Reproductive Rights, LGBTQ+ Rights, and the Catholic Church

Catholics have abortions at the same rate as others in the U.S. 58% of Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 68% of Catholics in the U.S. do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Jamie Manson, President of Catholics for Choice, talks to us about all of the ways that Catholicism deeply impacts the human rights of many in the United States.

“Theology of the body,” a theological idea developed by Pope John Paul II, teaches that God made men and women in a specific way with specific anatomy to signal what God’s purpose for humanity, nature, and gender roles are for us. This deeply entrenched theological idea is taught widely at Catholic schools and universities around the U.S. It is this fundamental idea that underlines why the church opposes abortion, contraception, same-sex relationships and marriage, and women serving as faith leaders.

While it often largely seems as if the Catholic church is mostly focused on curtailing access to abortion, that isn’t the only sexual and reproductive health issue that is impacted by the political power of the church; the Catholic church has been a leading actor in opposing birth control access, LGB issues, trans issues, refusing basic healthcare in clinical settings, and more. It is often the Catholic church that is behind cases in the Supreme Court. Still, the teachings and beliefs of the Catholic church hierarchy do not necessarily inherently reflect that living reality of Catholic practitioners.

There has been a large broadening of how religious liberty is interpreted—Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrisey-Berru and Fulton v. Philadelphia are examples of court cases in which the Catholic church have expanded definitions of religious liberty in order to discriminate and refuse protections. These religious liberty extensions will be troubling not only for reproductive health and rights, but for a range of human rights issues.  

President Joe Biden is America’s very first pro-choice, practicing Catholic president. This is an opportunity for a person of faith to promote and protect reproductive health and rights. President Biden’s Catholic faith informs much of the administration’s policy, and Catholics for Choice calls on President Biden to state that abortion access is also a value grounded in Catholic social justice.

Links from this episode

Catholics for Choice on Twitter
Catholics for Choice on Facebook
More information of Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrisey-Berru
More Information on Fulton v. Philadelphia

Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to RePROs Fight Back, a podcast where we explore all things reproductive health, rights and justice. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and I'll be helping you stay informed around issues like birth control, abortion, sex education and LGBTQ issues and much, much more-- giving you the tools you need to take action and fight back. Okay, let's dive in.

Read More

Jennie: Welcome to this week's episode of RePROs Fight Back. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my preferred pronouns are she/her. So, I wanted to take a minute at the top to just talk a little bit about how I'm doing right now. I think, you know, I generally am updating about, you know, fun things I'm doing are things that I've been baking or whatever. And generally, try to keep my interests fairly upbeat as much as possible, but I know a lot of people are in the same boat I am right now and are struggling a bit. And so I know it helps to know that you're not alone and that others are also struggling. So, I thought it was worth it to take a little bit of time in this week's intro to kind of talk about that a little bit. So, you know, over the course of the pandemic, I've had, you know, a bad week or two here or there where, you know, I'm not, can't get work done or can't focus or whatever, but I usually shake it off pretty quick. You know, I have figured out the things that work for me that helped me brighten up and kind of shake that off. But this past, I don't know, two weeks, uh, have been a little bit different. Like I haven't been able to shake it off as easy. I have noticed, like I just, I can't focus on things, you know, I'm on Zoom calls and stuff, and you know, I'm hearing people talking, but not focusing great and feeling just very bleh about everything. And so, you know, I just wanted to share with others who may be experiencing the same thing that you're not alone. Like this has been almost an entire year of this pandemic. And, um, you know, it gets hard and it all comes in waves. And so, you know, this past week it was my birthday and I think it really hit me. Then I just felt so blah about everything that day and just, I couldn't shake it. And that whole week I just, I couldn't shake it. So, I'm actually recording this the Thursday before this episode comes out. So, I am planning to take some time for me and my mental health. I'm going to do a birthday do over. I'm going to celebrate it on Friday and I'm taking the day off and I am just stepping away from everything this weekend and trying to just take some time to do what I need to do to my head in a better place.

