Posted on 10/01/2008 11:17:38 AM PDT by presidio9
I believe that abortion is an unspeakable evil, yet I support Sen. Barack Obama, who is pro-choice. I do not support him because he is pro-choice, but in spite of it. Is that a proper moral choice for a committed Catholic?
As one of the inaugural members of the U.S. bishops' National Review Board on clergy sexual abuse, and as a canon lawyer, I answer with a resounding yes.
Despite what some Republicans would like Catholics to believe, the list of what the church calls "intrinsically evil acts" does not begin and end with abortion. In fact, there are many intrinsically evil acts, and a committed Catholic must consider all of them in deciding how to vote.
Last November, the U.S. bishops released "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," a 30-page document that provides several examples of intrinsically evil acts: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, torture, racism, and targeting noncombatants in acts of war.
Obama's support for abortion rights has led some to the conclusion that no Catholic can vote for him. That's a mistake. While I have never swayed in my conviction that abortion is an unspeakable evil, I believe that we have lost the abortion battle -- permanently. A vote for Sen. John McCain does not guarantee the end of abortion in America. Not even close.
Let's suppose Roe v. Wade were overturned. What would happen? The matter would simply be kicked back to the states -- where it was before 1973. Overturning Roe would not abolish abortion. It would just mean that abortion would be legal in some states and illegal in others. The number of abortions would remain unchanged as long as people could travel.
McCain has promised to appoint "strict constructionist" judges who would presumably vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. But is that sufficient reason for a Catholic to vote Republican? To answer that question, let's look at the rest of the church's list of intrinsically evil acts.
Both McCain and Obama get failing marks on embryonic stem-cell research, which Catholic teaching opposes. The last time the issue was up for a vote in the Senate, both men voted to ease existing restrictions.
But what about an unjust war? In 2003, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) said flatly that "reasons sufficient for unleashing a war against Iraq did not exist." McCain voted for it; Obama opposed it.
What about torture? "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," according to Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated abuses in Iraq. Obama opposes the use of torture in all cases; McCain, himself a victim of torture, voted to allow the CIA to use so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- a euphemism for torture.
How, some may ask, can I compare these evils with abortion? The right to abortion is guaranteed by the federal judiciary's interpretation of the Constitution. And while the president appoints federal judges, the connection between a president's appointments and the decisions rendered by his appointees is tenuous at best. After all, in 1992, five Republican-appointed justices voted to uphold Roe v. Wade in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Yet on other intrinsic evils -- an unjust war, torture, ignoring the poor -- I can address those evils directly by changing the president.
There's another distinction that is often lost in the culture-war rhetoric on abortion: There is a difference between being pro-choice and being pro-abortion. Obama supports government action that would reduce the number of abortions, and has consistently said that "we should be doing everything we can to avoid unwanted pregnancies that might even lead somebody to consider having an abortion." He favors a "comprehensive approach where ... we are teaching the sacredness of sexuality to our children." And he wants to ensure that adoption is an option for women who might otherwise choose abortion.
Obama worked all of that into his party's platform this year. By contrast, Republicans actually removed abortion-reduction language from their platform.
What's more, as recent data show, abortion rates drop when the social safety net is strengthened. If Obama's economic program will do more to reduce poverty than McCain's, then is it wrong to conclude that an Obama presidency will also reduce abortions? Not at all.
Every faithful Catholic agrees that abortion is an unspeakable evil that must be minimized, if not eliminated. I can help to achieve that without endorsing Republicans' immoral baggage. Overturning Roe v. Wade is not the only way to end abortion, and a vote for Obama is not somehow un-Catholic.
The U.S. bishops have urged a "different kind of political engagement," one that is "shaped by the moral convictions of well-formed consciences."
I have informed my conscience. I have weighed the facts. I have used my prudential judgment. And I conclude that it is a proper moral choice for this Catholic to support Barack Obama's candidacy.
Cafardi is a civil and canon lawyer, and a professor and former dean at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh. His most recent book, Before Dallas, examines the bishops' failures in handling the clergy sex abuse crisis.
This person is making the virtually the same arguments as Kmiec. But about those bona fides...
If you haven’t gotten enough of law professor Doug Kmiec’s endless fatuities about how pro-life Barack Obama—the most radical pro-abortion presidential candidate ever—really is, Kmiec now has a book out titled Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama. Based on what Kmiec has written so far, I’m fairly certain that his real answer is: Yes, if you suspend your rational faculties and enjoy the perks of being a willing dupe.
