that it would be desecrated,then one must ask why the Bishops, whose deeds and violations in the past years have been exposed, receive the Eucharist? And the list goes on. Is there a threshold here? We have Bishops being accused of rapes, molestations, etc, and just as bad is the case that as a body and individually, the Bishops have enabled and cooperated, either formally or materially, in the abuses by priests. Yet they do not proclaim themselves unworthy of the sacrament.

Some serious logging needs to go on here. They need to heed the words of Christ and remove the log in their own eyes before trying to remove a speck in the eyes of Democrats.

The American electorate and especially Catholics will see through the hypocrsy and lies of the Bishops and archconservatives and make a common sense decision about whom to vote for. They may choose Bush over Kerry, but I think it would ultimately come down to different factors and not the fear and diversion driving the Bishops and the archconservatives.

The life of a two week old baby is no less important than that of a 8 month unborn fetus. It is cruel and unjustified to abandon the two week old and offer their well being to the whim of private charities or nothing at all. If the pro-lifers really cared about life at all, then let them prove it by fighting for the life of that two week old baby, whom they fought for two weeks earlier. Is she now less worthy of government intervention to provide healthcare, shelter, food, a future?

Catholics will cut through all the noise and make an informed decision. One thing we can be sure about is that Catholics will always vote on the side of life. And most Catholics know that if a life is worthy fighting for in its first 9 months, then it is worthy fighting for for a lifetime.