The main problem with that work of the flesh which Paul calls "party spirit' (Galatians 5:20) is that it urges people to evaluate Church teaching in light of their sect's pet doctrines instead of evaluating their sect's pet doctrines in light of Catholic teaching. So, for instance, Calvinists filter Catholic teaching through a few pet doctrines about the sovereignty of God and predestination and original sin, while universalists filter Catholic teaching through a few pet doctrines about the love of God and the hope of heaven. Other pertinent considerations get filtered out.
Party spirit is a major affliction of modern Americans, Catholic and non-Catholic. And it tends to be expressed in different ways depending on the party's needs. For instance, party spirit can radically warp a healthy Catholic understanding of conscience. So, one the one hand, you get discourse from some sectors representing the Don't Form Your Conscience doctrine, when the Party needs you to think that. What do I mean? When somebody like Nancy Pelosi stands up and declares that her Catholic faith "compels" her to support gay "marriage" she is making what I call the "something something conscience something something' argument. Basically what she means is that all you need to do to appeal to "conscience" is to have a really strong feeling. You don't actually need to educate yourself about what the Catholic Church you are invoking actually teaches about the ontological impossibility of gay "marriage". You simply have to say, "The Church says to follow your conscience, not form or educate it. My really strong feeling is that gay 'marriage' is fine. So it is."
Of course, Pelosi doesn't beleve other people should be allowed to follow their conscience when it comes to gay "marriage". So she brutally denounces as "frauds" those chaplains who have real issues of conscience about gay "marriage".
This means that, in addition to the Don't Form Your Conscience doctrine, there is also the Don't Follow Your Conscience doctrine when the Party requires that. What both doctrines have in common is "Party needs trump Church teaching". And it's a black thread that binds both political parties together in a secret bond and makes partisans of both parties brothers under the skin.
And so, in addition to Pelosi simultaneously appealing to her ignorant "conscience" in order to prop up Dem dogma about gay "marriage" while shouting down other people's informed conscience in order to prop up Dem dogma about gay "marriage", you can also find things like this on the Right:
Now with somebody like Nancy Pelosi, who has never evidenced the slightest understanding of her Catholic faith as anything other than a tool for acquiring power, and whose public pronouncements on it have been of such immovable and unteachable stupidity as to persuade me she knows nor cares not one thing about the Catholic faith beyond its political utility, I just don't expect much.
But when Catholics who purport to know the faith talk to me, I expect much more since those to whom much is given, much will be required, as our Lord said. So I think it particularly dangerous when, under the influence of party spirit, conservative Catholics start arguing that the solution to the Pelosiesque hogwash of "something something conscience something something" is, as above, "Do not vote your conscience".
Sorry, but rejecting one's conscience altogether is just as poisonous--indeed more poisonous--than refusing to form it. And under the influence of party spirit, Catholics can often be inveigled into buying these two options --Don't Form Your Conscience/Reject Your Conscience--as the only possibilities there are.
Understand: my point here is not about who you will choose to vote for. My point is that the way this particular graphic (and a lot of arguments like it) works is to say, "Obeying your conscience is contemptible." This one happens to be an attempt to denounce conscience on behalf of Romney, but I could just as easily find arguments from previous elections in which lefties made exactly the same attempt to denounce the consciences of Nader supporters. The problem is not that somebody is trying to persuade somebody of the merits of their major party candidate. It's that in attempting to do so, arguments like the one in this graphic specifically argue that those who obey their consciences to the best of their ability should stop doing that and instead violate their conscience in order to serve party spirit.
Attempting to shout down and smash conscience is what Catholic teaching calls "evil". It's evil when Pelosi does it to try to smash Catholic consciences about gay "marriage" or contraceptives or abortion and it's just as evil when some zealous righty tries to smash a Catholic's conscience and force them to get on board with party spirit for the Home Team.
What the Church actually teaches is this: a person must--absolutely must, without any exceptions whatsoever--always obey the certain judgment of his or her conscience (CCC 1800). Anybody from any party that tells you otherwise is a false prophet and an agent of hell. That said, what conscience must also always do is be formed more and more closely in the image of Christ so that we do not erroneously obey a false or badly formed conscience. So a mere "strong feeling" that directly contradicts the immemorial teaching of the Church is not the "certain judgment of conscience" but the ignorant guess (and, in the case of somebody who refuses the Church's guidance, the arrogant rejection) of light and life. Since this is, surprisingly, news for an awful lot of people, permit me to reproduce here the Church's full teaching on conscience from the Catechism. It is plain, simple, lucid common sense. But as the examples above from everyday American moral discourse make clear, it appears to be one of the Church's best-kept secrets:
1776 "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."47
I. THE JUDGMENT OF CONSCIENCE
1777 Moral conscience,48 present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil.49 It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.