One minor note: The Obama campaign routinely identifies Kmiec as “[f]ormer Reagan legal counsel” and “head of the Office of Legal Counsel for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush”. Those descriptions are accurate but, insofar as they are meant to suggest that Kmiec was a close adviser to Reagan and Bush, misleading. Kmiec headed DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel for a grand total of a few months at the end of the Reagan administration (after Chuck Cooper and most of his deputies had left the office) and the beginning of the Bush 41 administration (before President Bush was able to replace him). Someone familiar with OLC at the time tells me that it’s unlikely that Kmiec ever met personally with Reagan to provide him legal advice (and that if any such meetings did occur, they would have been very few).
-- [Ed Whelan]
“I believe that abortion is an unspeakable evil, yet I support Sen. Barack Obama, who is pro-choice. I do not support him because he is pro-choice, but in spite of it. Is that a proper moral choice for a committed Catholic?”
NO.
You are an idiot and you are serving the destruction of America - our prosperity, our values and our national security - for voting for Obama.
I support Hitler because he brought his country out of a depression and provided food, shelter, and clothing to poor Germans. I also support him for encouraging Germans to have babies, which is in keeping with Catholic doctorine. That little issue about the jews would have happened even if he wasn’t in power, and I choose to ignore it.
This person needs to add lying to his sins next time he confesses ....feh
I don’t care what they call themselves they are not Catholic. Anyone who would vote for such evil as Obama supports are not Catholic.
LOL! I think he's a little less orthodox than you thought.
....what about an unjust war? In 2003, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) said flatly that "reasons sufficient for unleashing a war against Iraq did not exist." McCain voted for it; Obama opposed it.
I can imagine the heat you're getting for having posted this.
Brain tumor?
I never heard a priest say that, but I was questioned by a next door Protestant neighbor lady who asked me if we had to vote for Kennedy because we were Catholics. I was only ten at the time, but I told her not as far as I knew.
As you probably well know there was a lot of anti-Catholic hysteria at that time whipped up by the likes of Norman Vincent Peale. As I recall Kennedy had to meet with a bunch of self-appointed Protestant leaders, including Peale, to assure them his religion wouldn't affect his presidential decisions. People today don't understand how much anti-Catholic feeling there was in the country at that time. Given that, most of my friends were Protestants. We didn't care nearly as much about religious animosities as our parents did.
I do not believe that you can be a communion taking Roman Catholic and support any politician that actively supports abortion of unborn children...
...quite unfortunately, hundreds of thousand Catholics do just as he does...and shrug their shoulders when asked about abortion...my sister in law, a public school teacher by trade, says ‘there are issues other than merely abortion’...thus the democrat Catholic vote is huge, because people don’t consider Rome very important in the scheme of things...
“...I believe that we have lost the abortion battle...”
Sounds like something Marshal Petain might have said. “I believe we have lost France, therefore we will sign an armistice with Hitler and support the Nazis.”
What an unspeakable coward this man is. He will answer for it.
“...there are issues other than merely abortion... people don’t consider Rome very important in the scheme of things...”
Won’t they be surprised when they find out that God doesn’t find them very important in his scheme of things?
Anyone who would compare the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh G.D. Mohammed to the murder of an already-born infant is outrageous, foolish, depraved, and not even slightly Catholic, or Christian.
'Nuff said...
I disagree. You cannot be actively supporting abortion, but deciding to vote for a politician who is wrong on abortion is not the same as causing one or procuring one or actively assisting in the procurement thereof.(remember, the politician does not force anyone to get an abortion and it is only the supreme court that can undo Roe v. Wade. If a politician was forcing women to get abortions (lets say for population control or eugenic reasons), then it would be an entirely different story).
I think that the author and Douglas Kmiec can be Catholics in good standing, . They are merely choosing one evil over another, which is the unfortunate nature of the American political system.
It must be amazing to be a liberal. Do they have no self accountability to be intellectually honest?
“I think that the author and Douglas Kmiec can be Catholics in good standing, . They are merely choosing one evil over another, which is the unfortunate nature of the American political system.”
