Voting Our Conscience, Not Our Religion [Catholic Prof Says "Vote Kerry"]

The New York Times ^ | 10/11/04 | Mark W. Roche, Notre Dame University

[dukeman]

South Bend, Ind. — For more than a century, from the wave of immigrants in the 19th century to the election of the first Catholic president in 1960, American Catholics overwhelmingly identified with the Democratic Party. In the past few decades, however, that allegiance has largely faded. Now Catholics are prototypical "swing voters": in 2000, they split almost evenly between Al Gore and George W. Bush, and recent polls show Mr. Bush ahead of Senator John Kerry, himself a Catholic, among white Catholics.

There are compelling reasons - cultural, socioeconomic and political - for this shift. But if Catholic voters honestly examine the issues of consequence in this election, they may find themselves returning to their Democratic roots in 2004.

The parties appeal to Catholics in different ways. The Republican Party opposes abortion and the destruction of embryos for stem-cell research, both positions in accord with Catholic doctrine. Also, Republican support of various faith-based initiatives, including school vouchers, tends to resonate with Catholic voters.

Members of the Democratic Party, meanwhile, are more likely to criticize the handling of the war in Iraq, to oppose capital punishment and to support universal heath care, environmental stewardship, a just welfare state and more equitable taxes. These stances are also in harmony with Catholic teachings, even if they may be less popular among individual Catholics.

When values come into conflict, it is useful to develop principles that help place those values in a hierarchy. One reasonable principle is that issues of life and death are more important than other issues. This seems to be the strategy of some Catholic and church leaders, who directly or indirectly support the Republican Party because of its unambiguous critique of abortion.

[Tamar1973]

Voting Our Conscience, Not Our Religion [Catholic Prof Says "Vote Kerry"]

If one claims to be Catholic but their "conscience" deviates significantly from Roman Catholic Church tradition, they need to either reconsider the state of their conscience or the status of their membership in the Roman Catholic Church.

[NYer]

Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics

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).

Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list

[paulsy]

I'd say pray if your conscience and faith are not aligned.

[DarthVader]

I am praying for him. He is in grave danger.

[Califelephant]

Speaking of millstones, my wife and I say a prayer every night that Kerry's position on abortion will be a millstone around his neck that will pull down his campaign and his party.

[Mount Athos]

Polls are showing that Kerry is collapsing among Catholic voters and religious ones in general, even moderates. So NYT, the media wing of the Democrat party, is pushing hard to get them to dump their values and vote Kerry.

[Tamar1973]

...famous graduate of Georgetown U and his lack of moral conviction

Someone else posted and asked if Clinton was Catholic. The answer is NO. Just because one goes to Georgetown U doesn't make one Catholic.

In fact, Clinton got into some trouble for going to South Africa and pretending to be Catholic by taking communion.

[Unam Sanctam]

Didn't Cardinal Newman say that if one's conscience were to be at odds with the teaching of the Church, then the honest thing to do would be to leave the Church?

[MKM1960]

You've got that right. After ND's swing to the left the only donations my father made were to the Monogram Club so he could get Football tickets. He received a BS in Accounting in 44 and a JD in 49. My mother still received his private class newsletter after his death until her death in 2002. There were/are a majority that mourned the path the college took in the 60's. Most of them looked at Hesburgh as a traitor to the Church. God Bless the Old School men of Notre Dame.

[Salvation]

Any Catholic who would vote for Kerry is uniformed.

Kerry is a Catholic in Name Only (CINO) and does not deserve the Catholic vote!

[DarthVader]

I have been praying his campaign into ruins and I'm not stopping until Nov 3.

[Earl B.]

As a Notre Dame alumnus myself, I am embarrassed. This article is very thin on intellectual honesty. What, exactly, is a more equitable tax structure, in his view? How does the Iraqi conflict violate just war theory? How are the Dems better than the GOP on environmental stewardship? How is the democratic view on welfare benefits superior to the GOP view? Is the death penalty really the moral equivalent of an abortion? Some details would have been nice.

But, I suspect that his answers would be: John Kerry has a plan! Kerry's tax plan (soak the "rich") is better. We should have allowed more time for the inspectors to do their jobs (like Kerry says!). Republicans want to poison our air and our water! Kyoto! More people below the (ever-rising) poverty line! Death penalty is murder!

At any rate, liberals at ND is nothing new. My only solace is that ND is less radically liberal than most other Universities, and therefore looks conservative in comparison.

By the the way, the Dean's e-mail address is:

Mark.W.Roche.5@nd.edu

If you want to correspond with him.

[Salvation]

President Bush: Shares Our Catholic Values

President Bush and John Kerry: On the Issues Important to Catholics

"Seismic" Catholic Shift to Bush [Insight ]

Catholics for Bush

Analyst cites abortion stance as some Catholic voters shift to Bush

Poll: Catholics Trending Towards Bush

Kerry Losing Ground Among White Catholics

Voting Our Conscience, Not Our Religion [Catholic Prof Says "Vote Kerry"]

[ClearCase_guy]

I make no attempt to speak for any other religious group, but as a Christian, I cannot (absolutely cannot) imagine how any good Christian could vote for John Kerry.

Something like 90% of the country claims to be Christian. I would like Kerry to get about 10% of the vote. But I know he'll get more than that because a lot of "Christians" don't care about the human soul (their own or others).

[hobson]

Ping! Environment more important than life. Unbelievable.

[Salvation]

Anyone who supports (or votes for Kerry) must face the responsibility of that action>

Catechism of the Catholic Church and what it says about those who support abortion

[Charles Martel]

No big surprise here. The Jesuits will twist every which way to promote their "social justice" agenda - regardless of the Church's teachings on these issues. Twenty years ago, the Jesuit-run universities were not as liberal as public college campuses, but that is no longer true.

[Dat Mon]

I thought it would be obvious sarcasm. I thought I didn't need a tag for it.

Somebody please tell me that there are not Catholic nuns out there teaching that partial birth abortion is a matter of personal choice.

If so, then things are much worse culturally than I even imagined.

I believe that the overwhelming majority of Catholics abhor this practice.

[RabidBartender]

Putting the party before God. Certainly not the order I'd go.

[OriginalChristian]

I believe that Notre Dame is a Jesuit school, so no wonder there are some rogue so-called 'intellectuals' there that think they know better than the pope or the teachings of the Magisterium.

No Catholic can vote for Kerry in good conscience without bringing upon himself grave sin in enabling the continuation of procurred abortion and the extension of the culture of death. He is unsupportable.

I don't care if he has a rock solid, foolproof, free plan to solve healthcare. HIS OPINIONS ARE VAPID, HOLLOW WORDS. He is WRONG ON LIFE and therefore his voice on EVERYTHING ELSE IS A NON-SEQUITUR. These other issues are irrelevant in Kerry's case because he's wrong on LIFE. It can't get much simpler than that.