Christianity Today blog gets snippy with the bishops while missing the point

Mark Silk over at Christianity Today's "election 2008" blog decides to play referee:

The Catholic Bishops are cheesed with Joe Biden for, as they see it, claiming that abortion is just a "personal and private issue."

... "cheesed"? What is it with Christian authors writing so flippantly about the topic of abortion? Even if you disagree with them, since when is it proper to ridicule bishops who think they are defending the innocent?

Silk, for his part, thinks he understands the dispute, but he doesn't:

According to the bishops, "the Senator’s claim that the beginning of human life is a 'personal and private' matter of religious faith, one which cannot be 'imposed' on others, does not reflect Catholic teaching."

Of course, Biden did not say that the Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a private matter. His position is that it is a confessional matter. The bishops can assert until they are blue in the face that what they profess is universally applicable because it's built into the nature of things; but at the end of the day they remain religious leaders asserting the doctrine of their church. And most American Catholics, like Biden, understand them as such.

I'm not sure how the bishops could have been more clear taht they are not "asserting [a] doctrine of the Church" when they claim that human life begins at conception (a claim, moreover, that Biden accepts). In matter of fact, the exact phrasing they chose was: "The Catholic Church does not teach this as a matter of faith; it acknowledges it as a matter of objective fact."

I don't know about you, but I think that is very clear language. Considering that Silk linked to this bishops' statement, I don't think there is much excuse for his missing this line, and thereby missing a central point.

In following the story of Biden and the Catholic bishops around the internet and blogosphere, I've found several examples of 3rd-parties getting the story wrong, but I normally don't choose to talk about them. Silk, however, crossed over the line of decency with his presumptuous language, so he earns a mention.