Jennie: And you know, everything's fine. I'm fine. I just, like I said, I just feel right now. So hopefully by the time y'all hear this, I will have had a nice relaxing weekend and have done some of my tricks that I know I need to do to help get my head in a better place. And this will all be passed, but yeah, I just thought it was important to share because I know so many others have hit a similar wall recently that just to know that there are a lot of us that have hit that wall and we're all in this together. And yeah, it just seemed like it was useful to spend my time this week, not talking about fun things that I've been doing, but just to do a check-in and let y'all know where I'm at and that you are not alone if you are also struggling right now. But, so one of the highlights of my blah-ness of the last two weeks was this week's interview. I had so much fun talking to Jamie Manson about, um, the Catholic church and their views around various reproductive health things. And I think it was a wonderful conversation. Only bummer about this is we recorded it before some news broke that a bunch of bishops are upset about the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and are urging Catholics not to take it because it used fetal cells in it. And yeah, like I just, it is wild to me that they are basically telling people to risk their lives and not get a vaccine that had that everybody needs to get. It is just wild. And I'm disappointed that Jamie and I didn't get a chance to talk about it, but you'll hear plenty of other related topics where we talk about the ways the Catholic hierarchy acts in contrast to a Catholic people. So my hope in all of this is that this is the hierarchy saying all of these things, but actually the Catholic people will go and get the vaccines because they see the health benefits. So unfortunately, we do not talk about that in the episode, so sorry. But with that, let's go to my interview with Jamie Manson, with Catholics for Choice. Hi Jamie. Thank you so much for being here today.

Jamie: Hi Jennie. Thank you. It's a thrill to be here. I am a fan.

Jennie: Yay! Do you want to take a quick second and introduce yourself and include your pronouns?

Jamie: Absolutely. So I'm Jamie Manson. My pronouns are she/her and I am President of Catholics for Choice.

Jennie: Awesome. So this one is episode that is kind of near and dear to my heart. I was raised Catholic. I went to Catholic school K-8. I had sex ed from a nun. So, this is all like real close to my heart.

Jamie: Great, great. And I think that's one of these conversations that we've definitely seen kind of an uptick in, right. With president Biden. It's like, everything's framed as well. This is what Catholics think about this.

Jennie: Yeah. But it's tends to be like what the church thinks about this. Not necessarily what people think exactly.

Jamie: That's right.

Jennie: I thought we kind of just tick through some of the like big issue areas and kind of talk a little bit about the differences so that people get a better feel of like, okay, so the church may say this, but let's see where the people are.

Jamie: Sure. Absolutely. Okay. So I think one of the first ones let's start at the beginning is sex and sexuality.

Jennie: So this one definitely hit me because sex, sex education was valuing your sexuality. So, you know, it's definitely how things were framed then.

Jamie: Right. So I wonder if you were taught the theology of the body when you were in school or some version of it. I don't know if they may not have called it that, but the theology of the body is the root of all of our problems. And it’s a, it's a theological idea developed by Pope John Paul II, but it has its roots in some older theology. And then, you know, some theological themes that developed, you know, over the course of 1800 years of theological tradition in the church. And what the theology of the body teaches is that God made men and God made women in a very specific way with very specific anatomy to signal to all of us what God's purpose is for humanity, what God's purpose is for nature and, uh, what women's roles should be in church and society and what men's role should be in church and society. So that's real, this fundamental idea is taught quite a bit in Catholic schools.

Jennie: Oh yeah, that sounds familiar.

Jamie: Okay, great. I thought it would resonate. So, and it was John Paul II who called it the theology of the body. And you'll hear a lot of, um, young people who go to more conservative Catholic universities just get so emotional about this idea. And people are really inculcated in it at schools like Notre Dame, Catholic University of America. And for a lot of my friends who later in life realized they were, they have to do a lot of deprogramming. It's so deep, this, this entrenchment of this idea, and this idea is the basis for why women can't be priests in the Catholic church. Why we can't have same-sex sexual relationships, why we can't have contraception, why the church opposes abortion. It's this fundamental idea that the only good sex is one penis and one vagina in Holy matrimony with no artificial contraception. The end. One of the things people don't realize about the Catholic teaching on sexuality is you can only, it can only be again, one penis, one vagina in Holy matrimony.

