Last week, I tried to give an answer to a reader who is (understandably) puzzled about how to approach the act of voting, particularly when confronted with candidates who are not merely “less than ideal” (that’s always the case) but committed to supporting policies which are gravely and intrinsically immoral. If you haven’t read that yet, please click here to get my reply.
Anyway, in the comboxes, my good friend Sherry Weddell reprinted something she wrote several years ago about a conversation she had with a couple of moral theologians—both solidly orthodox, big fans of Pope Benedict, and one of them even a bishop (not to mention a solid Dominican). I reproduce her note below, mostly to give some more insight from wiser heads than mine for those interested in puzzling out the complexities of the moral act of voting. It not going to give you a magic answer or tell you “Here is who the Church says you should vote for.” But it will give you some sense of how rich and nuanced (and often tentative and careful) healthy Catholic thought is as it approaches these issues. This is one of the things I most prize about the Catholic tradition: its ability to really carefully pause and consider things without allowing itself to be shoved around by the braying noise of this world. Here’s Sherry’s note:
I’ve posted this a few time over the past 7 years but thought it might be useful. I wrote this up immediately upon returning home, two days after the conversations described before the memory faded.
On Election eve, 2004, I was in Australia. While there, I took the opportunity to ask two world-class experts on Church’s teaching in this area (who are both known for their careful orthodoxy) and the intense political debate that it had engendered among Catholic voters in the US. One was Bishop Anthony Fisher, OP of Sydney (recently elevated by Cardinal Pell), who has a PhD in bioethics and is recognized as (in John Allen’s words) “one of the sharpest minds in English-speaking Catholicism.” The other was Dr. Tracey Rowland, Dean of the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, and one of most respected new theologians emerging today.
Voting as formal cooperation in intrinsic evil:
1. Both Fisher and Rowland emphasized that Church teaching is “very underdeveloped” in this area. Bishop Fisher had attended a symposium in Rome on Evangelicum Vitae 73 in February of 2004. EV 73 reads in part:
73. Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection ...
In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to “take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it” (98).
A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. ... In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.
Fisher said that at this symposium two top-notch, orthodox theologians presented completely opposite views and neither could be considered “wrong” in light of current Church teaching (although Fisher privately agreed with one over the other). The bishop noted that only about 9 scholarly works exist on the subject and that he has read them all. In other words, there is, as yet, no authoritative interpretation of EV 73 to guide us.
2. Fisher stated that there was no theological basis for asserting categorically that a Catholic could not, in good faith, vote for either US candidate since both had serious problems from the perspective of Church teaching. Fisher said that if he were an American, he’d be voting for Bush –- precisely because of the abortion issue, but that it would be a matter of personal judgment. Life issues had been his personal passion since he was at university and naturally they dominate his moral appraisal of the current scene. Fisher noted that other people with other expertise would naturally be preoccupied with different areas of grave concern that would shape their prudential judgment.
3. Fisher then made a fascinating comment that I have not heard elsewhere -– that there is no basis in Church teaching for comparing two very different “intrinsic evils” and determining that one is objectively and absolutely more grave than the other. One can compare levels of a similar intrinsic evil. You could say that 4,000 abortions is more grave than 40 or that a genocidal conflict that killed 10,000 was a more grave evil than one in which only 500 died. But you can’t, on the basis of current Catholic teaching, categorically determine that abortion, for instance, is always and absolutely more grave than a given unjust war or torture or severe economic injustice. By definition, something that is truly intrinsically evil can’t be relatively less evil anymore than a person can be only mostly dead (well, outside the alternate universe of the Princess Bride, anyway –- although I did encounter some situations that came pretty close on the cancer unit).
So one cannot state, as definitive Church teaching, that the gravity of the evil of abortion must outweigh all other intrinsic evils or any possible combination of intrinsic evils in our political calculations. An individual could arrive at such a prudential judgment in a particular situation in good faith, but an equally faithful Catholic could come to a quite different prudential conclusion in good conscience. (Sherry’s note: As Michael Sweeney pointed out so clearly this summer, the problem in the U.S. was a failure to make it clear when the bishops were making prudential judgments rather than articulating Church teaching that obliged.)
