David E. Weisberg: Don’t pick and choose morals from Pope

Your June 21 editorial “Moral climate” applauded what you see as the fact that the pope “has turned the climate argument from a political debate to a moral one.” And you clearly believe that his wisdom in dealing with moral issues is unassailable; you certainly endorse his stance on climate change.

Yet climate change is a very peripheral issue in Catholic religious and moral doctrine. There are moral issues that are much more central, including the belief that abortion is the wrongful taking of human life and that homosexual acts (but not people) are unnatural and sinful. These doctrines have been endorsed by this pope and all his predecessors over centuries.

Yet I doubt that your editorial page would be endorsing those positions. If you’re going to trumpet the pope’s moral authority with respect to one of his views, it is difficult to understand how, consistent with intellectual integrity, you can fail to embrace all his moral views.

If he’s the “moral expert,” you ought to be following all his moral advice. If he’s not, why is his moral advice on one particular issue even worth noting?

This story was originally published June 27, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "David E. Weisberg: Don’t pick and choose morals from Pope."