First - I did read the whole article (not just this excerpt).

Second - the reason I must respond is that Carroll engages in some assertions that I have seen elsewhere and increasingly find tiresome and arrogant.

It is the sweeping generalizations about the purpose of “religion”.

Religion aims not to “save” from an unmerciful God, but to reveal that God’s mercy is complete. ... Politics and religion, like art and music, aim to accomplish the same thing, which is to overcome absurdity with meaning. Religion does this by seeing God’s hand in history.

Oh. Thanks for telling us. Thanks for telling all religions on the planet (not just Roman Catholic Christianity) what they are really all about. This is what I find so irritating. It sounds nice to speak about “religion” in such bland saccharine ways. “All religions basically teach love”. But what if a particular religion does not? Or more precisely would tell you it does not? (Charles Kimball’s When Religion Becomes Evil comes to mind. Warmly welcomed by many who do not I think recognize the intellectual imperialism in it.) Who are we to tell other religions are all about?

My other criticism is that Carroll says the Catholic bishops are saying more than they actually say - another common rhetorical mistake.

Does God send people to hell if they vote wrong? You would think so if you listened to the American Catholic bishops, who said in November that forbidden political choices “have an impact on the individual’s salvation.” The five Catholics running for president all hold positions that, in the bishops’ view, might earn their supporters eternal damnation. Whenever preachers appeal to hellfire as a way of reinforcing injunctions, you can bet they have failed to make a persuasive moral argument.

What is discouraging here is that the bishops, aiming to reinforce their squandered moral authority, are resuscitating an image of a threatening, violent God that religious people generally, and Catholics in particular, have struggled to leave behind.

Excuse me did the bishops actually say that? To say “this may have an impact on your salvation” is not necessarily the same as saying “you will go to hell… eternal damnation”. Did the bishops ever actually mention hell(fire)? This is counterargument by exaggeration. Carroll casually assumes that “salvation” means… well it means you do not go to hell. And impact on salvation means hellfire and eternal damnation. Of course some would characterize “salvation” that way (especially many conservative evangelical Protestants). Would an Orthodox priest discuss it that way? (Almost certainly not.) Would a Catholic bishop? Or do they have a broader understanding of “salvation” than “not hell”?

I might characterize Carroll’s piece as arrogant and intellectually lazy/sloppy.

In other words, a normal James Carroll piece.