Why is it a surprise that the Catholic Church is against abortion? This list of religions that are ok with abolition is short. It would be quite a big thing for a catholic to turn a blind eye to and not consider when voting.
What's surprising is the American Catholic priesthood tends to go after pro-choice politicians, but not pro-death-penalty ones, despite the church seeing both as similarly objectionable. The political bent is fairly new.
The Pope has messaged that he'd rather they butt out. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/world/europe/pope-francis...
[EDIT: This first paragraph is incorrect as is pointed out in a response; it is left unchanged for context of the discussion.]
They are not viewed as “similarly objectionable”. The death penalty is viewed as being within the legitimate power of government doctrinally, but the present leadership of the Church views prudentially that the conditions which allow it do not occur in the modern world. Direct abortion is viewed as doctrinally prohibited. This is an important theological distinction because the Church heirarchy is viewed (borrowing some language from law) as having binding authority on doctrine, but only (very strongly) persuasive authority on prudential application of doctrine to particular material contexts.
That being said, you are correct that the political actions of the American Catholic heirarchy (more the bishops than the priesthood, and not all of them) are rather unbalanced (and not just on this pair of issues) in a way which is not easily explained by any coherent appeal to the actual social teaching of the Catholic Church.
Respectfully, no. The catechism reads, "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person"[0]. This is a recent revision, and what you say reflects what was officially taught until 2017.
[0]: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/01/20/capital-punis...
If one views the argument that the prior teachings were infallibly proclaimed as incorrect, than there is no need to reconcile them; the prior teachings were simply in error.
Unsurprisingly, Francis has not only identified the previous approach as in error, he has both explained where the error is and provided an (unnecessary) explanation of what led people to make the error.
> there is considerable confusion about this change throughout the church and Pope Francis has not really offered any clarification
No one is confused or has any need of clarification. “It is per se contrary to the Gospel” isn’t the kind of statement that leaves a whole lot of room for different readings.
What there is is disagreement.
Arguably, the most these writings about what has been implicitly infallibly taught and therefore cannot be changed by a Pope despite the absence of an explicit dogma tell you is what the author is very concerned that there is an insufficient commitment to among the heirarchy and probably a risk of imminent change by a Pope, which the author is lobbying against.
(Or, as in this case, what has recently been actually changed by a Pope that the author wishes everyone to pretend has not.)
Why they focus so much on abortion is suspect indeed.
You are incorrect, but this is also a specious argument. The list of religious that were anti-slavery was short at the outset of the 19th century and a mile long by the outset of the 20th. Church doctrine is not immune to influence by popular sentiment.