[Breitbart] The bishop of Providence, Rhode Island, has reiterated in comments loaded with political overtones church teaching that a person cannot be Catholic and pro-abortion because it would be a "contradiction in terms.""Just saw a headline in a Catholic newspaper with the phrase ’pro-abortion Catholic.’ Sorry. That’s a contradiction in terms," wrote Bishop Thomas J. Tobin on Twitter this week. "You can’t be a Catholic, at least not an authentic one, and be ’pro-abortion.’ Or ’pro-choice.’ It’s the same thing."
Even though the assertion might seem noncontroversial to a casual observer, as the Catholic church’s position on abortion is well known, the bishop’s comments provoked a number of angry responses, presumably from Catholics who intend to vote for the pro-abortion Democrat ticket in this November’s elections.
Every election year brings with it hot debates among Catholics about the moral permissibility of voting for a candidate who promotes legal abortion. With Joe Biden the presumptive presidential candidate for the Democrats, the disputes are expected to rage as never before; Biden describes himself as a Catholic and yet vigorously supports abortion-on-demand.
Among important demographic groups, Catholics — while not comprising a monolithic voting "bloc"— make up nearly 25 percent of U.S. voters and in 2016 played a key role in sending Donald Trump to the White House, with the abortion issue looming large in voters’ minds.
Catholics voted for Donald Trump in 2016 by a larger margin than for any other Republican candidate in the five elections of the new millennium, according to a Pew Research Center study, and Catholic Democrats rightly fear that the margin could be even greater in 2020.
Catholic Democrats already came out swinging at New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan last week for having engaged in a conference call with President Trump on the topic of Catholic education, with the ultra-liberal National Catholic Reporter (NCR) lashing out at Dolan for "capitulating" to the Republican Party.