[ceejayoz]

> Why is it a surprise that the Catholic Church is against abortion?

What's surprising is the American Catholic priesthood tends to go after pro-choice politicians, but not pro-death-penalty ones, despite the church seeing both as similarly objectionable. The political bent is fairly new.

The Pope has messaged that he'd rather they butt out. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/world/europe/pope-francis...

[runarberg]

Catholic dogma is also very pro immigration. The birth of Jesus during migration, and that he was cared for by accommodating strangers (and even other migrating nomads) is a big deal in Christianity. The current pope’s rhetoric underscores this.

Why they focus so much on abortion is suspect indeed.

[dragonwriter]

> What’s surprising is the American Catholic priesthood tends to go after pro-choice politicians, but not pro-death-penalty ones, despite the church seeing both as similarly objectionable.

[EDIT: This first paragraph is incorrect as is pointed out in a response; it is left unchanged for context of the discussion.]

They are not viewed as “similarly objectionable”. The death penalty is viewed as being within the legitimate power of government doctrinally, but the present leadership of the Church views prudentially that the conditions which allow it do not occur in the modern world. Direct abortion is viewed as doctrinally prohibited. This is an important theological distinction because the Church heirarchy is viewed (borrowing some language from law) as having binding authority on doctrine, but only (very strongly) persuasive authority on prudential application of doctrine to particular material contexts.

That being said, you are correct that the political actions of the American Catholic heirarchy (more the bishops than the priesthood, and not all of them) are rather unbalanced (and not just on this pair of issues) in a way which is not easily explained by any coherent appeal to the actual social teaching of the Catholic Church.

[giaour]

> They are not viewed as “similarly objectionable”. The death penalty is viewed as being within the legitimate power of government doctrinally

Respectfully, no. The catechism reads, "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person"[0]. This is a recent revision, and what you say reflects what was officially taught until 2017.

[0]: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7Z.HTM

[dragonwriter]

I stand corrected. I was aware Francis had solidified the move to “never” from “almost never” that had been palpably occurring for some time, but somehow missed that he had articulated it as a categorical violation of morals rather as a progression of prudential judgement in changing circumstances as other recent Popes had.

[yepguy]

"[..] it has been infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium of the Church that the death penalty is not intrinsically wrong. Not even a pope can reverse this teaching." [0]

[0]: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/01/20/capital-punis...

[dragonwriter]

A claim by a lay philosopher that something has been infallibly taught is not the same as an actual infallible teaching, and if you even casually follow Catholic debates, you will find a lot of conflicting claims about what has an has not been infallibly taught.

Arguably, the most these writings about what has been implicitly infallibly taught and therefore cannot be changed by a Pope despite the absence of an explicit dogma tell you is what the author is very concerned that there is an insufficient commitment to among the heirarchy and probably a risk of imminent change by a Pope, which the author is lobbying against.

(Or, as in this case, what has recently been actually changed by a Pope that the author wishes everyone to pretend has not.)

[giaour]

People can argue whatever they want in an editorial, but I will take the word of the pope and the catechism when it comes to the question of, "what is the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church on X?"

[yepguy]

Well I certainly can't blame you for that. However, it's far from clear whether the change to the catechism can even be reconciled with prior teachings at all. I only linked to one article among many, but there is considerable confusion about this change throughout the church and Pope Francis has not really offered any clarification.

[dragonwriter]

> Well I certainly can’t blame you for that. However, it’s far from clear whether the change to the catechism can even be reconciled with prior teachings at all.

If one views the argument that the prior teachings were infallibly proclaimed as incorrect, than there is no need to reconcile them; the prior teachings were simply in error.

Unsurprisingly, Francis has not only identified the previous approach as in error, he has both explained where the error is and provided an (unnecessary) explanation of what led people to make the error.

> there is considerable confusion about this change throughout the church and Pope Francis has not really offered any clarification

No one is confused or has any need of clarification. “It is per se contrary to the Gospel” isn’t the kind of statement that leaves a whole lot of room for different readings.

What there is is disagreement.