Catholic Leaders Stick Up For Catholic Doctrine

I like this:

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront
the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights...

"They cannot call themselves Catholic when they violate such a core belief
as the dignity of the unborn," Naumann said Tuesday.

They specifically went after theoretically-Catholic Joe Biden, who doesn't think that Catholics need to believe in Catholicism.

Can anyone explain to me why Catholics tend to be so casual on this point? If I were a secular voter, I could see how Catholic arguments would be unpersuasive. "The Church shouldn't force its beliefs down other peoples' throats," or something to that effect.

But consider this: the Church condemns murder. No one argues that just because the Church condemns murder, it is too political and should shut up, or that murder should be legalized so that people can exercise their free will. Basically, no one ever argues "I disapprove of murder, and I wouldn't want anyone in my family to murder someone else, but I don't think the government has any business stopping people from murdering anyone else."

For a secular voter, the question remains whether abortion is murder. That is not the case with Catholics. Your Church teaches you that life begins at conception. Either you think your Church is wrong (in which case you're a pretty sucky Catholic), or you acknowledge it is right but you are cool with murder. Not just any murder, but murder of the unbaptized unborn.

If you don't care what the Pope says, why bother calling yourself a Catholic?

(Obviously I'm not talking about all Catholics. I'm talking about the 54% of American Catholics who voted for Obama, who supports legal infanticide and federal funding to kill fetuses.)