Baltimore: November 11, 2008 – MIL/IR Summary/NYT -    The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are adamant to oppose over his support to abortion rights, even though they are satisfied over his being elected as the new President of America. “Common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good.”

The President Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, is of the strong view that no society can derive any common good when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice. He gave his mind in an opening address to about 300 bishops assembled here for their national meet.

The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice,” the president, Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, said in an opening address to about 300 bishops gathered here for their national meeting. “Common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good.”

Cardinal George’s remarks were a repudiation of the “common good” approach to the abortion issue that President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic Party leaders, including some prominent Roman Catholics, honed in the recent election.

Advocates of the “common good” approach say that, rather than outlawing abortion — which has polarized the American electorate for decades — they will try to reduce abortions by strengthening the social and economic safety net to enable more women to bring their pregnancies to term.

Cardinal George said in a news conference that while the bishops supported “social welfare programs that come to the aid of the poor,” they also would continue to lobby for legislative and legal restrictions on abortion.

Abortion is not the only issue on which the bishops plan to challenge the president-elect. Over the weekend, aides to Mr. Obama said he was considering overturning President Bush’s directive that banned most research on embryonic stem cells. Cardinal George said the bishops would “be in conversation” with Mr. Obama on this matter, too.

After eight years of a Republican president who invoked Catholic language to cement his anti-abortion platform, the bishops are now confronting an incoming Democratic administration that has championed abortion rights.

In the closing months of the presidential race, several Catholic bishops skirted close to endorsing the Republican candidate for president, Senator John McCain, by proclaiming that Catholics could not in good conscience vote for a candidate who favored abortion rights.

The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, and a longtime chronicler of the bishops, said, “The result was that the most vocal bishops gave the appearance of speaking for all the bishops, and the others just kept silent.”
Many more bishops voiced their outrage, individually and collectively, at Mr. Obama’s vice-presidential pick, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who in interviews both invoked Catholic teaching to justify their stance in favor of abortion rights. Full