Pope Francis has no business weighing in on the U.S. presidential election.
It’s already unconscionable that the Vatican has been waging a global war against abortion and contraceptive rights, seeking not only to deny Roman Catholic followers but all non-Catholics control of their own reproduction, families and lives. Notably, 82 percent of the world is not Catholic. Yet the Vatican is committed to trying to enforce its cruel Roman Catholic doctrine everywhere, creating acute and unnecessary misery, compounding poverty and harming women’s health, particularly in the poorest Catholic counties.
Now, Pope Francis continues the Vatican’s officious interference by inappropriately weighing in on the U.S. presidential election in the name of its war against abortion.
During a news conference last Friday, the pope blasted what he called the “anti-life” policies in favor of legal abortion (presumably referencing the pro-choice Democratic contender Kamala Harris) and against migration (presumably referencing the anti-immigrant Republican contender Donald Trump). “Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants or the one who [supports] killing babies,” the pope said.
“To have an abortion is to kill a human being. You may like the word or not, but it’s killing,” the pope reiterated.
Francis claimed not to be telling Catholics who to vote for, saying: “One should vote, and choose the lesser evil. Who is the lesser evil, the woman or man? I don’t know.” Yet his words come in the context of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, already publicly stating repealing access to legal abortion should be the top voter priority.
The pope ought to tread carefully when condemning evil — he heads a coterie of professional celibates who nevertheless are in the fifth decade of a grotesque systemic coverup of shocking sexual crimes by their clerics against children and minors. As long ago as 1985, Rev. Thomas P. Doyle warned that the Church appeared to be “an organization preaching morality and providing sanctuary to perverts.”
But even more so, the pope has crossed a state/church line, which will doubtless encourage many priests across the country to nudge parishioners to vote based on the abortion issue. While Catholics as individuals are fortunately far more progressive than their church, and most say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, those who attend Mass regularly oppose legal abortion. With 10 states holding vitally important referenda in November to protect abortion rights, much is at stake. These states include Florida, which has a draconian abortion ban but also a large and mostly Catholic migrant population. It seems clear what the takeaway from the pope’s message to Florida’s faithful Catholics is supposed to be.
Catholic priests — and ministers of all denominations — must heed their obligation as part of tax-exempt churches to sit out the presidential election. The Freedom From Religion Foundation may not be able to do anything legal about the blowhard pope, but if U.S. priests and bishops use their tax-exempt pulpits to endorse, we will demand that the IRS take action against their churches.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 40,000 members across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