Jennie: Yeah.

Jamie: You know, there's no room for any other kind of sex. I'm going to try to keep this PG 13, but you know, oral sex, uh, manual stimulation, anytime you reach an orgasm, unless it is that very traditional missionary style sex. And if you do, it's against God's purpose for nature and for sex. And it's, it's against God's purpose for, for, um, for sex and sexuality.

Jennie: Yeah. And it feels when you get that education, it's very then shame-based right. And you know, you talked about your friends dealing with deprogramming of like having to unlearn all those things saying like I'm not, but like having to do learn all the shame that is associated around all of the issues that we are taught about.

Jamie: Yes, yes, absolutely. It's deep.

Jennie: The other, like, the next thing that we really talked about in that same conversation of my sex education was we had a couple come in who is HIV positive and talking about their experience. And of course, it was not sexually transmitted because that's not a conversation we were going to have.

Jamie: Interesting.

Jennie: Yeah, no. I remember sitting in the church and having them speak and I think this very much got into what I'm sure we'll get into later how condoms don't work. Right? So, you know, real helpful information.

Jamie: Yup. Yup. Absolutely. Yeah. I that's, I have heard many conservative Catholics make that argument. It is extremely dangerous. It has cost untold lives and particularly lives among the poorest and the most vulnerable, you know, people who are the poorest and most vulnerable are the ones that suffer from these ideologies.

And that's what keeps me up at night for sure.

Jennie : Yeah. That stuck with me so much. You know, when you saw that, then get reflected into policy, right? [Inaudible]. And I, that was around the time I was thinking about doing Peace Corps. And I was like, man, if I get stationed somewhere and I'm not allowed to talk about condoms, like I am going to be responsible for people dying. And so I couldn't do it.

Jamie: Yes. And it carries on right? I mean, one thing people don't realize, I think is that the Catholic church is the largest non-governmental provider of healthcare in the world. Yeah. One in six hospital beds belongs to them. So, if you are poor or in the rural area, and the only access you have to healthcare is a Catholic clinic or Catholic charity or mission or hospital, you are not going to get basic services that you need, especially if you're poor or you're vulnerable or in a position of powerless. Those are the people who need artificial contraception and abortion care more than anybody. And they're the ones that are most disadvantaged by this. And this goes on to this day. So, when people say to me, “well, the Catholic church doesn't matter anymore. Nobody cares anymore.” It doesn't matter if you care or not. The fact is they have enormous political power and disproportionate power on healthcare globally.

Jennie: Yeah. I mean, that's so true. We've talked about Catholic hospitals on the podcast before, and that's really problematic for people trying to access health care, especially your… most of the stories I feel like are around abortion care, but like it's not just abortion care. You know, you also see it then with the political power and using one of the largest voices speaking out against the birth control benefit or other types of reproductive healthcare, or I feel like they've also been very involved in blocking trans access to health care and anti-LGBTQ issues is the Catholic church.

Jamie: Yes, yes. And yes, they are so incredibly powerful on this issue of refusals, broadly, refusals in healthcare. They are the prime mover behind that. And if you look at the Supreme Court over the last few years and you see these cases that have taken away basic civil rights or basic rights to healthcare, it's the Catholic church. That's in the court. They're always defended by a group called the Becket Fund, which is a legal fund funded by right-wing Catholics with a lot of money. If it's a Little Sisters of the Poor or the Morrissey-Berru case or the upcoming Fulton v. Philadelphia case, the Catholic church is behind those cases. They are the ones leading this movement to take away our basic rights. And for as a Catholic, who does love aspects of her faith, I can't stand to see our faith misused in that way.

Jennie: Yeah, I, yeah. It really… that's what led to my split. Like I just, yeah, it, it broke my heart, and you know, so again, it's the difference between the church and the people, right? Although I would argue the people, people are the church, right?

Jamie: Like, so we say the hierarchy, usually the hierarchy versus the people of God. So, the people don't have these same views.