1) When I said that it was my observation that quite a few serious Catholics in the U.S. were under the impression that doctrine had developed in this area, Fisher responded that a few bishops making personal pronouncements simply isn’t the development of doctrine. When I asked Rowland why some U.S. bishops had made such statements when they must know that Church teaching did not support it, she pointed out that many bishops are not familiar with the nuances of Church teaching in this area. Rowland (unlike Fisher, who thought that any talk of ex-communication in the midst of an election was imprudent) believed that Ratzinger (she said that she was a big fan of Ratzinger) had made a good case for refusing Communion to a politician who publicly supports abortion but also agreed that there simply wasn’t any clear Church teaching about voting as a form of formal cooperation with evil.
What do you think?
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I absolutely recall reading this. In the versionI remember, she critiques the Colorado bishops in 2004 who provide the faithful of three different diocese three absolutely different moral “approaches”...actually moral condemnations, about voting.
Yes, very nice, im agree with that there is no clear Church teaching, but im strongly with you and the point about that the vote ation defines me as a moral act.
Then i still can’t judge other souls about voting pro-abortion candidates but i need to evaluate my vote like a moral act and not like a tool, everything changes after this change of point of view.
We MUST remember that the STATE has separated itself from the CHURCH officially. (Separation of Church and State via ACLU through the US Supreme Court) DO AN ONLINE SEARCH
Therefore, our dual citizenship as citizens of the Kingdom of God through holy Baptism and citizens of the United States of America has been put into serious conflict. The enmity between the woman and the serpent and between their seeds are to be taken very seriously. (Genesis 3:15)—Please notice that all Christian Bibles AGREE on this point. Satan is the promoter of all evil. God is Good. Evil is defined as all that opposes God.
BOTH political Parties are held in tow by the Separation decision and are two sides of the same New World Order coin. Do not be deceived. Voting for the lesser of two evils has returned the same results every election… we voted in an evil.
Pope Blessed John Paul II said that the red dragon of Rev./Apoc. 12 is Communism. Our Lady of Fatima predicted that Russia would spread her errors throughout the whole world. Well, it’s here. After the USSR went bankrupt and collapsed, the brutal murderers of over two hundred million men, women and children were not rounded up and put on trial for war crimes as were the Nazi leaders. They simply declared themselves to be Socialists and embraced Capitalism. They had infiltrated every form of institution and have been working to destroy the Church and her Culture of Life everywhere and are well entrenched. BETTER RED THAN DEAD was the outcry from colleges, the press and other media alike during the time of the Vietnam conflict. Congress and the President gave way to the pressure and withdrew our troops. The Communists march through South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia murdering up to six million innocent people… with no outcry from the media, press or college campuses. When our service men returned home they were treated as baby butchering murderers. *** Fifty thousand of them committed suicide. ***
The U.S. Constitution is based upon the Declaration of Independence but both are being ignored by the powers that be … first the Declaration and then the Constitution. Look up Declaration principles.
The answer is in the folded hands of the People not in the two political Parties that have been in charge during the downfall of America. As America goes, so goes the world. If we continue to turn our back to God, we will undergo a just retribution. If we turn back to God so will the world and God will be merciful. If we continue to serve mammon, we can expect worldwide bankruptcy, wars, famine and a world ruler from hell. Pray the holy Rosary. Frequent the Sacraments; love God and neighbor. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…” (Matt. 6:33)
Is there a presidential candidate who truly supports the kingdom of God? Yes. Pray to know….
Much of this, I think, has been summed up nicely in chapter 12 of 1 Cor. As individuals we are called to our individual tasks, but as a Church body we are called to do it all. It is a great argument regarding the dire importance of the formation of conscience in the faithful, and the need to appreciate that the eye and the foot have different functions.
Arthur,
The ACLU did not cause the separation of Church and State, it is, instead, given to us in the Constitution. The very first amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” There is no official religion of this country and people are free to practice any religion or none what-so-ever. This is not an ACLU issue but a Constitutional one.
Furthermore, I find it quite troublesome to side with Republicans when they are so adamant about life issues prior to birth and right before death, yet fail to serve the people for the 70+ years in between by suppressing votes, failing to provide service to the elderly, not providing for a living wage, giving corporations more power than the people, forcing the working class to pay more taxes (as a percent of income) than the rich, and the list goes on… I am a practicing Catholic and consider myself devout; I am a Knight of Columbus, my children just went through first communion, we go to mass on Sundays, etc. However, I would rather be DEAD THAN RED.
