The difference between you and many other good Catholic folk is that you are an idealist and most are realist.  One is not necessarily holier than the other, just a different perspective.  An idealist has your viewpoint.  A realist understands that in “reality,” a candidate for one of the two major parties will win.  Statistically, historically…that is what will happen.  Hence, realizing this, people vote the “lesser” evil to minimize evil acts, not because they support evil acts.  When I go to the pearly gates, I will tell God, “I used my power of choice to try to minimize something gravely offensive to you.”  It’s all a matter of perspective, and if we do so with the best intention of following God, that is all He asks.  No one should judge the other.  Though, there would be some issue if there was a legitimate viable candidate that did not support intrinsic evil…unfortunately that is not true in this election and not for quite some time.

Mark, I’m with you on the attaining Heaven and avoiding Hell. But I’m not sure why you assign the same moral weight to torture, abortion, and ESCR. It seems to me that men of good will can disagree on what constitutes torture/coercive intrrogation techniques. But there can be no disagreement that abortion and embryo-destructive research are intrinsic moral evils.

Dear Brent, I shudder to think of the implications of what you suggest should be somehow true…that we cannot live Catholicly (in the true sense of the word, living as Jesus would live) because it is an ideal that cannot be lived out in the real world. I’m sorry, I cannot accept your form of pragmatism, which looks like a type of Catholic Minimalism. When we were baptized, we were given Christ’s role as Prophet, Priest and King to continue to live out His mission as one of His anointed…to live out the ideal of Christ’s prayer as He taught us, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” If we bear the name “Christian”, we bear the mantle of Christ’s anointing and mission in this world as Elisha bore the mantle of Elijah. It means taking on the idealism of Christ in order to make it real in this world. To do as you suggest moves us towards reversing the order…“Our kingdom come, our will be done, in heaven as it is on earth.”

Brent,

It is my understanding that a Catholic never chooses the lesser evil because a Catholic never chooses evil at all.  We choose the greater good which is a very different thing.

As politicians are notorious for selfishness and opportunism, we have to cate our votes after careful thought ensuring that the candidate is not for evil things we abhorr

In traditional Catholic moral theology, there is a key distinction between formal cooperation in evil and material cooperation in evil. In formal cooperation, I share in the evil intention of the evildoer - this is never morally permissible. This is the key aspect of truth in Mark’s position. We may not do, or formally intend, moral evil so that good may come - not even to save the whole world. Saving the world is God’s responsibility.

However, material cooperation (even in intrinsic evil) can be permissible (or even obligatory), depending on circumstances. An act of merely material cooperation in some way facilitates or is associated with a moral evil, while in no way directly intending that evil. For example, by creating a world in which moral evil occurs, God materially cooperates in that evil, though he does not formally intend it. Or, by working as an engineer helping to provide electricity to a city, I materially cooperate in (without intending) all sorts of evils that depend on electricity (such as the operation of abortion clinics).

Even if I know my action (like God’s act of creation) will (de facto) help a person ‘enact deeds worthy of the fires of hell’ as Mark puts it, if I am not in any way intending those deeds, this is only material cooperation. In itself, this is not ‘choosing moral evil’, even ‘the lesser moral evil’. (I think all this is behind the point that then-Cardinal Ratzinger was making, which Mark refers to.)

I then have to judge by the circumstances and consequences whether my material cooperation is morally prohibited, permissible or obligatory. If omitting the material cooperation would allow even graver evils to take place, it is arguable that my material cooperation is morally obligatory - depending on all the different factors involved (possibility of unintended scandal, etc).

In the political case, supposing that all candidates with a plausible chance of winning support some intrinsic evil or other, it is only material cooperation (and so not morally evil in and of itself) to support the candidate who will probably enact only the lesser degree of intrinsic evil - as long as I do not in any way directly intend or will this evil (which would be formal cooperation).

I would maintain that it is morally obligatory to support this candidate, rather than a candidate with no chance of winning. It is by doing this that we avoid sin and remain on the safe path to heaven. Our responsibility is even graver if our opinions potentially influence a large number of people in how they make their vote. We are effectively contributing to the possible victory of the candidate who will support the greater intrinsic evil - and without the legitimate excuse that we are acting thus, only to avoid committing intrinsic evil ourselves (since material cooperation is not intrinsically evil).