Jennie: I mean, that's right. We may be taught that and not to use birth control or condoms, but that's not the reality of people living on the ground and what they're doing. Jamie: That's correct. Yes. We know that women and pregnant people have abortions at the same rate as anyone else in the US, we know that 58% of Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. We know 68% of Catholics in the US do not want to see Roe overturned and a very large majority of Catholics…do not want to see religious liberty misused and perverted, honestly, in the way the bishops want to do that. And they also, 80% don't want to see communion denied to Catholics like Joe Biden, who espoused pro-choice viewpoints. So, there's a huge, huge [gap] between the way the hierarchy thinks and the way the people think.

Jennie: And the really unfortunate part is like, when you hear these conversations, it's often at the political level, right? So, you hear well, “Catholics are against birth control”, and those are the voices that get elevated versus, “but this is the facts on the ground”. And the fact is that they're using it. So, it gets really hard to not hard to have these conversations, but the hierarchy’s voice gets elevated so much that the reality doesn't get lifted.

Jamie: That's right. And I think that the part of that is some of that is the media, which has this weird fascination with priests and bishops. I get most of my media attention when I say something critical about bishops. It shocks me, I can say all I want about how lay Catholics think what'll get attention is when I criticize a Bishop. So, part of that is media. Another issue is that this the right wing is, you know, in a very extreme conformance group. So, it's very easy for them to mobilize the Catholic church for all of its problems is consistent about how it feels about reproductive health in general. So, you have to, they live in a very black and white universe, you know, not only is there an abortion ban, but there’s also a contraception ban, there's a ban on any kind of reproductive technologies. It's like hard-line black and white consistent. And when you think that way, it's very easy to mobilize people. And there's so much money behind it to not only money from the institutional church, but a lot of right-wing Catholics make a lot of money. We see this on the evangelical side too, and it just gets infused into these culture wars, particularly targeted at reproductive rights. Why is that? Well, of course, because these men want to control women's fertility and women's bodies, and we know that's the end game.

Jennie: And they use such emotional evoking language. Um, I've definitely told this story on the podcast before, but again, Catholic school. And I just remember going to school one day and having a friend at the time being like, “Oh, come with us this weekend. Me and my family, we're going to Madison, we're going to go save babies.” And like, I mean, “Yeah. Like who is not… I'm going to go save babies!” and then coming home and like asking my mom and having my mom be like, “huh, okay, let's sit down and talk.” And I always like give so many props to her for her sitting down and being like, “Oh, let's talk about this. And then you can figure out if you still want to go.” And then just like, kind of telling me facts. I mean, I was young, so she didn't like go into everything, but like, have you thought about this? Or what about that? And then gave me the option to still go. And so empowered me to make my own choice again, living the value truly.

Jamie: And I think that's my biggest struggle with the hierarchy’s position on abortion is that believe it or not, the Catholic tradition puts a lot of value on reason and rationality and conscience and our ability to make choices and to think in a scholarly way about issues. And, you know, Catholicism is not a Bible based religion. It takes in a host of sources in order to make it's the law, it's ethical frameworks, it's theological ideas. And so, what really bothers me is that we know that for a lot of Catholics, abortion is a morally complex issue. That's true because of so much of it is because of the, the rhetoric we get around it from a young age, I just wish the hierarchy would at least acknowledge that instead of it's always murder hard line, you know, no conversation, no exceptions. I would be happy if they just even opened up the conversation, you would be doing much more justice to the Catholic tradition of intellectual inquiry if they did that. And I think lay Catholics understand that as morally complex. And I think they want to have those, those tough conversations and those courageous conversations, but the taboo and the stigma that the church has placed is so heavy. And the punishments are so severe and swift that even progressive Catholics in a lot of spaces are afraid to say a word about it.

Jennie: Yeah. I feel like it does feel so much like stifling conversations around a whole host of progressive type issues and because their stances are so black and white and so stark that even just a tiny bit of softening in the media, it gets just trumpeted as like huge change in values when that's actually not what happened or it gets walked back the next day, like clarified that wasn't actually what they meant.