1778 Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law:
Conscience is a law of the mind; yet [Christians] would not grant that it is nothing more; I mean that it was not a dictate, nor conveyed the notion of responsibility, of duty, of a threat and a promise. . . . [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.50
1779 It is important for every person to be sufficiently present to himself in order to hear and follow the voice of his conscience. This requirement of interiority is all the more necessary as life often distracts us from any reflection, self-examination or introspection:
Return to your conscience, question it. . . . Turn inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness.51
1780 The dignity of the human person implies and requires uprightness of moral conscience. Conscience includes the perception of the principles of morality (synderesis); their application in the given circumstances by practical discernment of reasons and goods; and finally judgment about concrete acts yet to be performed or already performed. The truth about the moral good, stated in the law of reason, is recognized practically and concretely by the prudent judgment of conscience. We call that man prudent who chooses in conformity with this judgment.1781 Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed. If man commits evil, the just judgment of conscience can remain within him as the witness to the universal truth of the good, at the same time as the evil of his particular choice. The verdict of the judgment of conscience remains a pledge of hope and mercy. In attesting to the fault committed, it calls to mind the forgiveness that must be asked, the good that must still be practiced, and the virtue that must be constantly cultivated with the grace of God:
We shall . . . reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.52
1782 Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters."53II. THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE
1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.
1784 The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear, selfishness and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency, born of human weakness and faults. The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart.
1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path,54 we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord's Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.55
III. TO CHOOSE IN ACCORD WITH CONSCIENCE
1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.
1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.
1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.
1789 Some rules apply in every case:
- One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
- the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."56
- charity always proceeds by way of respect for one's neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."57 Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble."58
IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT
1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.
1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin."59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.
1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one's passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.
1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.
1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time "from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith."60
The more a correct conscience prevails, the more do persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and try to be guided by objective standards of moral conduct.61
IN BRIEF1795 "Conscience is man's most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths" (GS 16).
1796 Conscience is a judgment of reason by which the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act.
1797 For the man who has committed evil, the verdict of his conscience remains a pledge of conversion and of hope.
1798 A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. Everyone must avail himself of the means to form his conscience.
1799 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.
1800 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.
1801 Conscience can remain in ignorance or make erroneous judgments. Such ignorance and errors are not always free of guilt.
1802 The Word of God is a light for our path. We must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. This is how moral conscience is formed.
Comments
Post a Comment
One theme throughout is one essentially echoed by Archbishop Lori—if you can’t “in good conscience” vote for someone (anyone), then you shouldn’t vote at all. My goodness! We have been blessed with freedom of choice, and we are condemned to live in this world. If we dissect every proposed policy and intention of every candidate, we can find something that offends the properly formed Catholic conscience. Should we never vote for anybody, ever? Does that abandon our call to evangelize (change) the world? Difficult…...difficult. We must remember that NO candidate is perfect; waiting to vote for that perfect candidate is abandoning our duty, our calling, our mission. Unfortunately, we must choose between one side who espouses intrinsic evils and another side who espouses improper means. Improper means can be modified over time; intrinsic evils remain so. We still live in this (imperfect) world but we are called to make it more Christ-like, even if it is by small steps which are not perfect.
Excellent, though-provoking post, as always.
But remember that there are not only two candidates. You may be forgetting Ron Paul and Gary Johnson. They may not have a snowball’s chance in Hell of wining. But they are still legitimate choices.
And don’t forget Joe Schriner!
Or, you can always “write in” a candidate of your choice if you choose to be an early voter. Remember though if you do this, unless you live in a blue state, you can be assured that the actual vote will go to the incumbent, because sadly enough the third or fourth parties aren’t strong enough to carry an election. What would help in voting is this: No media blitz about either candidate or better yet, no ads on either on TV. There will always be mudslinging and some way of limiting any party a certain amount of money, say 1 mil for each candidate and not a penny more. Nowadays, actually the money elects the candidates, not the people and we should limit this,
I hope the doctor takes his medicine.
Because the wage of sin is death.
