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Sojourners has always been a kind of contrarian magazine in the evangelical world. While its theology is orthodox, its politics are as left as World magazine's are right. But generally the magazine has maintained its evangelical credentials not just through its emphasis on biblicism and evangelism, but also because its social justice values include protection of the unborn.

As such, it represents an important wing of the evangelical Protestantism—though in its social values it sometimes sounds a bit closer to a Roman Catholic magazine.

This week, Sojourners really starts to sound like a Catholic magazine—more of the Commonweal than the Crisis variety—as executive editor David Batstone attacks the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as inconsistent, "narrow-minded," and "worse than irrelevant." In "An open letter to the Catholic bishops," Batstone writes, "You risk stumbling into hypocrisy."

Batstone isn't talking about the clergy-abuse scandal. He's talking about the Iraq war and abortion.

"I am perplexed why you have chosen the abortion issue as a litmus test for 'full communion with the faith of the church,'" Batstone writes.

Sorry to speak so boldly, but you have no basis for so selectively narrowing your rich moral tradition. … We recently have witnessed in the United States a decision and act by our political leaders to pre-emptively invade a sovereign nation-state. The social teaching of the Church explicitly prohibits and condemns such aggressive behavior. Pope John Paul II certainly understands this fact, as he made clear in an audience with President George W. Bush last month. …

I have not heard one U.S. Bishop even suggest that Holy Communion might be withheld for any politician who enacted, or voted for, the immoral pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. Yet the consequent loss of human lives—both Iraqi and American—and the devastation of Iraqi society have been nothing short of tragic. Furthermore, this act of spiritual arrogance—invoking God's guidance while invading—has deepened historical animosities that surely will lead to more senseless bloodshed in the Middle East and across the globe. …

Why is it that the bishops of the U.S. Catholic Church are unable to see this serious breach of morality? Over 250 of you are gathered in Colorado this week, and you only see fit to make public pronouncements about a sole moral issue.

Friends and brothers, I fear that your narrow-mindedness is turning the voice of the Church into something far worse than irrelevant. You risk stumbling into hypocrisy. I urge you to reclaim the full gospel of life, and announce it prophetically to those who would trample on the rights of the defenseless—those who have already been born as much as those yet unborn.

Batstone notes that he's "tenured professor of ethics and moral theology at a Catholic university" (that would be the Jesuit University of San Francisco, where an openly gay professor teaches marriage and family therapy). "It is precisely because I am so familiar with the tradition that I am perplexed," he says.

But Batstone's reference to authority here sounds a bit less like Avery Dulles than it does Howard Dean's brag, "If you know much about the Bible—which I do," right before he placed Job in the New Testament. That's because many theologians, journalists, bloggers, pundits, and others have been spending the last several months talking about why the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the abortion issue trumps other political concerns. Batstone doesn't even give a sentence to responding to these comments.

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June (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48