Oklahomily - Beware of Last Minute Voter Guides

Contrary to its opening statement, it has now defined "torture" as a most urgent issue equivalent to "abortion," as well as "poverty" and "war." One is left to conclude that if a candidate is against torture, poverty and war, he has scored well on 3 of 4 key issues, even if he is pro-abortion.

But if we haven't got this figured out already, on the same page is this question: "Is it okay to vote for a 'pro-choice' candidate?" What follows is a rambling takeoff on a partial quote from 2004 from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, in which he said a Catholic could vote for a pro-choice candidate if "proportionate reasons" existed. The problem is in how Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, distributors of the booklet, define "proportionate reasons."

By their reasoning each individual Catholic can decide for herself (or himself) what they might be. They call this "prudence," and define it thus: "While an informed conscience is essential for knowing right from wrong, actually doing the right thing requires the virtue of prudence. ... and it requires us to ask the practical question, which candidate will actually deliver more tanglible progress for the Common Good."

In other words, they say while you should not vote for a candidate because he or she supports abortion, you can overlook that flaw and vote for them as long as they are on the right side of enough of the other issues.

Sadly, this is not what was meant by "proportionate reasons." As Archbishop Raymond Burke of Saint Louis, Mo., explained two years ago, after media reports distorted his position on the acceptability of voting for pro-abortion candidates:

“The sticking point is this—and this is the hard part,” the archbishop added: “What is a proportionate reason to justify favoring the taking of an innocent, defenseless human life? And I just leave that to you as a question. That’s the question that has to be answered in your conscience. What is the proportionate reason?”

His point? It is difficult to find a justification for voting for a pro-abortion, and in doing so you risk your soul if you are wrong.

Another shepherd of the Church, Bishop Rene Henry Gracida, Bishop Emeritus of Corpus Christi, Texas, issued a statement in 2004 further clarifying the extremely limited nature of the "proportional reason" exception:

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.

Bishop Gracida explained that it would be only permissible to vote for a candidate who broadly supports abortion if he pledges support of legislation to restrict some types of abortion and his opponent in the election did not support those restrictions.

This is a much tougher standard than the one offered by the Catholics in Alliance, who seem to go out of their way to confuse the Catholic electorate, to wit:

"Oftentimes (sic) we may prudently conclude that we must vote for a candidate who many other public Catholic voices object to because we feel our choice will most benefit the common good. It is entirely possible that two Catholics may arrive at different prudent conclusions while remaining true to their consciences and to Church teaching."

In other words, as long as you feel comfortable with your decision, it really doesn't matter what "other public Catholic voices" say, no matter who they are. This is nothing more or less than an extension of cafeteria Catholicism into the voting booth.

The booklet raises the question of whether it violates the separation of Church and state and decides, correctly, that it doesn't. However, I would suggest that one reason it doesn't is because it is as much a reflection of prevailing governing philosophy of one political party than it is of sound Church teaching. It even takes the typical cheap-shot at "religious leaders" favored by so many big-government liberals when it says:

"In recent years we have witnessed an unfortunate trend of religious leaders abusing their poitions by using politics to impose their faith on others. True Catholicism, however, calls us to propose policies that work to better the common good of all humanity."

To which we must ask, which religious leaders have imposed their faith on others through the political process? Please give us the names of the offenders and the beliefs thus imposed. Don't hold your breath. Truth is, the Catholic Alliance is most displeased with the Catholic bishops and priests who faithfully instruct the faithful that abortion, partial birth abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and gay marriage are always sinful and quite unacceptable as supportable political positions.

Who are the Catholics in Alliance? Its executive director is Alexia Kelly, formerly religious adviser to pro-abort candidate John Kerry in his 2004 presidential campaign. (Strangely she neglects to mention this in her otherwise impressive online resume.) Communications director is a young man named Chris Korzen, who also is involved in the liberal Catholic Democracy Institute and works in association with Pax Christi, USA. Two years ago he dismissed Archbishop Burke's pre-election voting guidelines, deriding them as "his personal theological opinion" and said it was wrong to focus on four or five life issues when there were so many more to choose from as previously identified by the "U.S. bishops." These, he said, include global poverty, the death penalty, education and war.

The problem with these issues is that they are either overly broad or subject to wide interpretation. Who, for instance, isn't against global poverty? No one that I know. Who isn't in favor of education? Again, no one that I know. The devil is in the details of how these things are handled with government policies, and the details may or may not be morally significant. Similiarly, though most people are against war, even the Church has traditionally taught that nations have a right to self-defense and that a "just war" can be fought for the right reasons. The death penalty? Good people, even Catholics, can disagree and not find themselves cast out of the Church. While there may be movement in that direction, the Church has not yet ruled that support of the death penalty is a mortal sin.

