Reader Responses to Kathleen Sebelius's Pro-Abortion Rights Catholicism

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

There were lots of good comments responding to my post on Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explaining why she takes a pro-abortion rights position despite her Catholic beliefs.

"I am a firm believer in the separation of church and state," Sebeleius said last week, "and I feel that my actions as a parishioner are different than my actions as a public official and that the people who elected me in Kansas had a right to expect me to uphold their rights and their beliefs even if they did not have the same religious beliefs that I had."

R. L. Schaefer accuses Sebelius of making a deal with the devil:

Sebelius has forsaken the Church in favor of the government and prestige. Support of immoral acts in the name of governmental, subjective, "progressive" whimsy does not change the evil of the act. Because something is legal does not make it moral. For more details I would suggest a viewing of "Judgment at Nuremberg".

Roy applauds Sebelius for keeping her personal beliefs to herself:

It all comes back to "faith-based governance", which is OK only in a purely homogeneous society, which America is decidedly not. Few politicians have the moral courage, stature or backbone to effectively wall off their actions as government officials from the belief systems foisted upon them as children and reinforced weekly at their houses of worship. I guess we have to go back to the founders to find large numbers of government officials capable of recognizing and acting on the knowledge that the importance of their acting on behalf of the common good far outweighs that of imposing their personal belief-systems on their constituents. I applaud Ms. Sebelius for her foresight and courage; I rue the fact that she has so little company among her fellow politicians.

Kenneth accuses the church of applying its communion rules selectively:

Funny, I don't remember any politicians being refused communion for blowing off the church's just war doctrines or for supporting capital punishment. I guess those lives don't count so much. Or maybe it's what it looks like: the bishops have made the church an appendage of the GOP/neoconservative movement. So glad I formally defected from that miserable organization.

And GregK calls Sebelius's argument a red herring:

Her response does not follow. This isn't about church and state separation the way she discusses it. She is being reprimanded from the church, within the church's jurisdiction (e.g. receipt of communion at mass), not for "upholding the laws" but for also actively supporting abortion enabling legislation—e.g. being a pro-choice Catholic who uses her political authority to enable more abortions to happen. That can't be aligned with Catholic teaching whatever she wants to say about church and state. The separation of Church and State doesn't mean a church should not uphold church teaching and practice church discipline within the church. If anything it means that the church is independent of the state, and should do exactly what it is doing to her. Further, her church teaches her church calling [is] higher and should inform her political actions, not vice versa, and she has a responsibility to uphold her church's teaching insofar as they apply to life issues in her actions at the state, because the church is above it. She has her rendering unto Ceasar and God totally upside down.

• See President Obama's top faith leaders.
• Read more about abortion.