Please stick to the subject. This is not a post about who you should vote for. This is a post about what the Church does and does not teach about conscience and the way in which party spirit warps our understanding of that teaching.
I would encourage the commenters and you, Mr Shea, to read CCC 1787 as well as “In Defense of Christian Responsibility” br Archbishop Samuel Aquila. Excellent treatment of this subject and very practical.
Mark, you should send this article on conscience to Paul Ryan. Looks like Romney has already pressured him to violate his conscience on matters of abortion in the case of rape - which is unacceptable coercion on Romney’s part.
Nice citation of CCC 1787, AnneG. For constitutionalist fiscal conservatives who are also committed Catholics, this issue of conscience and political decision making is not terribly difficult. They accept and embrace the principles of Catholic social teaching (especially the tension between solidarity and subsidiarity, and the preferential option for the poor); they believe that the economic principles they uphold are eminently reasonable and necessary; and as the cherry on top, they take comfort in knowing that their positions are largely supported by American constitutional principles. There are other issues we could examine, e.g., immigration, which are approached by politically conservative Catholics with similar criteria: CST; empirical evidence and reason, especially in the economic sphere; a desire for national and cultural preservation (and this has nothing to do with skin color); and a zeal for fairness and the rule of law. Sadly, too many of our bishops appeal only to CST and emotion (this needs to be corrected immediately for the sake of our bishops’ credibility). And on the fairness issue, consider, as an example, Filipino immigrants to the U.S. who wait patiently for years in their native country before they’re green lighted to come to our shores.
Kudos to Bishop Morlino and Archbishop Aquila for reminding Catholics of *prudential judgment*. As much as the Nuns-on-the-Bus types would like to make conservatives (fiscally or otherwise) out to be grave sinners, the teaching of the Church just isn’t on their side. Sorry, sisters.
Mark/Tertullian/Jerome (Or whomever you REALLY are),
I think that you miss the point of the graphic. It is not “Don’t follow your conscience”, it is “Don’t tilt at windmills when there is a halfway acceptable alternative, especially when not supporting the halfway decent alternative is in no way decent and will probably win without your direct opposition.”
Conservatives often lose battles not because of being in the minority, but instead for the drive for idealogical purity. Throughout history, the Church has prospered by supporting the “least evil with potential for good”—the Pope himself while continuing the call to Conversion (and sometimes not) supported both the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties, and they were FAR from perfect.
The call for quixotic responses to an imperfect system (and people) is absurd and—in my opinion—dangerous.
The article is correct: rejecting conscience is evil. I don’t see it as helping much, however. I think it is meant to challenge those supporting subsidiarity as in a previous article in the manner of Paul Ryan without really saying it. Whatever the case, I think it misses the mark.
I still need to figure out the role of an informed conscience when the rest of the civilization is falling swiftly into barbarism and a new dark age. I think it is remotely possible that voting for local candidates only- and rejecting the centralizing federal parties- is a valid option.
But what about the heinous sin of water-boarding?
Mark, we’ve been down this road before. Paragraph 36 of the Bishops’ document “Faithful Citizenship” gives two options to voters who are confronted with two candidates who support intrinsic evils: “The voter may take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate, or, after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods.” It is clear that the bishops expect most Catholics to pursue option two (hence, the word ‘extraordinary’ in describing the first option), and that is what I do in every election. I’m not saying you are doing anything wrong if you choose to vote for neither candidate (after all, the bishops allow your position), but please don’t imply that I am somehow a bad Catholic if I simply do what the bishops appear to be asking us to do.
Scott:
The message is absolutely “Don’t follow your conscience”. And it’s therefore dead wrong. There are other ways to argue that do not constitute ridiculing obedience to conscience. But the makers of that graphic did not use them. They chose to argue that obedience to conscience is stupid.
In this, they are kindred spirits with Mr. Fuquay, who likewise spits on the clear teaching of the Church regarding the obligation to treat prisoners humanely and does so gratuitously, even when the subject has nothing to do with it.
Carl: This post has nothing to do with that. I have long granted your point. This post is about the way in which party spirit warps our understanding of the Church’s approach to conscience. Please stick to the subject.
Cynical self-proclaimed “Catholics” like Nancy Pelosi actually make the Inquisition look like a very good idea…
I think it a bad idea to sacrifice the possible on the altar of the ideal.
TeaPot562
...the idea that voting is a sacrament.
