Consistent Ethic of Life

The late Cardinal Bernardin's consistent ethic of life has been on my mind a lot lately, not entirely through my own volition - I proofread and index books on the side, and just finished an index of a volume of Bernardin's speeches on the consistent ethic that will be published later this year.

Rocco has a round-up of some of the reporting on this week's Catholic Social Ministry gathering in Washington, D.C., and the lobbying effort that accompanied it, much of it focused on the U.S. Catholic bishops' document "Faithful Citizenship."

In the last interview, John Carr, the justice-and-peace director for the U.S. bishops had this line which struck me to the quick in its power and its challenge:

“Catholic progressives ought to be measured by how they stand up for human life,” he said, “and Catholic conservatives by how they defend human dignity.” The “consistent ethic of life,” Carr said, “doesn’t give any of us a free pass.”

Something to ponder on a cloudy Wednesday...