Nice point Fisher makes about the difficulty in comparing intrinsic evils. There may be a basis for comparison in some cases: for example you could say theft is less evil than murder only because theft is reversible/reparable and murder is not. I think if you consider evil to be the corruption of a good rather than an entity in itself then the corruption of the greater good would point to the greater evil. So corruption of/destruction of a life is greater than the destruction/corruption of the lesser good property. At least here I think it can be done. However if you compare loss of life due to war to loss of life through abortion you have radically different contexts. I think abortion is worse because the death is always of an innocent and is intentional, but I’m sure there are counter arguments. For example, given the unpredictable nature of war starting an unjust war is an open ended problem that can grow out of control and continue indefinitely (as we have seen). It’s hard to measure the consequences of war so that it would also be hard to measure the comparative evil. I’m sure careful theologians can work it out eventually.
The ACLU did not create the concept of the separation of Church and State I think it was Oliver Wendell Holmes and while it is similar to the constitutional prohibition on establishment it has been grossly distorted to the point where judges suppress religious activity when it conflicts with the state in direct contradiction of the first clause of the first amendment. The phrase “separation church and state” does not appear in the constitution it’s a modern distortion.
“One can compare levels of a similar intrinsic evil. You could say that 4,000 abortions is more grave than 40 or that a genocidal conflict that killed 10,000 was a more grave evil than one in which only 500 died. But you can’t, on the basis of current Catholic teaching, categorically determine that abortion, for instance, is always and absolutely more grave than a given unjust war or torture or severe economic injustice.”
Though the former seems to give a basis for judging the latter. That is, intrinsic evils, in the abstract, are equally evil. One cannot say abortion is more evil than torture. But in concrete situations, one comparing 4000 abortions a day to several incidences of another intrinsic evil that the former is more evil than the latter. (I think this thought is from Aquinas but I cannot find it now.) Given that, it does seem to give us a basis for judging what is the more severe evil at this time. At least between the two cases I give.
We end up losing either way… always voting for the lesser of evils but not for someone we really like.
Hardly worth standing in line.
The reasoning isn’t one of voting for a lessor evil. It is one of voting to lessen an evil while tolerating (not voting for) another evil. If one was voting for an evil than one couldn’t do it to begin with.
I think James has the right take on this. If we assume that all intrinsic evils are equal, then it seems to follow that the intrinsic evil which kills a million unborn each year in America alone outweighs the intrinsic evil of torturing a thousand people per year.
Also, I believe abortion would be a more pervasive evil. Nobody argues that torture is a civil right and that to deny the right to torture is injustice. However one political party does this explicitly with the issue of abortion.
I won’t vote for a supporter of waterboarding in the primaries, but if it comes to having to choose to vote against a person who supports abortion vs. someone who supports waterboarding, my conscience tells me that stopping the champion of abortion is the most pressing evil.
Of course, if the candidate who supports waterboarding gets elected, I’ll have to oppose his error as well.
Is a serial killer or rapist more evil than a person who has committed one murder or rape…??? The definition of ‘torture’ doesn’t necessarily imply ‘killing’ or ‘evil’...in fact some forms of torture are used to get at THE TRUTH…!!! Voting for a serial ‘pro abortion’ and serial ‘anti family’ candidate in my opinion is far worse than voting for a candidate who is openly ‘pro life’ and ‘pro family’ but isn’t opposed to some forms of ‘torture’...!!! Use common sense, Chesterton might say…!!!
Wow.
And the trope about Catholicism being anti-intellectal lives on…how??
Wow.
One historical point for Mr. Arthur Martin:
The desperate clinging to the highly romanticized notions surrounding the founding of our nation fails always to note the role of the Articles of Confederation and that experiment. The individual states additionally had many charters at the time also that sound quite…different…than the current narrative by conservatives have on the origins and intent of the founding documents of our nation. Most narrtives skip directly from 1776 to 1787.
John Adams inserted the following into the Massachusetts constitution:
“Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country…”
Sounds dangerously like a socialist by today’s standards.
Our nation’s foundational documents and its founders are more complex than a conservative narrative or the warped Tea Party narrative.
An important note on intrinsic evils and the role of government:
The government is permitting abortion. The government is executing criminals, enacting unjust wars, acting unjustly during war, and torturing. This is not a linguistic difference. The “actor” and by extension, “the citizen” may have differing culpability. In one, the government is permitting the evil, and the doctor and the mother are doing the evil, while in the other circumstance, the evil is enacted and actively supported by the government, its agents (soldiers etc), and its citzenry.