Jesus Christ himself fled from the kingship. c.f. John 6:15
‘political discourse in our society’ = I don’t play games with the devil.
Playing on Ego.
TeaPot- and yet it’s an equally bad idea to sacrifice the ideal for the merely practical. Christ knew that a political Kingdom of God wasn’t possible- so he taught the ideal instead.
But when you know from a practical,statistical, political position that your vote for a 3rd party candidate will better enable a more pro-abortion candidate to be elected, what then?
@Kathleen- I don’t know that. In fact, since I’ve done the practical political math to know that the only reason Republicans are able to get any votes at all from people earning less than $325,000/year is the pro-life issue, they have a very strong political reason for that issue to NOT go away, which it would if they actually solved the problem.
In other words, I don’t trust a pro-life politician to be *actually* pro-life; I have been bitten one too many times by that particular false campaign promise that nobody ever does anything about.
It is clear to me that we are so depraved as a society that the only thing that will stop abortions at this point in time is to hire women to be mothers. NOTHING else will overcome the irrational fear of pregnancy that Planned Parenthood has spent the last 100 years spreading. You can’t do that if you are permanently against the entire concept of charity.
It is a complete myth that a 3rd party vote will statistically be a vote for a pro-abort pol.
http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/politics/thirdp.html
This explains why Third Party Votes are not wasted and don’t help the worse candidate.
Ted Seeber ,
Thank you for the link, interesting info. Is there data out there that more directly shows the election outcome when a third party candidate receives a significant percentage of votes?
Posted by Mark Shea on Wednesday, Aug 22, 2012 12:40 PM (EST):It is a complete myth that a 3rd party vote will statistically be a vote for a pro-abort pol.”
***
Wouldn’t that depend upon who the candidates were? I’d imagine it would vary accordingly.
A good example with the math is this Charles Hooper article from 2004 about a hypothetical friend who believed the myth and choose to vote for Kerry/Edwards over the Libertarian Candidate:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/hooper1.html
Funny how you never see democrats complaining about how awful presidents like the Bushes were elected by people voting their conscience…..
Although Mr. Shea is unmoved by the ‘16 argument, one could nonetheless in good conscience plausibly believe that a Romney Administration will prove disastrous; & because recognized as such would lead to a far more institutionalized viciousness, against both the Church & the defenseless, in the Democrat who beats him in ‘16, as in those Democrats overwhelmingly swept into control of the House & Senate in ‘14 & ‘16. And all with Romney doing little to nothing for the innocent, as has generally been the Republican presidential wont since Roe, & arguably the chief reason Roe still stands.
*
And in good conscience one can further hold plausibly that disaster will characterize a second Obama term which, if less plausibly still possibly, will lead to a more serious Republican candidate & party in ‘16, with enough widespread support actually to confront both abortion & the (objectively in that they are not seeking nor securing the good of Americans themselves) unpatriotic defenders of Empire due to the severe economic dislocation & immorality of maintaining it.
*
Should one hold the above, & in its latter example at least hope for it, is one then morally constrained to vote for Obama despite his support for mass murder, perversion, trying to institutionalize such in the Church, & other intrinsic evils?
*
Though hard to digest, the proposition is not meant frivolously. Mr. Shea at the moment rejects it for the same reason he rejects voting for Romney (no support for intrinsic evil), but were he hypothetically or actually to conclude the above political analysis correct, ought he not thus ponder voting for Obama even as now he ponders possibly voting for Romney?
*
Those who oppose Mr. Shea’s current position hold that results & our widow’s mite of a vote towards them really do matter, & that we aren’t voting for perfection. They have an argument.
*
But according to it, a serious Catholic who sees that Romney’s defeat will in the long run help both the innocent & the country more than his victory would, is not therefore free to abstain or vote third party, but is instead constrained, come November, to vote for Barack Obama.
Mark,
“It is a complete myth that a 3rd party vote will statistically be a vote for a pro-abort pol.”
Well, you are right and you are wrong at the same time.
A vote for a 3rd party candidate (or abstention) will always be to the detriment of the one among the main candidates that would tend to vote for, to the detriment of the lesser evil, so to speak. In consequence, it will help the greater evil.
And that holds true regardless of what major issue is under discussion, for all sides of the political spectrum. It holds true for a pro-life voter as described above.
Of coure, that doesn’t solve the problem: everyone has to make up his own mind how evil the comparative evils are and, in the end, vote his coscience.
