Do the Bishops Care About Democracy?

In November, the nation’s Catholic bishops issued, as they do every four years, their pre-election year document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” It was essentially the same text they have issued in 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019. Not that it was without merit. But think: for a decade there has been a new pope with new encyclicals and new moral entreaties about climate change, poverty, migration, and synodality. In that period we have also had a Great Recession and a great pandemic, a new geopolitics (China, Brexit, Iran, Abraham Accords), new wars (Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, the Sudans, Ukraine, the Middle East), new social trends (social media, #MeToo, populism, gender theory), new scientific developments (global warming, gene editing, space probes, Higgs boson, AI), and, naturally, new deadly weaponry. Does any of this matter? Apparently not. The Church thinks in centuries.  Read Full Article »