Religious coverage in the media is a strange game. Last week a painfully thoughtful, nuanced and balanced pastoral letter from the Anglican bishops attracted ferocious attacks from the right wing press and conservative politicians. This week the Catholic bishops delivered a rather more fiery, short and direct letter which has attracted barely a whimper of coverage.

Where the Anglican letter stayed broadly theoretical, focusing on an overarching model of a new model of politics, society and public morality the Catholic letter gets right to the point. Catholics are encouraged to examine where their candidates stand on a series of criteria none of which are surprising (they match closely to the concerns of Catholic social teaching, human dignity and morality) but which are certainly stated more frankly and with more of an eye on direct intervention than the Anglican equivalent.

The first suggested point sets the stall out with a short sharp paragraph on respecting human life particularly in relation to abortion, euthanasia and assisted dying. It urges better palliative care and (no doubt to the chagrin of some) a "robust National Health Service". The letter is clear that "whom you vote for is a matter for you alone" but it leaves little doubt on what it sees as some of the limits of an authentically Catholic position. For example one of the longer paragraphs is an uncompromising defence of Catholic schools, held up as a key issue on which to quiz candidates.

It also passes with a far less critical eye over a number of issues than the Anglican effort to do so. Overseas development and the environment are given only brief passing treatment without offering much of a clear stance beyond a sense that both are generally important. Immigration is dealt with fairly uncritically, lacking any real effort at allowing for the strain that immigration can cause on some communities. On Europe it holds up the values of solidarity and subsidiarity but holds just short of saying if the EU itself is the best political model to support them.

There is one apparent concession to the general short, clear and unambiguous series of points on which Catholics might press their candidates and it is perhaps the most revealing insight into the mood of the English and Scottish churches. An apparently bald statement that marriage between a man and a woman is the building block of society gets a slightly surprising and ambiguous note later that "today families are more diverse and fragile than they were and there are many families of all kinds where love and commitment can be found". No such qualification  (for that is at least how it will be portrayed) is forthcoming on any other issue, perhaps a sign that after a long and difficult fight the bishops want to move the political battleground for Catholics away from gay marriage debates.

That last point of interest not withstanding it is surprising and, for the bishops at least, probably a little disappointing that what is in many ways a more direct political intervention into the election than the Anglicans attempted has received such relatively meager coverage. One senses that unlike the Anglican bishops there were one or two points on which the Cardinal was spoiling for a fight, for which it seems he will have to wait.

Ben Ryan is a researcher at Theos

Image from wikimedia available in the public domain.