Catholic Bishops Declare Political Independence

Leaders of the nation’s largest church declared their independence Saturday in the 1996 presidential elections, welcoming allies in their fight against abortion but challenging conservatives on welfare reform, capital punishment and immigration.

U.S. Catholic bishops, whose flocks have been courted in recent months by the Catholic Alliance, an offshoot of the conservative Christian Coalition, declared they are unbeholden to any political party or interest group.

“We stand with the unborn and the undocumented when many politicians seem to be abandoning them. We defend children in the womb and on welfare. We oppose the violence of abortion and the vengeance of capital punishment. We oppose assault weapons in our streets and condoms in our schools,” the bishops said in their quadrennial statement on political responsibility, released a year before the 1996 vote.

“Political Responsibility: Proclaiming the Gospel of Life, Protecting the Least Among Us, and Pursuing the Common Good” was approved by the 50-member Administrative Board of the United States Catholic Conference. The bishops have issued a statement on religion and politics before every presidential election since the mid-‘70s.

In 1994, for the first time in more than a century and a half, a majority of white Catholics voted for a Republican Congress.