[NYer]

A CATHOLIC VOTER’S GUIDE -
THE FIVE NON-NEGOTIABLE ISSUES
These five current issues concern actions that are intrinsically evil and must never be promoted by the law. Intrinsically evil actions are those which fundamentally conflict with the moral law and can never be deliberately performed under any circumstances. It is a serious sin to deliberately endorse or promote any of these actions, and no candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any action contrary to the non-negotiable principles involved in these issues.

1. Abortion

The Church teaches that, regarding a law permitting abortions, it is "never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or to vote for it" (EV 73). Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide.

The unborn child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child's, who should not suffer death for others' sins.

2. Euthanasia

Often disguised by the name "mercy killing," euthanasia also is a form of homicide. No person has a right to take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.

In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed, by action or omission, out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include intentionally doing something intrinsically evil to another person (cf. EV 73).

3. Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Human embryos are human beings. "Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo" (CRF 4b).

Recent scientific advances show that often medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there is no valid medical argument in favor of using embryonic stem cells. And even if there were benefits to be had from such experiments, they would not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.

4. Human Cloning

"Attempts . . . for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through 'twin fission,' cloning, or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union" (RHL I:6).

Human cloning also involves abortion because the "rejected" or "unsuccessful" embryonic clones are destroyed, yet each clone is a human being.

5. Homosexual "Marriage"

True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recognition of any other union as "marriage" undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in what is an objectively immoral arrangement.

"When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral" (UHP 10).

ABBREVIATIONS

CCC Catechism of the Catholic Church

CPL Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Notes on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life

CRF Pontifical Council for the Family, Charter of the Rights of the Family

EV John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life)

RHL Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation

UHP Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons

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Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics

Catholic Ping - Come home for Easter and experience God’s merciful love. Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

[Steve_Seattle]

The persecution has already started, with such actions as the de-funding of the Boy Scouts because of their opposition to gay scoutmasters and efforts in some countries to criminalize anti-gay speech. Anyone who thinks the gay lobby is a bunch of limp-wristed, harmless nice guys is sadly mistaken. They will do their best to punish and ostracize those who don't accept their agenda in its entirety.

[irish_links]

I hope that there are many more where Archbishop Burke came from. It gives us something (another thing) to pray for during lent, doesn't it?

Regards

[frogjerk]

Wisdom 2:1-24

They who said among themselves, thinking not aright: "Brief and troublous is our lifetime; neither is there any remedy for man's dying, nor is anyone known to have come back from the nether world.

For haphazard were we born, and hereafter we shall be as though we had not been; Because the breath in our nostrils is a smoke and reason is a spark at the beating of our hearts,

And when this is quenched, our body will be ashes and our spirit will be poured abroad like unresisting air.

Even our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will recall our deeds. So our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and will be dispersed like a mist pursued by the sun's rays and overpowered by its heat.

For our lifetime is the passing of a shadow; and our dying cannot be deferred because it is fixed with a seal; and no one returns.

Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are real, and use the freshness of creation avidly.

Let us have our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no springtime blossom pass us by;

let us crown ourselves with rosebuds ere they wither.

1 Let no meadow be free from our wantonness; everywhere let us leave tokens of our rejoicing, for this our portion is, and this our lot.

Let us oppress the needy just man; let us neither spare the widow nor revere the old man for his hair grown white with time.

But let our strength be our norm of justice; for weakness proves itself useless.

Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings, Reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us

He professes to have knowledge of God and styles himself a child of the LORD.

To us he is the censure of our thoughts; merely to see him is a hardship for us,

Because his life is not like other men's, and different are his ways.

He judges us debased; he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure. He calls blest the destiny of the just and boasts that God is his Father.

Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him.

For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes.

With revilement and torture let us put him to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience.

Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him."

These were their thoughts, but they erred; for their wickedness blinded them

And they knew not the hidden counsels of God; neither did they count on a recompense of holiness nor discern the innocent souls' reward.

For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him.

But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it.

[jusduat]

Should be the guide for any that would call themself Christian