"U.S. Bishops Urged to Challenge Obama" By Laurie Goodstein

Like the last one I read, this article also deals with what Obama's election means for different groups of people. While the other story discussed the meaning of Obama's victory in terms of black Christian ministers, this one focuses on Catholic bishops and Catholics as a whole. The article said that Catholic bishops plan to discuss the issues of stem cell research and abortion with the new president-elect.

I felt the writer did a good job of attributing in some parts and a poor job in others. For example, when she says that abortion "has polarized the American electorate for decades," is this her own observation, or did someone say this? I wasn't sure because she's talking about what advocates of the "common good" say, but she offsets this statement with hyphens. It made it seem more like her own personal aside rather than something the advocates actually said. She also says that "several Catholic bishops skirted close to endorsing the Republican candidate for president" without attributing the statement to anyone. She explains why it could be believed that the bishops did come close ("by proclaiming that Catholics could not in good conscience vote..."), but she never says who believed that. It seems that this is only her personal observation, but how is she qualified to be the judge?

However, there were many statements that the writer did attribute to bishops and once to a different reverend who "chronicles" the bishops. At the end of the article, she provides differing opinions between bishops. This helps the article to avoid being one-sided. One bishop said that the "Faithful Citizenship" document did not work, while another said it did what it was supposed to do. I think it was good that she provided two opinions, but she probably could have included more from the bishop who felt the document didn't work. His opinion isn't really explained in the article. I did like that the other bishop was able to explain his opinions. He also shed some light on the actual purpose of the document.

The issue of denying Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights was also brought up at the end. I think this is an interesting topic, but since it's not really the main issue of the article, I understand why it was just put in at the end. This story also ended with a good quote.

Now, this is just a question I have: how accurate are exit polls really? This article says that 54% of Catholics voted for Obama according to exit polls. The way the reporter says this makes it seem like that's the final word. It is absolutely definite that 54% of Catholics voted this way. While she's not lying when she says exit polls said this, I think there could have been some clarification on the accuracy of exit polls. Just because an exit poll says Catholics or Muslims or blacks or Asians voted a certain way, doesn't mean that the total population actually reflected that measurement. Not every voter is polled as they exit a booth. I know that the voting locations I covered for The Daily Illini here at the university did not involve exit polls. I'm just not sure how reliable exit polls are.

Also, I thought it was interesting that the article used the phrase "anti-abortion." I think the terms "anti-abortion" and "pro-abortion" are much more biased than "pro-choice" and "pro-life." In fact, when I went on the Planned Parenthood Web site for the feature story I'm working on right now for this class, the site referred to the group as "pro-choice." This made me think that those terms are acceptable. For that reason, I was surprised this article chose to say "anti-abortion" rather than "pro-life."


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/us/politics/11bishops.html?ref=opinion