Jamie: Right…. Are you thinking of the Pope and LGBT issues? This is, you know, I was a columnist in the National Catholic Reporter for 12 years and I beat that drum so hard, which is, again, going back to the theology of the body, Pope Francis is a very, very ardent supporter of the theology of the body. And until he's able to dismantle that thinking, LGBTQ people are not going to have justice in the church. He'll frame it in terms of mercy, but mercy suggests that one is sinning. I am not sinning by loving. I do not want mercy from the church. I want justice in my church. I want to be able to get married in my church. And until I can get married in my church, you're creating shame and stigma around, around my love. And the problem. Again, can't believe I'm complaining about the media, but this is ironic. But I think that, you know, from, from the day Francis was, was elected, the media. And I can say this because I've been at the Vatican, I've been in the press room at the Vatican. Many times. He is so beloved by the media. And I think there was such a desire to have a hero, to have a white knight finally, because Benedict was so awful that they have created this narrative around him, that I find very frustrating and much of the Catholic media are, are male and white and straight, or at least closeted. And I was the only out lesbian in the Catholic media in the world. And if I were still a journalist, I still would be, and I would hear, you know, there's dog whistles in the way Francis talks. But in fact, Francis never said anything pro LGBTQ himself, it's all through hearsay. It's through “the film director said this” or “the gay man he met with said, he said, this,” he's never had the courage to say anything directly. And he certainly never written anything down. So, unless its codified, hearsay doesn't mean anything. And I have found no hope in hearsay that if we had more out people in the religious media, we would hear that more, you know, that honesty about what's going on here and how it's really not helpful.

Jennie: Yeah. It's one of those things that's been really frustrating to me is just seeing it get so elevated and people get so excited and like, I get wanting to be excited cause it would be such a momentous change. Yes. But yes, it's not yet. It's not there.

Jamie: And it's, it's harmful to say that it is because this is as it is with reproductive rights issues. The church's position on LGBTQ issues is a life or death matter. People live or die. People get beaten or imprisoned because of what the church is saying about us. So, you know, you, it's not something to take lightly and again, until it's written and until he has the courage to say it himself to the camera, you know, there's not hope in hearsay. And again, back to like the political weight, the church carries, and it quits using their bully pulpit and their power to then push anti LGBTQ policies in political spaces as well. Just like anti repro policy is, I mean, there's so many people being actively harmed by these policies truly. I mean, they came out very strong last week against the Equality Act in the same way. You know, they campaign against reproductive health or worker rights. You know, if you're LGBTQ, in fact, you know, this latest ruling in the Supreme Court, this Morrissey-Berru ruling, which again, it was a Catholic school in court fighting for the right to fire anyone they deem as a minister. So it's not even LGBTQ people that they have the right to fire. They have the right to fire you for any reason, age, gender, if you're harassed and you complain, they can follow you and they will have no, there will be no legal repercussions on them. That's the kind of thing the church is fighting for in the court is the right to not have to obey any labor laws. It's really troubling.

Jennie: And this takes me back to something you talked about earlier, but we didn't really dig into and that's religious liberty. Yes. You know, there has been just this huge broadening and expansion around how religious liberty is defined and interpreted and you see it with conscience objections. And it's just so many different things. Maybe we want to touch on some of those issues that have been coming up?

Jamie: Absolutely. So, the Morrissey-Berru case is a perfect example of, you know, using religious freedom to be able to fire people, to be able to infringe on basic civil rights in the workplace. So that's one case. We have a case coming up, Fulton v. Philadelphia. We have a situation where in March 2018, the city of Philadelphia barred Catholic social services from placing children in foster homes. Why? Because Catholic social services did not want to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. Catholic social services of course turned around and sued the city of Philadelphia, asking the court to order the city, to renew their contract. They argued this is an issue of free exercise of religion and freedom of speech. But the reality is they just want the right to discriminate. And in this case against same-sex couples and the government, the city of Philadelphia is saying, listen, it's, these are government funds. You have to obey these basic civil rights. Again, we have the Becket fund that is going to be defending the foster home. They have an incredible track record, unfortunately, in the courts. So far, if the Catholic foster home wins, this is a new ramping up in religious liberty claims because now we're talking about government funding. So, government contractors of any kind will be able to take government money and disregard basic civil rights law. So, the implications for this case, as with Morrissey-Berru are huge, and it's a real ramping up of this fight. And this is something, this is a war. The church declared in 2010, because they knew the Affordable Care Act was coming up. And they knew there would be a contraceptive mandate. They signed this, Catholic bishops and evangelical leaders and some Mormon leaders, signed this thing called the Manhattan Declaration. And they decided that this was where they were going to focus all of their efforts. Unfortunately, a few of us were paying attention back in 2010 and they really, as they do, you know, the right wing, they're just able to mobilize and pivot and always see, you know, 10 miles ahead. And now, unfortunately this is the fallout from that. The conversation around religious liberty is just so troubling.

