In March 2020 incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois was ousted in a primary election, and his loss ensured there would be no more pro-life Democrats in Congress.
More recently, as U.S. Catholic bishops have debated whether President Joe Biden and other Catholic politicians should receive Holy Communion for supporting abortion rights, Lipinski has strongly criticized his party for cementing its “extreme abortion policy” that fails to uphold the first right – the right to life.
He also argued that the national Democratic Party, Biden, and the 60 alleged Catholic Democrats in Congress who condemned the bishops for stirring up this issue are confusing the faithful to their detriment while making it clear pro-lifers are unwelcome among the supposedly tolerant Democrats.
In a recent opinion piece in the conservative Catholic publication First Things, Lipinski noted, “The Democratic party was once the political home of most American Catholics, but over the past 40 years the party has become increasingly less tolerant of Americans who are pro-life, causing many Catholics to leave the party.”
But the party’s drift toward extremism over that not only affected the rank and file.
“The Democratic party hierarchy has made extreme abortion policy a primary doctrine and has demonstrated that a price will be paid for apostasy,” he wrote. “For Democratic politicians, the penalty is a full-on effort to end one’s political career.”
Lipinski offered the demise of his own 16-year career as an example.
In his last two elections, he wrote, pro-abortion groups spent $6 million to defeat him, while local party officials worked against him, and Democratic consultants and vendors refused to work for him.
Ultimately, it worked. He lost to a pro-choice opponent.
Lipinski said the problem is that Catholics generally, not just left-wing politicians, have been poorly taught about church doctrine on this issue.
He maintained that the church’s teaching of “respect for life and the dignity of every human person” clearly includes the unborn, and that its reference to abortion as a “moral evil” is a “binding truth” on Catholic politicians, not just a guideline.
“There is no equivalence between the intimate, intentional violence of abortion and failing to provide a specific level of funding for programs for the hungry or denying asylum to a particular individual,” Lipinski wrote.
“All of these issues are important, but they are different in kind, not merely degree. They have different weight. In order to eat or seek asylum, a person must first be alive.”
“It is very true that it is evil to ignore the plight of the poor, hungry, and endangered, and we will be judged by what we have done for the least of us,” he continued in First Things.
“But unlike legal abortion, which is the killing of innocent human life, these issues require prudential judgments about exactly what and how much the government should do. These issues are not the same as abortion; Pope Francis stated it plainly when he compared abortion to ‘hiring a hitman’ to take care of a problem.”
“When a political party is not in accord with Catholic belief, the responsibility of the faithful is to work to change the doctrine of the party and not the constant teaching of the Church,” Lipinski added.
“This is one of the greatest dangers for American Catholics today. Catholic Democrats should be working to change the party doctrine on abortion and not fall prey to the temptation to mold their own beliefs to the party.”
In a follow-up interview about his column with the National Catholic Register, another conservative publication, Lipinski said, “I know that I will be judged also on how I cared for the poor, the hungry, but when it comes to government policy, the exact amount of money that the federal government should be spending for food assistance, for example, that’s not clear [in Catholic social teaching].”
“But it is clear,” he added, “that we should be protecting unborn children in the womb and caring for their mothers.”
“Just trying to continue to get across that there’s a clear line that we need to protect the unborn: There’s no question about that. It’s a Catholic doctrine of understanding that this is a human person that deserves protection,” the former congressman added.
“Catholics need to have the courage to be Catholic first and to hold on to what they have learned, what they know, as a Catholic, and to live out all of Catholic social teaching, not choose certain parts of it.”
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Take communion… Do you think Jesus forgives you now for murder