Are right-wing media personalities partly responsible for Dr. George Tiller’s murder? How about Catholic bishops?

This NY Times article notes that “Within nine hours of Dr. Tiller’s death, Salon magazine had catalogued references to him on 29 episodes of `The O’Reilly Factor’ from 2005 to 2009. In one, Mr. O’Reilly talks about him and the lawmakers who supported his `business of destruction,’ saying, `I wouldn’t want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day.'”

And what about Catholic bishops like Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, who took to the floor at USCCB meeting last fall and said it would be a “privilege to die tomorrow to bring about an end to abortion”? Or, the newly retired Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, who denounced Obama’s agenda as “aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic”? Both statements were widely covered by the secular and religious media.

Scott Roeder, who police suspect murdered Tiller, published some of his anti-abortion rights in the newletter Prayer & Action News, which describes itself as a “trumpet call for the Armies of God to assemble.”

Burt Neuborne, a professor of law at New York University and a former legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, tells the Times that:

“In every complex political setting, there’s a tendency to single out the loudest of the other side and claim that what they’re doing is not political speech but is incitement,” he said. “It’s important not to allow that to happen. It would have a dramatic effect on the ability to speak vigorously.”

But Mark Silk, a professor of religion and politics at Trinity College, says it’s time for the fire-breathers to drink some water.

“Will any responsibility be shouldered by Bishop Finn? I’m not holding my breath. But somebody in the pro-life movement should have the decency at least to entertain the possibility that what happened today in Wichita is a consequence of the heating up of anti-abortion rhetoric since the election of Barack Obama. And to urge that it be cooled down.”