CatholicVote is committed to holding self-professed Catholic leaders and institutions to the standards of Church teaching. That’s what our Catholic Accountability Project is all about.
You deserve to know exactly where our Catholic leaders stand – both the heroes who are standing up for the truth, and the “zeroes” who cause grave scandal by their words and actions.
Every month, we will hold these Catholics accountable – and praise them when they deserve it.
We ask that you pray for all Catholics in the public square, heroes and zeroes alike.
HEROES
Sisters of Life and Knights of Columbus
Just one month before the first post-Roe March for Life, the Sisters of Life and Knights of Columbus announced they would host a massive pre-March “LifeFest,” complete with a youth rally and Mass. As John Burger reported:
“Life Fest,” a three-hour event at the 4,200-seat Entertainment & Sports Arena in Washington, is a recognition that there is much work to be done in building a culture of life, even though the Supreme Court this year overturned the pro-abortion Roe v. Wade decision.
For 25 years, the Archdiocese of Washington had hosted a Youth Rally and Mass that drew thousands of young people each year. Many were shocked when the Archdiocese canceled the event in late November. The Sisters and Knights, on the other hand, leapt into action – taking up the effort themselves. Sister Virginia Joy commented:
For us, we see the March for Life as the largest, the longest human rights demonstration of its kind… As we looked around to see what other events were going on, there just seemed to be like an opening. We thought that maybe the Holy Spirit is inspiring us to do something new.
David Daleiden, journalist
David Daleiden, who sprang to national attention with his undercover videos of Planned Parenthood staff haggling over the prices of baby body parts, secured a major win in December after a six-year legal battle with the University of Washington (UW). In February 2016, Daleiden filed a public records request for documents detailing the school’s interstate sales of aborted children’s tissues and organs.
Daleiden’s legal team at the Thomas More Society, a national non-profit law firm, celebrated the win, saying:
We are pleased at the successful resolution of this lawsuit by settlement. That settlement secured attorney’s fees from the UW and … thousands of pages of new documents on the buying and selling of aborted fetal tissue trafficking, including job titles and all non-personal information.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster
The lyrics read like a Babylon Bee parody, but a church choir in Loughborough, England, included a “woke” version of the popular Christmas carol “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” in its Carol Service this year. “God rest you queer and questioning, your anxious hearts be still,” they intoned. The next verse read, “God rest you also, women, who by men have been erased! Through history ignored and scorned, defiled and defaced!”
Cardinal Nichols pushed back publicly, pointing to the unifying power of a musical repertoire that was created reverently and has been cherished through the centuries. “Ritual helps us to step outside of our own little bubble and connect with something we have received, inherited and that we hope to pass on… Those [rituals] are probably for me more important than particular sensitivities which come and go.”
In today’s Britain, with its thought police and actual arrests and prosecutions at the behest of progressive radicals, Nichols’ words took real courage. All lauds and honors to the good Cardinal.
ZEROES
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY
AOC, a self-professed Catholic, cited religious freedom in defense of abortion-on-demand. “Our Jewish brothers and sisters are able to have an abortion according to their faith,” she said, characterizing pro-life Americans as “fundamentalist Christians” and stating that abortion regulations amount to a “theocratic” attack on the religious liberty of “many faiths.”
Thereby demonstrating her deplorable ignorance of not only her own faith, but also religious freedom in general.
Fr. James Martin, SJ
Fr. James Martin took to Twitter to comment on 303 Creative v. Ellis case, a religious liberty case currently before the Supreme Court.
In a thinly-veiled finger-wag at Catholics on the front lines of battling for religious freedoms and conscience protections, he added:
Equating his own Church’s constant teaching on human sexuality with bigotry, fear, and hatred is nothing new for Martin. What’s particularly egregious about this tweet is that he’s stopped pretending he even wants his fellow Catholics to have the freedom to disagree with him.
Governor Lou Leon Guerrero, D-Guam
On December 16, Guam passed its first abortion restriction in history – a bill that would protect unborn babies after a heartbeat can be detected. Legislation like this has already saved lives in states like Texas, where abortions dropped by 97% in the month following Dobbs.
That won’t be happening in Guam. Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero handed down an eleventh-hour veto of the Heartbeat Bill on December 28. Guerrero attributes her pro-abortion stance to her Catholic education and has campaigned on the promise to expand abortion access on the tiny island.
SUBZERO
December 2022 will go down in history as the month America’s second Catholic president signed the (Dis)Respect for Marriage Act and threw his fellow Catholics to the wolves. Joe Biden once ripped voters who worried that activists were aiming to change our marriage laws. Later, as vice president, he shamelessly flipped… and personally presided over a same-sex “wedding.”
He ends the year with one more Subzero rating to add to his collection… compounding his title as “Zero of the Year.”
