The Florida bishops (with two exceptions, Wenski and Dewane) have been cowering on this and one of them (my bishop) sent out a letter this weekend which he claimed came from the NCCB and the Florida bishops’ council telling people that they could not distribute certain material around the church, etc. The things he mentioned were the Priests for Life issues guide and a number of other orthodox things, none of which endorsed a party or a politician. My bishop used to be pro-life, but now he’s a “seamless garment” type, and he obviously is going to vote for Obama. The problem is that he wants to make sure the laity doesn’t hear any inconvenient facts, and he is using this approach - “the IRS is going to shut us down if you hand out the Priests for Life brochure anywhere near the church” - to scare people into silence.
I wish I had a good bishop like Farrell or Vann. I was truly appalled to see a bishop (or maybe an entire state council of them) using the IRS to terrorize his own people.
Why did he change?