The consistent ethic of life is an integrated approach to moral analysis, concerned with the protection and nurturing of human life across the entire spectrum of human existence, from conception to death.

It encompasses such life-issues as abortion, capital punishment, war, social justice, human rights, and euthanasia. The approach is also known as "the seamless garment."

The late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago first proposed the consistent ethic of life in a series of addresses given in 1983. His fellow bishops adopted the approach and incorporated it into each of their quadrennial statements, issued just prior to U.S. presidential elections.

The approach is encapsulated in the following paragraph taken from the bishops' most recent statement, "Faithful Citizenship," published in October, 2003, in the run-up to this year's national election:

"We do not wish to instruct persons on how they should vote by endorsing or opposing candidates. We hope the voters will examine the position of candidates on the full range of issues as well as on their personal integrity, philosophy and performance. We are convinced that a consistent ethic of life should be the moral framework from which to address issues in the political arena."

Cardinal Bernardin gave several other addresses on the consistent ethic of life, including one in 1988 to the annual meeting of diocesan pro-life directors, while serving as chairman of the episcopal Conference's Pro-Life Activities Committee (see "Voters and the Consistent Ethic," Origins, 9/1/1988).

He offered three reasons in support of the consistent ethic of life approach. First, it is rooted in the Catholic tradition and has been reaffirmed throughout church history --- in the early church's opposition to both abortion and war, the Second Vatican Council's condemnation of both abortion and acts of war against civilian populations, the 1983 pastoral letter of the U.S. Catholic Bishops, "The Challenge of Peace," and the teachings of Pope John Paul II.

Second, it has "value in building up our unity as a church involved in diverse ministries." This approach, Cardinal Bernardin insisted, allows the church to emphasize that "its many efforts on behalf of suffering humanity constitute a coherent defense of human dignity wherever it is threatened."

The third reason is the approach's "capacity to build up a constituency for the protection of human life in our society....In this arena the church's insistence on the dignity of life in debates regarding issues as diverse as abortion, nuclear war, pornography and economic justice makes its voice distinctive. It also makes it unusually appealing to many people at various points along the political spectrum."

At the same time, Cardinal Bernardin rejected the common complaint raised by single-issue, anti-abortion Catholics against the consistent ethic of life approach. This approach, he said, "is emphatically not a strategy for downplaying the issue of abortion in the church or in society."

However, there is now a significant minority in the Bishops' Conference itself which is opposed to the consistent ethic of life and would like to repeal it as a moral framework for evaluating life-issues. For this minority, some of whose number played a highly visible role in the recent U.S. election, abortion is the only life-issue that matters --- to the point where it is said to "trump" all others.

So strong is this emerging backlash against the consistent ethic of life that many bishops apparently broke with precedent last month and withheld their votes from Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Washington, one of ten candidates for Conference president.

Bishop Skylstad had been vice president for the past three years and, by tradition, should have received 70-80 percent support on the first ballot. Although he was elected on the first ballot, it was with only 52 percent of the votes cast.

A number of bishops apparently voted against him because he had explicitly promoted the consistent ethic of life approach during the recent political campaign. He had not argued, as several of his brother-bishops did, that the election hinged on abortion alone and that a Catholic was morally obliged to vote against Senator Kerry.

If there was any doubt about this, papal biographer George Weigel made it absolutely clear in a recent interview in the National Catholic Reporter. He dismissed the most recent voter guide issued by the Conference as "a last gasp effort to hold onto the tattered seamless garment," and praised those individual bishops who had defied the Conference's longstanding policy against a one-issue approach and against "endorsing or opposing" candidates for election.

However, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, the most visible advocate of the Weigel view, received only 5 votes for the Conference presidency and only 6 for the vice-presidency.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.