Fascinating article – basically a bunch of Catholic Members of Congress are appealing to the Catholic Bishops to get more involved in standing against the Iraq War.

The lawmakers, all Democrats, wrote to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops asking for a meeting to discuss how Congress “and the clergy can work together to mobilize public action to end the war,” according to a statement released Tuesday (July 3).
“As Catholic members of Congress we stand in unison with the Catholic Church in opposition to the war in Iraq,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said in a statement. “Yet to attain the ideal of peace, we must not only speak the words, we must take action.”
Other Catholic politicians lobbying the bishops include Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Tim Ryan, Charlie Wilson and Marcy Kaptur, all of Ohio.
“Throughout our nation’s history Catholics have been at the forefront of the fight for social justice,” the lawmakers’ statement said. “Now, at another critical moment, we respectfully urge the (bishops) to join with us in mobilizing support for Congress’ efforts to end the Iraq war.”

This is amazing stuff. How much grief has the Catholic Church gotten from so many politicians (typically Democratic) for “intervening” in politics on issues like abortion and gay marriage?
Answer? Lots.
Now the Church is being appealed to to intervene more forcefully on an issue by some of those same politicians.
What I love so much about this is that it is further proof of the death of these meaningless “liberal” and “conservative” labels. What is the Catholic Church? Liberal? Yeah, it is against the Iraq War, against the death penalty and for spending money on the poor. Conservative? Yeah, it is against abortion and gay marriage.
What disturbs me so much about this is the idea of the Church – of any church – simply being a political pawn called upon by politicians looking for support for their cause.