In short, the complexity of the decision-making and the proper response becomes complex.
Is it ok to support and send our soldiers to wage an unjust war in our names? How does this weigh morally? This is a direct exercise of government-does this alter the decision-making, particularly at a time substantive arguments are made to “reduce government influence” in our lives.
Given that the war in Iraq is essentially over and the war in Afghanistan is just, it likely does not matter morally.
Given that I believe torture has been outlawed by statute in 2005, this also does not matter morally.
Ah…but did it matter? In terms of past elections?
Does such an evaluation matter?
If water boarding is an intrinsic evil, then so are Catholics who give their name and votes to the pro-abortion party. Such Catholics are torture to the unborn and to those of us fighting for their right to life.
Gonzalo del Real writes:
“Furthermore, I find it quite troublesome to side with Republicans when they are so adamant about life issues prior to birth and right before death, yet fail to serve the people for the 70+ years in between by suppressing votes, failing to provide service to the elderly, not providing for a living wage, giving corporations more power than the people, forcing the working class to pay more taxes (as a percent of income) than the rich, and the list goes on…”
Are these not secondary issues? “Suppressing votes… service to the elderly… living wage… corporations… working class…”. These are matters of politics and prudence. No method of successfully and permanently correcting these faults has been discovered. And they are also not personal sins. Abortion is a personal sin. Many thousands of babies die each year - from floods and famines and earthquakes. But they are not killed by individuals acting upon them. No one causes these calamities.
But abortion has a cause. It is personal act. And it is to be discouraged at all times. And the aborters dissuaded for fear they are putting their immortal souls in peril. The supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls.
A propos the Declaration and the Constitution, Justice Thomas is forever insisting that they are two separate documents. The Constitution is a much lesser document, what with its permission for slavery. It is a political document. The Declaration is one of the great documents of human history. The Constitution is not.
Fisher then made a fascinating comment that I have not heard elsewhere -– that there is no basis in Church teaching for comparing two very different “intrinsic evils” and determining that one is objectively and absolutely more grave than the other.
RUBBISH!
There is a hierarchy of values. Abortion is worse than homosexuality. Both are intrinsic evils, but the loss of human life is worse than non procreative sex. An unjust war is not an intrinsic evil, although it is a great evil. And an intrinsic evil is not a worse evil than a non-intrinsic one. Lying is an intrinsic evil, but a white lie is not worse than pre-marital sex, which is a non-intrinsic evil. I feel like this article makes it sound like an intrinsic evil is just a really, really bad evil. No, it’s just an act that can never be made good; its actual damage may be small compared to a non-intrinsic evil.
The evil of abortion is not in terms of numbers but who is killed and under what circumstance. It is a worse evil to kill 1 million unborn children than 1 million adults, because adults have the ability to defend themselves, whereas the unborn have no defense.
I agree that ultimately a vote is based on personal judgment, but there are objective criteria to make those judgements, and some personal judgements will be objectively more true than others. The truth is: there is no worse evil than abortion on our political scene at the moment. Unjust wars are wrong. Capital punishment is wrong. Torture is wrong. But the deaths and injuries from these events are small compared to abortion, and they involve people who could defend themselves.
In one, the government is permitting the evil, and the doctor and the mother are doing the evil, while in the other circumstance, the evil is enacted and actively supported by the government, its agents (soldiers etc), and its citzenry.
I don’t know that this distinction somehow makes sanctioning an immoral act - giving it legal permission - any less an evil. It may be a passive v. active thing, but one can sin by omission just as by commision. What’s more, if the government actually provides funding (as it does to PP, or in healthcare regs requiring others to fund it) then the the complicity ceases to be passive and becomes active.
pre-marital sex, which is a non-intrinsic evil
Huh? Under what circumstances would pre-marital sex (fornication) not be evil?
Dear Mark,
Let me start out by saying that I agree with you that no one, whether Democrat or Republican, is going to hell for a sincere vote according to their conscience. Having said that, I can’t tell you how sad it is to me that the greatest moral issue of our time has been reduced to an internecine squabble over who goes to hell. A million and a half dead babies a year (in this country alone) is a holocaust. In the past forty years, we have destroyed more innocent human life than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane combined. One party says there is nothing wrong with this slaughter. The other party promises to try to stop or at least curtail it. That party will get my vote until the horror stops, or until someone can show me that they are guilty of greater evil. I do not believe anyone can do so.
