Well, what if someone doesn’t accept your definition (if you’re on the table with you’re feet in the stirrups, you’re stopped practing the Catholic religion) of what it means to be Catholic? Who gets to decide who is a Catholic? Is it someone who accepts the Pope’s pronouncements on contraception or who accepts the Pope’s pronouncements on the war in Iraq? Which is the critical choice, and why?
Yet the popes in our time have taught very clearly on this as well: the Church has constantly and infallibly condemned abortion as a grave evil — a mortal sin. From the first century teaching in the book called the Didache: “You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.’”To the 20 th century teaching of Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae: by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors ….I declare that direct abortion… always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.” .
...Finally, even if there was “a controversy” in the past, which is there was not, there can is no controversy today. Again, turn to Peter, and see the absolutely unambiguous language of John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae that I quoted earlier, and that Pope Benedict XVI quotes over and over again in his writings: “direct abortion…always constitutes a grave moral disorder.” And consider John Paul’s equally unequivocal words later in that same document: Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is … a grave and clear obligation to oppose them … [I]t is therefore never licit to … "take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it.” In other words: it is always a grave or mortal sin for a politician to support abortion. .
Some would say, well Father, what about those people who support the war in Iraq, or the death penalty, or oppose undocumented aliens, Aren’t those just as important, and aren’t Catholic politicians who support those “bad Catholics” too? Simple answer: no. Not one of those issues, or any other similar issues, except for the attack on traditional marriage is a matter of absolute intrinsic evil in itself. Not all wars are unjust — and good Catholics can disagree on facts and judgments. Same thing with the other issues: facts are debatable, as are solutions to problems. But some things leave no room for debate. One of these is that it is always gravely evil to enslave human beings as if they were animals. And another is that it is always gravely evil to kill an innocent human life being — particularly the unborn. So, as Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to the American bishops just 10 months before he became Pope Benedict XVI: There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion