The debate over a constitutional amendment on abortion took a new turn as Archbishop Joseph Naumann admonished a state senator for why she voted against the measure.
Naumann, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, wrote a lengthy piece that was published Friday in The Leaven, the official newspaper of the archdiocese.
Naumann took aim at Democratic state Sen. Pat Pettey’s explanation of vote on Jan. 29 when the Senate passed the amendment reversing a state Supreme Court decision that found the right to an abortion is protected by the Kansas Constitution.
Pettey cited her Catholic faith when she was among 12 senators who voted against the amendment.
“A constitutional amendment would allow increased government overreach into our private lives,” Pettey said at the time.
“These measures are a violation of the core principles my Catholic faith teaches, namely the priority of conscience, the importance of social justice and the respect for religious freedom,” she said.
Naumann took exception to Pettey’s explanation.
“Sadly, Sen. Pettey’s statement is fraught with multiple errors in logic and Catholic teaching,” the archbishop wrote.
“By invoking her Catholic faith for her reason for voting against the amendment, the senator actually created an even more serious moral problem for herself.
“The senator not only has misapplied Catholic moral teaching by her vote, but she is actually attempting to confuse others about Church teaching.”
Pettey, a lifelong Catholic, said she stood by her explanation of the vote when the Senate considered the amendment.
“I respect the archbishop. He is the leader of the church here in our diocese,” Pettey said in an interview Sunday.
“But I feel that as a woman and as an elected official that I have to make a decision that respects all the people that I represent,” she said.
She thought the archbishop was politicizing an issue that has already sunk the Capitol into turmoil that may claim Medicaid expansion — and possibly other legislation — as a victim.
The failure of the amendment to pass the House has the Legislature mired in a slog as leading legislators try to figure out how to break an impasse that has stalled two of the biggest pieces of legislation this year.
“When you’re the archbishop and you use the weekly paper that goes out to this diocese as your platform and use a full page to degrade me as a senator and my position and what I said…how can I not think it’s politicizing it?” she said.
The archbishop’s commentary came the same day as the Senate majority leader pushed back against attempts to link Medicaid expansion to the abortion issue.
The majority leader’s effort to defend Medicaid expansion bill culminated a week of emails and counter emails from leading lawmakers on the constitutional amendment
Naumann, meanwhile, homed in on Pettey’s remark about social justice in her explanation of vote.
He cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which he quoted from in his column:
“Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception,” the column quoted.
“From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
Naumann added, “Sadly, the senator does not seem to understand that the right to life is one of the foundation principles of the church’s social justice teachings.”
Pettey said the archbishop’s criticisms “hurt.”
“It’s unfortunate that when people have the ability, they will use whatever vehicles they are able to to make their point, and that’s exactly what the archbishop is doing,” she said.
“I am a practicing Catholic, and that’s not true for a lot of people any more,” she said.
“I plan to continue to practice my faith,” she said. “I know that there are many other women and men that believe that we have to embrace everyone and that there are difficult decisions that have to be made sometimes in life.”
Naumann has been an outspoken critic of abortion over the years. He is now chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
In 2008, Naumann asked former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to refrain from taking communion because of her support of abortion rights.
Four years ago, Naumann authored a piece in The Leaven about Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine’s support for abortion rights.
He wrote the piece after watching Kaine in a 2016 debate for vice presidential candidates.
“It was painful to listen to Sen. Kaine repeat the same tired and contorted reasoning to profess his personal opposition to abortion while justifying his commitment to keep it legal,” Naumann wrote at the time.
In 2017, the Kansas City archdiocese cut ties with the Girl Scouts because it believed the group had ties to Planned Parenthood — a claim the Girl Scouts said was not true.