Thanks for hearing me out, and God bless you!
Waging An unjust war is an intrinsic evil. Whether it is just or not is determined prudentially by the individual’s well-formed, unbiased conscience.
SUZANNE,
I agree with almost everything that you wrote. But, I also agree with c matt, perversion of the marital act, i.e., all sex outside of marriage, is always evil and can never be justified.
“So one cannot state, as definitive Church teaching, that the gravity of the evil of abortion must outweigh all other intrinsic evils or any possible combination of intrinsic evils in our political calculations.”
Miss Weddell’s statement is true, when you are talking about specific acts. Abortion is no more evil than instances of the Gestapo torturing people. Or, as Mr. Shea likes bring up, the rare occasion of the beating to death of a prisoner during OIF.
But, the few instances of killing prisoners were not authorized, and were not policy, even though Mr. Shea likes to conflate these crimes with EITs. Those responsible were prosecuted. So, these acts could not be used as a reason not to vote for President Bush’s re-election.
As with all mortal sin, it is always about the intent. The argument in 2004 was if it was okay to vote for President Bush even though he had exceptions for abortion. Those who thought OIF was unjust, were not going to vote for him, no matter what.
There is a difference between voting on issues (in a referendum) and voting on candidates (in an election under a system in which an elected person is not legally bound to implement his campaign pledges or promises). This difference is morally significant. In the former case, you may know what you are voting for; in the latter, you don’t—you simply empower an individual (or a party) to impose his (its) will on you and all other subjects. What moral right would justify your doing that?
The moral issue of voting in general is brought to a head if you think of the case where you are the “swing” or “decisive” voter. Can you name the cases where you could actulally claim the moral right to impose your views on all and sundry who happen to be subject to the legal authority bound / manned by the results of the ballot? Then you would still have to consider that the voting / election laws are not concerned with your reasons—be they good or bad, moral or immoral—for voting this way or that. Their only concern is with the numbers, the statistics. What is the morality of considering your fellow human beings as mere statistics?
Thinking this through, you will find that voting is moral only in voluntary associations or societies with limited goals and low exit costs, where all the voters and non-voters have explicitly agreed to accept the “collective decision”, knowing that they can quit without given up more than they have pledged when they decided to become members.
Unfortunately, political referenda and elections are not like that. The issue of political voting is who shall impose his will on others, regardless of questions of good or evil, morality or immorality.
I love how this is a problem peculiar to the holy Catholic Church. In nearly every other major religion, the religion explicitly endorses some form of political organization, which is significantly true in Judaism and Islam.
The only point Catholics agree on in political life, remains the Kingship of Jesus.
Just a note. One thing that does not make for informed voting is lies. One reader, named Steven Dube, has posted several times on this thread and elsewhere as “Hariet”, “Lenny” and others. Steve is actually an opponent of Obama and a foe of abortion. He also hates me and apparently believes that lying is justified in order to attack me.
The problem is that, in his increasingly mindless hatred of me, he assumes fake identities and tells readers that it is okay to vote for Obama and pro-abort pols just as he (“Hariet”) did. What he is *trying* to do, of course, is make it appear that this is what I am saying. What he is *actually* doing is helping to tempt ignorant Catholics to vote for Obama and other pro-abort pols and lying about his identity as he does so.
This is called “cutting off your nose to spite your face”. I repeat: I do not think anybody should vote for Obama and will never do so myself. I also think that lying about your identity and trying to tempt people to vote for Obama, just to spite somebody you dislike, is gravely sinful. I have therefore deleted Mr. Dube’s fake notes under his fake identity and urge people to disregard his deceitful rhetoric. I have written him privately and told him to stop this and go to confession. If he returns, I will delete him unless he apologizes for his deception.
Carry on.
Those responsible were prosecuted.
No. Not always. Sometimes they were carefully shielded from prosecution. And those who authorized these policies have never been prosecuted.
But again, this thread is about voting, not about torture. Please stick to the subject.