Respectfully, sir. That is BS! Your knowledge of Church doctrine is seriously flawed. Below are a couple of sources you should consider before absolving these heretics:
This is what the US Catholic Bishops say:
“The Gospel of Life must be proclaimed, and human life defended, in all places and all times. The arena for moral responsibilities includes not only the halls of government, but the voting booth as well. Laws that permit abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide are profoundly unjust, and we should work peacefully and tirelessly to oppose and change them. Because they are unjust they cannot bind citizens in conscience, be supported, acquiesced in, or recognized as valid. Our nation cannot countenance the continued existence in our society of such fundamental violations of human rights.”
This is an in depth analysis of what Catholic teaching really says from Bishop Rene Gracida:
On Voting for Pro-Abortion Candidates
t | t | t | t
by Bishop Rene Henry Gracida, DD
“When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”
— Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
It is never permissible for a Catholic to vote for a pro-abortion candidate because the candidate is pro-abortion. Such a vote would be formal cooperation in the serious sin of the candidate who, upon being elected, would vote for legislation making possible the taking of innocent human life through procured abortion.
When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons strictly defined.
Since abortion and euthanasia have been defined by the Church as the most serious sins prevalent in our society, what kind of reasons could possibly be considered proportionate enough to justify a Catholic voting for a candidate who is known to be pro-abortion? None of the reasons commonly suggested could even begin to be proportionate enough to justify a Catholic voting for such a candidate. Reasons such as the candidate’s position on war, or taxes, or the death penalty, or immigration, or a national health plan, or social security, or aids, or homosexuality, or marriage, or any similar burning societal issues of our time are simply lacking in proportionality.
There is only one thing that could be considered proportionate enough to justify a Catholic voting for a candidate who is known to be pro-abortion, and that is the protection of innocent human life. That may seem to be contradictory, but it is not.
Consider the case of a Catholic voter who must choose between three candidates: candidate (A, Kerry) who is completely for abortion-on-demand, candidate (B, Bush) who is in favor of very limited abortion, i.e., in favor of greatly restricting abortion and candidate (C, Peroutka), a candidate who is completely against abortion but who is universally recognized as being unelectable.
The Catholic voter cannot vote for candidate (A, Kerry) because that would be formal cooperation in the sin of abortion if that candidate were to be elected and assist in passing legislation, which would remove restrictions on, abortion-on-demand.
The Catholic can vote for candidate (C, Peroutka) but that will probably only help ensure the election of candidate (A, Kerry).
Therefore the Catholic voter has a proportionate reason to vote for candidate (B, Bush) since his vote may help to ensure the defeat of candidate (A, Kerry) and may result in the saving of some innocent human lives if candidate (B, Bush) is elected and votes for legislation restricting abortion-on-demand. In such a case, the Catholic voter would have chosen the lesser of two evils which is morally permissible under these circumstances.
Of course, the Catholic voter could choose not to vote. But that would be a serious abdication of the Catholic voter’s civic and moral obligation to participate in the election. By not voting the Catholic voter could well be assisting in the election of candidate (A, Kerry) and while that would not carry the same guilt as formal participation in candidate (A, Kerry’s) support of abortion-on-demand it would still be sinful, even if only a sin of omission.
Those Catholic voters who love moral absolutes would have no choice but to vote for candidate (C, Peroutka), but those Catholics who recognize that in the real world it is sometimes necessary to choose the lesser of two evils in order to prevent greater harm – in this case harm to innocent unborn children would vote for candidate (B, Bush).
+Rene Henry Gracida
Bishop Emeritus of Corpus Christi
Supporting someone who would murder BORN babies as well as unborn infants is NOT a Catholic position. Fool yourself. Lie to yourself, just don’t expect others to follow. “Better you should be thrown into the sea with a millstone around your neck, then to lead my little ones astray.”
Sigh. Just another blather-on by NCR in a covert war against Catholicism and Catholic teaching by CINOs with a Messiah complex. Leading more Cino-sheeple astray. I wonder just how many Catholics agree with the author? I know a few who do...
The CINOs I know would sooner eat dirt than refer to that document, and only condescendingly, with a nod to their favorite CINO 'interpretation' of those rules. There was a big to-do in my diocese when it came out, and folks were forbidden to read it at first, because 'we couldn't possibly understand and it would confuse us'. Later that was recanted. But we are instructed on 'how' to read it. Which only makes me smile, as I read through it...
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