The Catholic Church Becomes a Single-issue Voter

There are many issues up for debate in the 2008 Presidential election. There’s the mounting fiscal crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the lack of a coherent energy policy, and what to do with health care, to name four. One issue that has been mostly absent is abortion.

Perhaps that’s because abortion isn’t quite the wedge issue it has been in the past, or maybe it’s because Sarah Palin hilariously doesn’t understand the whole Supreme Court thing. Whatever the reason, that hasn’t stopped the Catholic Church from using its pulpit to focus on abortion as its one and only issue.

Addressing the crowd on the Common yesterday at the “Respect Life” walk, Cardinal Sean O’Malley said:

“I very seldom get to see any television, but I did watch part of the political conventions, and for me the star of the conventions was Trig Palin, whose mother said that he was ‘beautiful’ and ‘perfect,’ ” O’Malley said. “And when his little sister used that spit to slick his hair down, I mean, I stood up and applauded.”

The star of the convention?

O’Malley went on to say that Bishops can’t endorse one political party over another, but that didn’t stop Archbishop Raymond L. Burke from saying Democrats were becoming “the party of death,” which makes the GOP’s support of capital punishment, what? Justified?