You cannot say that for abortion.

The Catholics in Alliance claim to be non-partisan, but they sure have a lot of partisan friends.

The Associated Press, in an article on October 16, noted that the phrase "common good" was being intentionally used as a cooperative project among various groups affiliated with the Democratic Party in an attempt to reclaim religious voters who abandoned the party in the 2004 elections:

Led by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think-tank, party activists hope the phrase will do for them what "compassionate conservative" did for the Republicans. "It's a core value that we think organizes the entire political agenda for progressives," said John Halpin.

The AP, which also quoted Kelly in its article, noted that it might be difficult for the "common good" campaign to make its case.

Advocates say they don't want to tie the phrase to a laundry list of narrow policies, but intend to convey a broad philosophy of governing with a positive appeal.

It won't be easy. Under Roman Catholic teaching, promoting the "common good" would include opposing abortion - a position both Santorum and Casey embrace -and opposing gay marriage to protect human dignity and the family. "Common good" Democrats are generally changing how they talk about abortion, calling it a tragedy to avoid, rather than a private issue. But most have not come out against the procedure."

Whether you call it the "seamless garment" or the "common good," the over-arching principle is that there is no specific evil that qualifies as a non-negotiable. Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, explains in another booklet called "Voting With a Clear Conscience," why this is unacceptable:

"Suppose a candidate came forward and said, 'I support terrorism.' Would you say, 'I disagree with you on terrorism, but what's your health care plan?' Of course not," the priest of the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, says in the booklet. "Rather, you would immediately consider that candidate as disqualified from public office. His position, allowing the killing of the public, is radically inconsistent with public service. So it is with abortion. Abortion is no less violent than terrorism. Any candidate who says abortion should be kept legal disqualifies him/herself from public service."

In my opinion, as long as one of the national political parties considers abortion to be the inviolable law of the land - some would argue that it is almost considered a secular sacrament for some - then I am going to have trouble voting for candidates who will work against laws limiting abortion and who will oppose judges and justices who might reverse the judicial decisions that have led this nation to kill off over 45 million of its unborn citizens since 1973.

In my opinion, Father Pavone's voter guide is far and away more acceptable, and ultimately less partisan, than the squishy Catholics in Alliance offering. Which got me to thinking, what other hot button issues are reflected in this mid-term election?

Well, for starters, I am going to have a difficult time voting for anyone who does not believe Islamic terrorists as the very real danger that they are. You cannot hold suicide-glorifying jihadists accountable in courts of law when they have declared war on your country, your religious beliefs, your secular society and your way of life. There is a clear difference between the two parties on this issue. Unfortunately my Catholic beliefs do not give me much help on this matter, but the Pope has spoken recently of trying to learn the lessons of history between Islam and the West, so we are not totally without some guidance. (Unless, of course, you do not believe the Pope is a credible expert on matters of interfaith relations. That isn't an evil point of view, but it is dangerously naive, and we cannot afford naivete in these times.)

In my opinion, there are many people in both major political parties who take the voters of the nation for granted, who ignore the values of religious faith except at election time, and who do not necessarily live exemplary moral lives. It is also my opinion, and fear, that they most likely accurately reflect the electorate who put them there. In a representative democracy, we pretty much get what we deserve.

These are my opinions and I would never claim that they represent official Church teachings, nor would I try to present them in such a way as to pretend that they are. To me, it is unseemly when uber-political people attempt to hijack Catholic social teaching for partisan objectives, especially when they distort that teaching in order to do so.

There is a world of difference between supporting a higher minimum wage and supporting federal funds for the destruction of embryos for more stem cell lines. Reasonable Catholics can argue both sides of the minimum wage issue without compromising their morals. There is no soft position on killing the unborn.

Catholics of good, informed conscience can argue whether the current war, or any war, is moral. I would argue that such debate is healthy as long as it leads to understanding.

But Catholics of good, informed conscience would understand the Church's position on homosexual "marriage" is not one of shades of gray. It is not nuanced. You cannot check off a candidate's open support of gay marriage and say, "Yeah, but at least he favors increasing public money for family planning and food stamps, so I can vote for him." The issues are not equivalent.

Most Catholics understand this when it is explained to them in this manner. But Catholics are like most Americans in that they are too busy with their daily lives to spend a lot of time researching the issues of the day. They want clear cut advice that is trustworthy. Sadly most of the U.S. bishops are too afraid of losing their IRS non-profit tax status to give that clear cut advice. That leaves the door open to groups like the so-called "Catholics in Alliance" who are only too happy to dispense wishy-washy voters guides in the last hours before an election to confuse the Catholic electorate, and often do so in such close proximity to parish facilities so that it appears as if their brochures are pastor-approved.

For shame!