Ted,
You are practically saying that one should not vote for a candidate/party that ostensibly espouses a particular issue because this candidate/party can only be faking as it cannot have an interest in solving the issue.
That’s a rather cyncical approach, which can lead to no constructive conclusion. (And it has nothing to do with either math nor maths!)
It should be obvious, of course, that one has to take a close look at each and every candidate and each and every promise. I suppose there are both honest pro-life Republicans that really care about the issue and others for whom the issue is merely a tool (and of course, those are not pro-life at all).
Anyway, the prospect that the pro-life issue will go away anytime soon (and thus hurt the GOP) is a rather too-rosy paining, IMHO.
One should also keep in mind that the status quo on the issue can move in either direction, even without a radical in the white house.
If the only solution is “to hire women to be mothers” then there is no solution. What do you mean by hiring here? I can tell you that handing out benefits to encourage births does not work, at least in a “depraved”, anti-children society.
Furthermore, your “solution” doesn’t address the actual issue: not a lack of births but all these killed human beings.
Ted,
the link you provide however doesn’t refute these so-called myths in any way.
Add to that the silly claim that the Republicans were a third party in the 1860 election and won. It was a new party but it won because the Democratic vote was split into north and south. Similarly, in 1912 the Republican vote was split into Taft and Roosevelt, handing the election to the Democrat Wilson. One could also mention the 1992 and 1996 elections.
What matters is not the novelty of a party but the effect of splitting votes. And third parties always result in splitting of parts of the vote from the major parties they are closest to.
That might be justified - every voter has to decided that by himself - but it cannot be denied!
Back to the coscience issue:
the poster above is ambiguous: yes, it says do not vote your coscience this time but in doing so it appeals to voters’ cosciences. I think that it suggests that what the voters in question called “voting their conscience” is not actually just that. Still, the poster is dangerous because it can be so easily read in the manner that Mark did.
But what actually is “voting one’s conscience”?
It is not preferring a third candidate for reasons X,Y and Z. It is only a question of conscience if you, after balancing all reasons, would want to vote for candidate R (against candidate O) but you can’t bring yourself to do it because everytime you try, you coscience would scream out.
And that’s the kind of coscience that, as the Church teaches, may never be violated.
It’s not an act of balancing reasons, nor is it a substitute for that reasoning.
Antigon,
there is actually no reason at all to suppose that Romney’s defeat and a 2nd term for Obama will help matters.
Of course, if one thinks that Romney would be that awful, then yes. But that would in itself be reason enough not to vote for him.
But if he loses, it will not automatically lead to a better Republican candidate in 2016. And why should it?
(And remember, in 2008 we heard similar voices. And is Romney now really that much better than McCain was then?)
It certainly will not help to give the incumbent a second term, considering all the mischief he has already started and wich he could then implement further without worrying about re-election. (Especially in the fields of abortion, marriage and crushing the Church, without any field in which he’s actually better than the evil GOP warmonger/torturers.) Are you really willing to pay this price?
One should vote based on the qualities of candidates here and now, not in some vain strategy to influence the next election.
Caro str:
Unless, of course, voting itself is but a vain strategy. As Joe Sobran used to say: if voting could seriously change anything, it wouldn’t be legal.
Agree with your first sentence - that it might be vain. However, one shouldn’t be too quick to jump to that conclusion as non-voting certainly yields no results.
However, I disagree with the cynical, conspiracy-bent second sentence. There is no evil elite cabal keeping down the righteous people - it is the people (elite and non-elite) that are the problem.
There is almost always a pro-life person and an abortion promoter on most ballots. There is NO moral equivalent and NOTHING to worry about stressing yourconscience about. If they can’t figure out it is wrong to kill you own child, how can they possibly be trusted to make any other decision. A catholic MUST vote PRO-LIFE. in the words of Almighty God,
“Choose life, that you and your descendents might live” The rest will work itself out.
In the case of the current Presidential Ballot, the two front runners are both pro-choice; the only question is how committed they are to that cause. Obama is very committed, Romney, not so much. But there is no pro-life candidate capable of winning this race.
I’d rather call them an extreme pro-abortionist (way beyond pro-choice) and someone who was (sort of) pro-choice and now is (sort of) pro-life and about whose true convictions there is a lot of legtimate doubt.
Which candidate is better or worse on this issue should be obvious. However, it is not the only issue.
hugs for every1
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.