Abortion is an intrinsic moral evil. It should be illegal. But making it illegal throughout the United States, which could only be accomplished by a constitutional amendment, will not, by itself, end abortions. Heroin and methamphetamines are illegal, but people still sell and use heroin and methamphetamines. The purpose of any pro-life movement worth its salt is to actually end abortions. The problem I have with the usual Republican position on abortion is that while it would make (most) abortions illegal, which, again, would require two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures to go along with it, it otherwise supports Objectivist (Satanist) policies that will bring about the very social circumstances that make abortions desirable. (That parenthetical reference to Satanism is not hyperbole—there was a very interesting article in First Things showing the similarities, and Anton LaVey himself, the founder of the Church of Satan, once acknowledged the similarity between his religion and the philosophy of Ayn Rand.) Thus, it appears to me that the Republican Party as it is currently, while it has no chance of ending abortions, is very likely to bankrupt the country with its foreign military interventionism, and is equally likely to bankrupt many of the individuals living in the country with its neo-liberal economic policies. For these reasons I have avoided voting for Republicans in recent years. Trust me, when I vote for Democrats I hold my nose. But my interest is in seeing the nation survive so that these discussions can continue to have relevance.
Seems like mass abortion has intrinsic elements of lying, torture, unjust war, and mass murder. Extrinsically, it includes sex outside of marriage more often than not. So, if you’re willing to consider like intrinsic evils, it seems as if abortion can compare with just about all of them.
...
FWIW, Paragraph 1 only discusses legislative voting. It’s not quite fair to the theologians to extrapolate their discussion to the mass elections. They may have a more nuanced view for the latter.
Now it becomes clear why you have been dwelling so much on torture lately. It has been a persistent effort of the Democratic party to undermine the clear voice of the church in opposing abortion by attempting to assert that other considerations, such as torture, unjust war, unjust economic policies etc amount to a sort of moral equivalence. It may allow stalwart democrats to rationalize choosing a candidate,who is the most extreme supporter of abortion rights ever to sit in the white house, but you deceive yourselves. The evil of abortion is unquestionable and clear as a bell. The other issues are quite debatable and much less clear.
I think Sherry, as usual, is reasonable and correct. I think that her writing also supports my personal theory that your thoughts on the matter are just “Gospel according to Mark” thoughts, and that you don’t have a leg to stand on with your theology/philosophy that my vote for an anti-abortion, pro-torture, (and can I add - pro-repealing Obama-care, pro-conscience-clause) candidate will change ME (for the worse) more than it could possibly change the country for the better. It is true, Mark, that if everyone thought like YOU and sat out, that perhaps we might get a candidate who wanted our votes. But then we could be living under grave oppression of communists like Obama for the next 40 years. That might happen anyway.
I am willing to die for my faith too. (with God’s grace.) I don’t think that means sitting out.
“Fisher said that at this symposium two top-notch, orthodox theologians presented completely opposite views…” - Uh… completely opposite views on what question??
“Fisher then made a fascinating comment that I have not heard elsewhere -– that there is no basis in Church teaching for comparing two very different “intrinsic evils” and determining that one is objectively and absolutely more grave than the other.” - That is fascinating…
“One can compare levels of a similar intrinsic evil. You could say that 4,000 abortions is more grave than 40 or that a genocidal conflict that killed 10,000 was a more grave evil than one in which only 500 died.” - So that’s nice, but not really to the point now, is it? The real question is whether you can say that, for example, a million abortions is a more grave evil than…what, exactly?...
“But you can’t, on the basis of current Catholic teaching, categorically determine that abortion, for instance, is always and absolutely more grave than a given unjust war or torture or severe economic injustice.” - So its abortion versus not taxing corporations enough/having a high enough minimum wage/etc.?? (Seriously?) And when, praytell, have voters ever been given a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to ‘unjust war’ as an issue to vote on? So then we’re left with a prudential judgment on whether, say, 40 cases of state-sanctioned extreme interrogation (a.k.a. torture) is proportional to a million cases of state-sanctioned murder (a.k.a. abortion) - not to mention aggressive world-wide promotion of the same as a ‘human right.’ I just can’t fathom how that can be a tough call. Is prudence really that nebulous? The “always and absolutely” is really not of interest; the issue here is one of making good concrete decisions, not of enunciating abstract absolute principles based on imaginary problematic scenarios. Taking refuge in hypothetical thought experiments is nice for moral theology, not so useful if we are talking about real political engagement.
