Vote for me and I’ll do what the Pope says. That’s apparently how some Catholic church authorities expect politicians of their faith to campaign, judging from a U.S. Catholic report (April). A January 16 Vatican document, “Doctrinal Note of Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life,” calls on all Catholics “to respect and protect the rights of the human embryo, safeguard the family, protect children, oppose attempts to legally equate cohabitation or homosexual unions with marriage, promote religious freedom, work against ‘modern forms of slavery’ including drug addiction and prostitution, work for economic justice, and promote peace.” A few days later Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento told California governor Gray Davis that he should quit taking communion until he starts using his office to block abortion rights.
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Bush league. According to a January 10 press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (peer.org/press), the number of environmental enforcement criminal cases referred from the EPA to the Department of Justice in 1998: 486. In 2001: 328.
