Breaking: Chaput responds to Biden

Today on the Archdiocese of Denver website, the following news item:

Denver bishops release letter to faithful, stress importance of accurate moral reasoning by public servants

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. and Auxiliary Bishop James D. Conley have released a new letter to the Catholics of northern Colorado, titled “Public Servants and Moral Reasoning.” In the letter, they reaffirm the importance of informed moral reasoning when discerning public action, especially in regard to Catholics who serve their country on the national stage. Click here to read the full letter (PDF file)

The last two paragraphs sum-up Archbishop Chaput's position:

In his Meet the Press interview, Sen. Biden used a morally exhausted argument that American Catholics have been hearing for 40 years: i.e., that Catholics can't "impose" their religiously based views on the rest of the country. But resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion. And the senator knows very well as a lawmaker that all law involves the imposition of some people's convictions on everyone else. That is the nature of the law. American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year. Other people have imposed their "pro-choice" beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades.

If we claim to be Catholic, then American Catholics, including public officials who describe themselves as Catholic, need to act accordingly. We need to put an end to Roe and the industry of permissive abortion it enables. Otherwise all of us - from senators and members of Congress, to Catholic laypeople in the pews - fail not only as believers and disciples, but also as citizens.

Bishops who have responded to Biden so far: 3.

update: Fr. Z notes...

"Hugh Hewitt today read Archbp. Chaput’s entire response to Sen. Joe Biden. He concluded that if you are a devout Catholic, you cannot vote for Sen. Biden, because you would be cooperating in evil. No mincing words from him. He just laid it out in stark terms."

There, that wasn't too hard, was it?