Given the corruption rampant in Washington, voting feels less and less meaningful to me. Billionaires and corporate powers are getting their way with weakening regulations and protections that benefit the average person in order to amass more and more wealth. They don’t care what the politicians they control say or do about same sex marriage, abortion, prayer in schools, crosses on public land, extramarital sex, pornography, etc. These are social isses and they don’t affect the bottom line. Whatever happens with social issues, the super wealthy will find a way to make money out of it as long as they aren’t hampered by environmental rules, regulation of their industries, negotiation enforced by organized labor or increases in their taxes. Pro-life people can continue to vote for Republicans on the basis of their pro-life rhetoric, but it is clear that there is no political will to challenge the status quo on this issue because Americans are pretty much evenly divided over whether abortion should be legal.
I will propose that not voting, done with proper intent and conscientously, is an acceptable resoonse to the present conditions. It takes on the role of self-denial of pwer and authority and can be likened to fasting. One can embrace the powerlessness of the voiceless in such denial (like one attempts during penitential fasts. It is a form of self-denial.
cowalker,
How much did the social concerns have to do with changes in people and not government? I claim that recourse to government for promotion of social values is unlikely to be accepted because the vast majority are uninterested or opposed to such virtues as sexual discipline, frugality, etc.
Dan C, I agree with you that cultural changes are the cause of changed views on the various social issues such as same sex marriage and abortion. Yet politicians devote tons of rhetoric to these issues as though they COULD be settled by government. Pro-lifers and pro-choicers vote on the issue of abortion alone, which does nothing to loosen the grip of the super-wealthy on our government. Those folks don’t care about abortion. They will encourage the politicians to yak away on one side or the other to get elected, but won’t support them in actually doing anything, because they don’t care either way. They can fly anywhere they want and buy anything they want no matter what is legal or illegal in the U.S.
The billionaires and corporations who own our politicians care only about enhancing their ability to keep their money and to get more money, while we thrash around arguing over whether a zygote has the same human rights as its mother, or whether federal law should recognize Tom and Steve’s marriage in Massachusetts. In the end public opinion will determine how these issues are handled in law because the true powers in the U.S. don’t care enough to interfere.
It can be a matter of either formal or material cooperation. The principles of material cooperation have their roots in a more fundamental moral principle of “double effect.” These are the two principles that one uses to arrive at a sound prudential judgement.
The Church has not made any specific comments on the morality of voting since these principles already exist. It would, however, be nice to have one of the Sacred Congregations elucidate a document to guide contemporary voters, who need guidance more these days with the increasingly complex voting issues at hand.
Now it becomes clear why you have been dwelling so much on torture lately. It has been a persistent effort of the Democratic party to undermine the clear voice of the church in opposing abortion by attempting to assert that other considerations, such as torture, unjust war, unjust economic policies etc amount to a sort of moral equivalence.
It’s amazing how often people resort to the Conspiracy Theory rather than just read what’s in front of their face. I am not a Democrat. I will never vote for a pro-choice pol (which is the overwhelming majority of Democrats). I have no interest in moral equivalency or finding rationales for supporting abortion. I have an interest in not supporting grave moral evil. The discussion was conducted among Australians who are also not Democrats. Your dark conspiracy theory is a product of a “conservatism” that no longer wishes to be bothered with thinking or coping with actual Catholic teaching on the moral act of voting.
“So one cannot state, as definitive Church teaching, that the gravity of the evil of abortion must outweigh all other intrinsic evils or any possible combination of intrinsic evils in our political calculations.”
I don’t think this is true. A case can be made that the intrinsic innocence of the unborn human being makes abortion the gravest of all. Surely there is Catholic teaching to support this idea, particularly the understanding that “the wages of sin is death.”
Telemachus:
If I may be so bold, I don’t think Sherry would disagree that a case can be made that abortion is the gravest matter of all. However, given that Cdl. Ratzinger’s letter addresses precisely the matter of voting for a pro-abort and grants that it is possible that somebody may think they are doing so for “proportionate reasons” it would appear that she is correct to say that no *definitive* case can be made (at present) that this is Church teaching. If it were, Cdl. Ratzinger could not say there might be a proportionate reason for voting for a pro-abort.
Personally, I can imagine *no* proportionate reason for supporting a pro-abort at the national level or even at the state level (I don’t care if my sewage commissioner supports abortion). But the letter isn’t about what I can imagine. It is about saying two things:
1. Don’t vote to support grave evil.
2. Don’t sit in judgment of people who support pols who support grave evil since you don’t know what proportionate reason they thought they had for doing so.
Mt 6:9,10. If we believe the words then we should wait for that government to be established “on earth, as it is in heaven.” With the Lord Jesus as its appointed king, there should be no more complaints like many of those above.
