NPR's All Things Considered on Thursday, December 3, headlined one of the segments "On Social Issues, Bishops Flex Political Muscle."  Host Melissa Block opened with the following statement:

The legacy of Pope John Paul II is playing out in America politics: A generation of American Catholic bishops, selected by Pope John Paul, are very conservative on social issues and vocal about their views.

And they've been increasingly vocal recently, as NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty then stated as follows:

The night before the House of Representatives voted on health care reform last month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi received some visitors. One was Congressman Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, who wanted to amend the House bill to permanently strip federal funding for abortion. He brought with him two representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who said they would not support any bill without that amendment. . . .

The meeting was a turning point. Pelosi allowed a vote on the amendment the next day and it passed.

Democrat Rosa DeLauro, a pro-choice Catholic, says the bishops are elevating abortion over every other issue, and they're rejecting the tradition established by John F. Kennedy that Catholic politicians vote according to their conscience, not the dictates of Rome.  (Emphasis added)

The voice of Representative Rosa Delauro (Democrat, Connecticut) followed:

The activity that the Catholic bishops have engaged in implies that the church will determine and dictate public policy.  (Emphasis added)

Hagerty then interjected:

But John Myers, the archbishop of New Jersey, says bishops have every right to lobby Congress and influence laws.

Next came the voice of Archbishop John Myers (Newark, New Jersey) stating:

I don't think it was improper because what we talked about were moral issues. And if anyone has the responsibility and the right to speak out on moral issues, it's religious leaders.  (Emphasis added)

There was in fact not only intervention on Capitol Hill.  In a report on November 11, 2009, titled THE INFLUENCE GAME: Bishops shape health care bill, Julie Hirschfeld Davis wrote:

Catholic bishops have emerged as a formidable force in the health care overhaul fight, using their clout with millions of Catholics and working behind the scenes in Congress to get strong abortion restrictions into the House bill.

They don't spend a dime on what is legally defined as lobbying, but lawmakers and insiders recognize that the bishops' voices matter — and they move votes. Representatives for the bishops were in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Capitol suite negotiating with top officials last Friday evening as they reached final terms of the agreement. Earlier in the day, Pelosi, a Catholic and an abortion rights supporter, had been on the phone to Rome with Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Washington's former archbishop, on the subject.  (Emphasis added)

One further point needs to be noted in this preliminary presentation of this subject.  Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., a leading abortion foe was the front architect of the health measure's restrictions; however, behind him was the power of the Protestant Religious Right.  On November 10, 2009, an article in Salon.com by Jeff Sharlet titled The Democrats' new "Family" Values described the involvement of Representative Joe Pitts (Republican, Pennsylvania) as follows:

But if Stupak, a former state trooper from Michigan, provided the muscle, his partner, Joe Pitts -- a Pennsylvania Republican with decades in the trenches of the antiabortion battle -- may have brought the brains, and more, a new Christian right coalition custom tailored for the Democratic Party's growing religious conservatism. Stupak is Roman Catholic; Pitts is evangelical. Both are members of the predominantly evangelical organization called the Family; Stupak lives in its C Street house. Together, they're poster boys for the evangelical/conservative Catholic alliance known as "co-belligerency," a culture war strategy designed to take territory within the Democratic Party as well the GOP.  (Emphasis added)

A full commentary on this controversy in the context of forming the Image to the Beast is planned.

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