Jennie: Yeah. It just, it just so gets flipped on its head. It's no longer about your personal religious liberty, um, which is what it was intended to be. And it now becomes a way to impose other people's religion on you. And it's just so troubling.

Jamie: It is. It's supposed to guarantee freedom from belief also, you know, not free to freedom of belief and freedom from belief and it's gotten completely twisted, unfortunately. And the hard thing is they're winning, they're winning. And you know, a lot of them, you know, if we have six Catholics on the Supreme Court, which is bizarrely, you know, disproportionate five of the six are hard line right-wing Catholics, they do not represent the consciousness of the majority of Catholics in the US and you know, so it's going to be, it's, it's going to be troubling, the court cases ahead, not just for reprisal, but for all kinds of rights where we're going to see, you know, we're going to move toward a theocracy.

Jennie: It almost feels like where rights are being eroded because religious belief is being imposed on us and our basic human rights. I think [what’s] really worrying is like this argument of we can use our government funds in any way we want.

Jamie: Yeah. That's kind of was like the last bastion of like, if you're taking government funds, you are agreeing to provide these services or do these things or not discriminate. And it's really scary. That can change. And, and in many ways, that's already happening, right? So Catholic hospitals take a lot of public funding and deny basic services to women, to trans people. In some ways it's already working. It's just this ramping up and ramping up. And the question becomes, where does it stop? Where does it stop? Like how many people have to lose rights before we wake up and see this, this right-wing religious agenda, taking over policy, taking over the court, you know, we just have to really start paying attention to what's happening here.

Jennie: So I feel like I've spent a lot of time talking about the hierarchy and we've missed a little bit because there's so much to talk about. We've kind of, you know, sprinkled it throughout. But again, what practicing Catholics, like that's not how they are living their lives. And I think that is, again, the part that needs to be elevated, right? Because those are the numbers. Those are the people who are voters and are trying to access these services.

Jamie: That's right. That's exactly right. And I get this pushback on Twitter all the time. Well, the church doesn't make its teachings based on polls. Well, the reality is the church's teaching has been developed solely by ostensibly celibate, mostly European men for centuries. And so, few of us have even had a voice in the development of these ideas and yet we're all somehow being subjected to them. So that's the first problem. The other problem with that argument is the church has always taken into account what they call the Sensus Fidelium or the sense of the faithful. Whenever it develops teachings, it's supposed to be doing that anyway. And in some cases, it has, but when it comes to issues of morals, especially sexuality, they don't want to hear a word about the experience of lay Catholics, unfortunately, because it's too scary because if they open up just a little bit on any issue, whether it's LGBTQ, whether it's contraception, they know the whole thing falls apart because it all hinges on this very rigid understanding of gender. So, they won't make a move on any of it. And it's really sad because again, lives are at stake. People are dying. The church has a lot of blood on his hands for the services that has denied, particularly the poorest and the most vulnerable in the powerless. And it should listen to the sensus. And that would be the hierarchy would be acting true to its tradition if it did. So, it's very sad. It's very sad because we have a church that really does remarkable things for the poor, for the homeless, for those who are in, you know, being trafficked, those lacking education. And then you have this very unseemly other side, where they're keeping people from basic health care that would allow them to thrive and would allow them to flourish. You know, if families in the Philippines had the opportunity to have access to contraception, they could choose the number and the timing of births. They would be able to feed their children. They would be able to educate their children. Instead, they have too many children and they have to send some of them to the slums. They could have had that access 15 years ago, but the Catholic church, the Catholic bishops spent 15 years in the courts keeping contraception out of the hands of people who needed it most. So, it does, it breaks your heart. I know it’s a lighthearted conversation. I really am fun and funny in my other life. [Laughs]

Jennie: [Laughs] I mean, that's kind of how I feel too. And like all of a sudden somebody asks me about work and I'm like, sorry, yeah, no, here, all the things I'm working on.

