My first post on this subject was in ISSUES because the Manhattan Declaration is an ecumenical document. However, Sandro Magister discusses it here in the context of teh Catholic church in Europe and in the United States.
The manifesto that's shaking America
It's been endorsed by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox leaders,
united in defending life and the family.
With the White House in the crosshairs.
In Europe, they would brand it political 'interference' by the Church
ROME, November 25, 2009 – On this side of the Atlantic, the news passed almost without notice: the news about a strong public appeal in defense of life, of marriage, of religious freedom and objection of conscience, launched jointly – a rarity – by top-level representatives of the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Evangelical communities of the United States.
Among the religious leaders who presented the appeal to the public on Friday, November 20, at the National Press Club in Washington, were the archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali (speaking, in photo), the archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl, and the bishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput.
And among the 52 first signatories of the appeal were 11 other Catholic archbishops and bishops of the United States: Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit, Timothy Dolan of New York, John J. Myers of Newark, John Nienstedt of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix, Michael J. Sheridan of Colorado Springs, Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland, Richard J. Malone of Portland, and David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh.
The 4700-word appeal is entitled "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience," and takes its name from the area of New York in which its publication was discussed and decided last September.
The final drafting of the text was entrusted to Robert P. George, a Catholic professor of law at Princeton University, and to Evangelical Protestants Chuck Colson and Timothy George, the latter a professor at the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.
The other signers include Metropolitan Jonah Paffhausen, primate of the Orthodox Church in America, archpriest Chad Hatfield of the Orthodox seminary of Saint Vladimir, Reverend William Owens, president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, and two leading figures of the Anglican Communion: Robert Wm. Duncan, primate of the Anglican Church in North America, and Peter J. Akinola, primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria.
Apart from the bishops, the other Catholics who signed the appeal include Jesuit Fr. Joseph D. Fessio, a disciple of Joseph Ratzinger and founder of the publisher Ignatius Press; William Donohue, president of the Catholic League; Jody Bottum, editor of the magazine
First Things; and George Weigel, a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
The Manhattan Declaration has not emerged in a vacuum, but at a critical moment for American society and politics: precisely while the administration of Barack Obama is pushing hard for passage of a health care reform plan in the United States.
Defending life from the moment of conception and the right to objections of conscience, the appeal contests two of the points endangered by the reform project currently under discussion in the Senate.
In Congress, the danger was averted thanks in part to aggressive lobbying conducted openly by the Catholic episcopate. After the final vote had guaranteed both the right to objections of conscience and the blocking of any public financing for abortion, the bishops' conference hailed this result as a "success."
But now the battle has started all over again in the Senate, on a working document that the Church again considers unacceptable. The bishops' conference has already sent the senators a letter indicating the changes it would like to see made to all of the points in dispute.
But now there is also the ecumenical Manhattan Declaration, the last chapter of which, entitled "Unjust Laws," ends with this solemn statement:
"We will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves."
And immediately afterward:
"We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's."
In an initial passage, the appeal also says this:
"While public opinion has moved in a pro-life direction, powerful and determined forces are working to expand abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia."
And it is true. According to the most recent surveys, public opinion in the United States is shifting noticeably toward greater defense of the life of the unborn child.
From 1995 to 2008, all of the research had shown that more people were pro-choice than pro-life, with a significant margin between them: the former at 49 percent, the latter at 42.
Now, instead, the positions have been reversed. The pro-choice have fallen to 46 percent, and the pro-life have risen to 47 percent, overtaking them.
The religious leaders who are pressuring Obama on the minefield of abortion, of homosexual marriage, of euthanasia, therefore know that they have with them a large and growing segment of American society.
The issuing of the Manhattan Declaration has received extensive coverage in the media in the United States, without anyone protesting against this political "interference" by the Churches.
But that's just the way it is in the United States. There has always been a rigorous separation between religion and the state there. There are no concordats, and they're not even conceivable. But this is exactly why the Churches are seen as having the freedom to speak and act in the public sphere.
In Europe, the landscape is very different. Here "secularism" is understood and applied in conflict, either latent or explicit, with the Churches.
This may be another reason for the silence that greeted the Manhattan Declaration in Europe, in Italy, in Rome. It is held to be a typically American phenomenon, foreign to the European way of thinking.
A similar difference in approach concerns the denial of Eucharistic communion for pro-abortion Catholic politicians. In the United States, this controversy is extremely heated, while on the other side of the Atlantic it isn't.
This difference in sensibilities also divides the hierarchy of the Catholic Church: in Europe and in Rome the question is practically ignored, left to the individual conscience.
But it most be noted out that something is changing on this point, even on the Old Continent. And not only because there is a Pope like Benedict XVI, who has stated that he prefers the American model of relations between Church and state.
A sign of this came a few days ago from Spain, where the Catholic Church is grappling with an ideologically hostile government, that of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which is preparing a law that would liberalize abortion even more than it is now.
According to reports from sources including
L'Osservatore Romano, the secretary general of the Spanish bishops' conference, Bishop Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, did not hesitate to advise Catholic politicians that, if they vote in favor of the law, they will not be admitted to Eucharistic communion, because they will have placed themselves in an objective situation of "public sin."
Not only that. Bishop Martínez Camino added that those who maintain that it is morally legitimate to kill an unborn child put themselves in contradiction with the Catholic Church, and thus risk falling into heresy and into "latae sententiae,' or automatic, excommunication.
It is the first time that words so "American" have been heard from the leadership of a bishops' conference in Europe.