Did he or didn't he

In an article about Bishop Robert Carlson.

Part of that potential, in Carlson’s view, is a forceful proclamation of moral teachings to both candidates and voters. Last summer, he wrote in a church publication that Catholic politicians "cannot, on the one hand, support abortion rights and on the other, be a Catholic in good standing."

In a letter to the Sioux Falls’ Argus Leader on Nov. 3, Carlson called it a "fallacy" that Catholics can weigh issues besides abortion in deciding how to vote.

"Under this philosophy, one can weigh 1 million abortions each year against the war, health care, taxes or farm policies — and this is a lie," Carlson wrote.

But Carlson took a more moderate stand this week, saying he does not believe it’s a sin for Catholics opposed to abortion to vote for politicians who favor abortion rights if, for example, Catholic voters feel strongly about a candidate’s position as a peace advocate.

That places Carlson in the mainstream of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. This week, he declined to say whether his political pronouncements are likely to ripple the waters of Michigan politics.

"I’m the new boy on the block," he said, indicating that he prefers to wait and listen for a while.

I highly doubt that the Bishop said any such thing. Throughout the article quotation marks were used for the Bishop’s statements, but no direct quotation was provided for the supposed "moderate stand." Considering the controversy concerning his previous statements to have such a flip-flop would be news and that statement would be the most important part of the article, so why no direct quote? Another news article took this story and I believe was rather deceptive in its use of quotations marks around what the other reporter wrote concerning this one statement since you get the impression it was a direct quote. That article was titled "Carlson moves to the center on abortion" which is pretty dishonest considering it was based on no direct quote and not even reflective of what the Bishop allegedly said. In a related note Archbishop Charles "get that man a red hat" Chaput gave an excellent talk to the City Club of Denver about news coverage regarding himself.

Some of you may remember that a year ago I was part of a rally on the Capitol steps to protect state funding for the poor and homeless. But you didn’t read about it in the Rocky or the Denver Post, because they didn’t cover it.

Last September, just a few weeks before the election, I preached a homily to 5,000 people at Red Rocks, and I had them repeat out loud three times that if we forget the poor, we’ll go to hell. That’s one of the principles of Catholic social teaching. If we forget the poor, God will forget us. By our indifference, we will damn ourselves. But you didn’t read about that in the press either, because – again — nobody covered it.

Our diocesan website has at least 18 articles I’ve written and talks I’ve given against the death penalty in the past few years. They’re just a fraction of what I’ve said and done against capital punishment for more than three decades. The press covered that one time recently — when I criticized our Republican governor.

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Denver is the largest non-government provider of aid to the poor in the Rocky Mountain region. As a Church, more than 80 percent of our time, resources, ministry personnel and lobbying efforts go to issues that have nothing to do with abortion. But you’ll never see that on anybody’s front-page either, because it isn’t news.

My point here isn’t to criticize the press. Both of our local papers have excellent religion reporters, and – not always, but in general – the Church gets fair treatment in the media. My point is that Catholics have always been active on a very wide range of political issues, both individually and as a Church. This is normal and sensible. It’s so normal that nobody pays attention – until they disagree. [Full Transcript] [Via Ten Reasons]