Jamie: Debbie Downer.

Jennie: So let's bring this conversation back to where we kind of started. And that was with that these conversations were coming up because of Joe Biden. Right? And so right now we have our very first pro-choice Catholic president and that is huge.

Jamie: It's a massive, and it is such an opportunity for him to speak as a person of faith about reproductive rights. He, not only is he Catholic, he's a practicing Catholic and he's very faithful. He goes to mass every Sunday, if not more than that, and what's remarkable to me is that his understandings of justice, he's always drawing upon his faith. He's always drawing upon the Catholic understanding of the preferential option for the poor, which is that the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized must always be our first priority, that they shouldn't only get equal care. They should get the best of everything, the best care. It's a very radical idea that comes out of liberation theology, and he is grounded in that. And that's what he draws on when he, you know, he, way before Obama, he came out in support of same-sex marriage. He drew on his Catholic faith for that idea, his, you know, support for contraception. He draws on his Catholic faith for all of his positions... So, what we're asking him to do it at Catholics for Choice is to go into those resources of his Catholic faith and say, you know what? Abortion access is also a value grounded in Catholic social justice, because it disproportionately affects people of color, the marginalized, the poor. This is an issue of social justice. He's used his grounding in Catholic social justice teaching to take some very radical steps for justice. And we're asking him to do the same. Now we know he's pro-choice, but he has been reticent about, he won't even say the word abortion right at this moment. He didn't, the word abortion never came up at the Democratic National Convention. His statement on the Roe anniversary, he did not say the word abortion. We are asking him to please say the word abortion in the state of the union that's coming up. We don't have a date yet, but to please say it because it's such an important way of de-stigmatizing the issue. He could counteract the harmful effects of the bishops, who just want to create a taboo around it by naming it, de-stigmatize it and show that this can be a social justice value.

Jennie: Yeah, I think that would be so important. And you know, his campaign had promised to end the Hyde amendment, which again, is rooted in that, you know, looking out for those who are the least, right, like people who cannot afford access to abortion should not be denied it just because they can't afford it.

Jamie: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So it is a social justice value and we hope he can see it that way.

Jamie: So we always like to wrap up, because [episodes] can be such a downer, with actions. So, what can the audience do? What actions can they take around these issues?

Jamie: Well, first of all, pay attention, pay attention to all the ways the Catholic church is trying to have power over policy-- that helps enormously. There are so many Catholic elected officials serving at all levels of government. We would love to empower them more to speak and say, I am Catholic, and I am opposed to these restrictions on abortion are these restrictions to contraceptive access all these restrictions on sex ed. So, we'd love to see more of that. Obviously run for office, run for office, run for office. I think if someone like AOC, who's a Catholic and who claims it in the very fiber of her being, and when she fights for justice, she says, it's because I'm a Catholic. We need a lot more of that. We can't have conservative Catholics controlling the narrative, and it's not just Catholics, any kind of person of faith, speaking out as pro-choice and pro sexuality education and pro health and pro sexuality and saying this is part of my faith. This is part of my commitment to justice that was grounded in my faith. That would be a very, very powerful thing.

Jennie: Well, Jamie, thank you so much for being here. Just so fun talking to you.

Jamie: Glad to even though it was heavy.

Jennie: Okay. Y'all I hope you enjoyed my interview with Jamie. Like I said, I had so much fun talking to her. It was a really wonderful conversation. And with that, I think we'll just wrap up.

Jennie: Thanks for listening everyone. And we'll see you on our next episode of RePROS Fight Back. For more information, including show notes from this episode and previous episodes, please visit our website at reprosfightback.com. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at RePROS Fight Back, or on Instagram at reprosfb. If you like our show, please help others find it by sharing it with your friends and subscribing, rating and reviewing us on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

take action