What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
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by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
Moral Guidance for Catholics in this Election
The forthcoming election will be the most important in our lifetimes. The successful presidential candidate may appoint as many as four Supreme Court Justices. One has promised strict constructionists who follow the Constitution and the other has promised to appoint Justices who will uphold legalized abortion. The outcome of the election may determine the status of abortion for the next thirty or more years. Other areas that will be affected are human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and gay marriage. All these areas have been declared intrinsically evil by the Church, which means that under no circumstances may a Catholic cooperate in them. These are non-negotiable items.
Often a contrast is made between bullets and ballots. Both bullets and ballots can kill. Ballot can kill if one votes for candidates who support abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia. Just as morality guides the direction of bullets we fire so does it guide the ballots we cast. “Catholics have a moral obligation to promote the common good through the exercise of their voting privileges” (cf. CCC 2240). Promoting the “common good” would forbid voting for unjust laws. The Church does not endorse political parties or individual candidates but “it is the Church’s mission ‘to pass judgments even in matters related to politics whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it’” (CCC 2246). The Church will never say you must vote for candidate X but it may say that you must not vote for candidate Y if that politician promotes laws in favor of the five non-negotiable items above.
Thus a pro-abortion candidate disqualifies himself from receiving the vote of a Catholic. Archbishop John J. Myers, Newark, New Jersey teaches, “To support candidate who would continue or even expand the possibilities for more people to die by human choices is seriously wrong.” This is based on the Declaration on Procured Abortion, #22: Nor may [anyone] take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law [one permitting abortion] or vote for it. Moreover, he may not collaborate in its application.” Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs, Colorado stated, “Catholic politicians who support abortion, embryo stem cell research or euthanasia place themselves outside of full communion with the church and so jeopardize their salvation. Any Catholics who vote for candidates who stand for abortion, illicit stem cell research or euthanasia suffer the same fateful consequences.”
Turncoat politicians claiming to be Catholic often support abortion (indeed are in the forefront of the movement) and they excuse themselves on various grounds: (1) they do not want to impose their views on others; (2) abortion is the law of the land; (3) they are following their consciences which differ from Church teaching; and (4) according to Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, if one has proportionately grave reasons for voting for a pro-abortion candidate such a vote would be only material and not formal cooperation in evil and therefore such a Catholic would avoid serious sin.
As to imposing one’s views on other it should be noted that when someone’s choice is to destroy the life of another it is no longer a private position. Bishop William Wiegand of Sacramento, California wrote: “There can be no division between public and private morality. It is untenable to say, ‘I am personally opposed to abortion,’ but support someone else’s right to kill their unborn baby.” Archbishop Eldon Curtiss of Omaha, Nebraska maintains, “It is fundamentally dishonest to claim one’s conscience is opposed to abortion and support abortion as public policy.” If you are opposed to abortion why are you voting for it? It is either self delusion or a lie; do not claim to be a believer if you do not act like one.
Catholics who oppose abortion are not forcing their “faith” on anyone. The beginning of human life is a scientific fact and not a peculiar Catholic doctrine. It is not a matter of belief but of bloodshed. Respect for innocent human life is not a Catholic monopoly but a worldwide ethical principle and heritage. If abortion cannot be condemned because the Church teaches it is wrong, then would the same apply to other things the Church condemns, e.g., theft, racism, or trafficking in human persons? Some Catholic turncoat politicians have not just been assimilated into the society but digested and transformed into pagans.
If abortion is the law of the land, then change it because it is immoral just as slavery, also immoral, once was the law of the land.
Catholic politicians who appeal to their own consciences as guides in the matter of abortion should be aware that conscience must be “guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church” (CCC 1785).
In a letter to Theodore Cardinal McCarrick of Washington, D.C. Cardinal Ratzinger said, “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.” Some liberal Catholics such as Father Andrew Greeley and the news media have taken his words as giving the green light to Catholics to vote for relentlessly pro-abortion public figures. But they are mistaken. They do not take into account other words in the same letter wherein Cardinal Ratzinger points out that “not all moral issues have the same weight as abortion and euthanasia.” He cites the examples of the imposition of the death penalty and the decision to wage war. He teaches, “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 and euthanasia.”
In this connection Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, Missouri comments, “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 proportionately 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.”
The only case in which a Catholic might be able to vote for a pro-abortion candidate without sin is when one candidate is opposed to most abortions while the other favors all abortions. In that case there is a proportionate reason for voting for the lesser evil.
The Holy Father teaches that Catholics have “the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life.” There is no way a Catholic can fulfill this obligation by promoting or condoning abortion in the voting booth. Catholics constitute 23% of the electorate and they could swing the election if they voted according to their moral duty. Unfortunately many Catholic voters are Catholics in name only or cafeteria Catholics who pick and choose among the Church’s teachings and they tend to vote in favor of pro-abortion politicians. Real Catholics should pray for their erring brethren, reason with them, but above all they should outvote them. Millions of lives and the moral landscape for the next thirty years are depending on you.
(Published October, 2004)