Does anyone believe that abortion, war, drugs and other crimes will be ended by man’s efforts? The writer of Ps 146 pointed out a logical outcome of faith in God: “Put not your trust in [government officials]: In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.” (newadvent Bible)
@ Mark:
Yeah, after thinking about it further, I see the point. Nevermind what I said. For instance, if I had a choice between a pro-life Hitler (oxymoron, I know) and a pro-choice Churchill, I might vote Churchill to defeat Hitler. Stupid example, I know, but it’s all I could come up with.
However, in all of this, I’ve seen no guidance from the Bishops of the States that unambiguously asserts that abortion should be given principle focus in today’s political climate. I wish they would so that certain Catholics (*cough* *social justice* *cough*) couldn’t feel justified in putting, say, compulsory health-care above ending the abort-o-plex in this country.
I read very carefully what was right in front of my face and if it was not intended to muddy the waters on the issue, it’s odd that it so nicely jives with the democratic parties efforts to do so. You also have a habit of suggesting that someone who criticizes something you say is a “conservative troglodyte” which is baloney. I didn’t say you were a democrat, though your characterization of republicans could cause one to think so. I didn’t say you intended to vote for Obama, though the practical effect of your column is to give cover to Catholics that vote democrat. It is not a “dark conspiracy theory” that the democratic party has made a concerted effort to dilute the import of abortion in the minds of Catholics with the ” moral equivalence” argument, it is a fact.
I called no one a “troglodyte”. I pointed out that your Conspiracy Theory reading was completely baseless. Sorry the facts are a problem for you, Steve. Nonetheless, you can’t just make stuff up. Try to deal with what I actually wrote and not layer on to it fantasies of your own devising. I repeat: I refuse to vote for any candidate who supports abortion and consider abortion the gravest moral issue of our time. Given that, please try to actually use your head and address what I am saying, not invent things I am not saying so you can indulge conspiracy theories.
If this was the O’Reilly Factor, Mr. Shea must surely be named a Pinhead, for his constant deleting of my comments.
Not for any good reason, like making “deceitful” comments, or, using profanity, but, because I show the fatuousness of his arguments.
How very sad.
REAL POLITICAL SOLUTIONS
This is an excellent analysis of the current dilemma of how Catholics should conform their voting behavior to Church teaching. But, to state the obvious, it wouldn’t be necessary to try to solve such a thorny problem at all if we could only bring ourselves to reorient our political efforts from largely ineffective strategies to REAL solutions. The platforms of both the Democratic and Republican parties must be amended to more solidly reflect the Church’s goals for the right to life of the unborn child, social justice, and the protection of our water, air, and living ecosystem from catastrophic damage from toxic pollution and global warming. Specifically, the Church needs to organize and fund petition drives for a constitutional amendment giving the unborn child the right to life; the Democratic platform must be amended to be prolife; and the Republican platform as expressed in concrete actions over the past several decades must be amended to provide for real environmental protection and an increased concern for social justice for those who don’t happen to be white, middle class or above, and citizens by birth. Otherwise we need additional political parties whose platforms will address all three of these Church priorities honestly and aggressively at the same time. Until we mobilize the Church in this way the real power of our vote is being stolen from us because choices reflecting all the critically important values of our Church are not appearing on any of the ballot options at the national level where most of these changes must take place. Thus the dilemma. But our goal in voting is not just to save our mortal souls by voting in conformity with theological principle, but to save the unborn and the air, water, and living ecosystem to the extent we can save them. I hope the bishops and parish councils will move quickly to commit major resources to getting these things done by using the parish and diocese as rallying points and organizational centers to coordinate petition drives and voter education initiatives, as our late and beloved President John F. Kennedy would say “with vigor!” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops should get the word out to synchronize our efforts nationwide for best effect. Until we do these things in a concerted nation-wide effort the Church will not have properly flexed its awesome muscle to effect real social change, and we will not have done justice to our bishops’ exhortations to pursue these priorities by all means and with the life and death sense of urgency that properly attaches to them. And a PS for the additional party solution: consider, although Christian Republican party members are fully prolife, large corporate supporters of the Republicans may not be because once we solve the abortion problem by constitutional amendment large chunks of the Catholic/Christian vote are freed to go Democratic to pursue social justice and environmental protection. Those lobbyists don’t want the Republican party to fully solve the abortion problem for that reason.
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