I usually agree with you, Mark, but I think you have to rethink this one. (What I have said is orthodox Catholic theology, and is fully in line with the encyclicals ‘Veritatis Splendor’ and ‘Evangelium Vitae’.)

Mark,
Every time you speak up on this subject, i.e. the holy altar of abortion, I am grateful. Abortion is a horror, yes. But I agree with you that Catholics should be fighting against all evils. Thanks, as always.

Mark: I think your stance—refusing to vote for any candidate who advocates intrinsic grave evil, and is likely to act on it—is both reasonable and praiseworthy.

I don’t think it can be maintained, though, that this stance is obligatory, or that anyone who knowingly votes for a candidate who advocates and is likely to support intrinsic grave evil is committing materially grave sin. At least, I don’t think it can be maintained on the basis of the argument you’ve put forward here regarding “helping people enact deeds worthy of the fires of hell,” i.e., remote material cooperation in evil. Catholic moral teaching is clear that remote material cooperation in evil, even grave intrinsic evil, can be licit.

It is very difficult if not impossible to live in the world without “helping people enact deeds worthy of the fires of hell”—and knowing that we are doing so. Every time you leave the supermarket with a shopping cart full of groceries and other products, you can be morally sure that you are giving money to corporations that donate to organizations that support grave evil (and that advertise with other corporations that do the same, etc.). There are websites and boycott lists that will tell you which products those are. To boycott such products may be reasonable and praiseworthy—but it cannot be judged obligatory by the standards of Catholic moral teaching, even if you happen to know which products they are.

If the political reality is that either Candidate A or Candidate B will win the election, and if both candidates plan to support grave intrinsic evil, but one is much worse than the other, then it is not possible to argue, simply on the basis of cooperation in evil, that you cannot vote for the less problematic viable candidate.

You might attempt an argument in some larger context—e.g., you might argue, as some have proposed, that casting a vote associates the voter in a particular way with the candidate and his agenda, or that it is imprudent always to vote for the lesser of two viable evils since voting quixotic is the better strategy in the long term for getting better candidates further down the road. But that ‘s not the same as saying “To vote for such a candidate, knowing what he stands for and what he is likely to do in office, is a mortal sin, full stop.”

But I’m not sure why you assign the same moral weight to torture, abortion, and ESCR. It seems to me that men of good will can disagree on what constitutes torture/coercive intrrogation techniques. But there can be no disagreement that abortion and embryo-destructive research are intrinsic moral evils.

You sidestepped out of your own track of logic. Just because “men of good will can disagree on what constitutes torture, etc.” (which I’m not sure is true, but will grant it for this argument, doesn’t mean that torture itself isn’t damnable. Torture does, in fact, have the same moral weight as abortion and ESCR. All three are intrinsically evil. That you can’t see what torture is has no bearing on whether torture is wrong.

Very well expressed.

I understand and I concur but that leaves the question of whom is left for us to vote for? We definitely need a new administration but we also don’t need to go from the frying pan into the fire. Actually we don’t ever want to go into the eternal fires of hell. Not voting is almost a sin of omission because you didn’t do anything to try and change the way things are for the better. Most candidates seem like two edged swords. Where are the good candidates anymore?

Hmmmm: I have never known, in my lifetime, a candidate who was “pure” as far as the Catholic Church’s teaching is concerned…..[even our Catholic President, JFK] so, therefore, if all Catholics refuse to vote…...then what type of candidate gets voted in?  I personally believe that abortion is more evil than water-boarding someone to get info in order to save more people & get rid of other evils. So that would be “the best of two evils”  [my ‘down to earth’ thinking]

i vote - reg as rep, but i dony vote by that…
...
i dony vote catholic, although i am one…
...
i dont vote youth, or no taxes, or anythimg like that…
...
i vote for antiabortion, antitorture, etc… when there is no one without faith in GOD, no true christian, i dont vote…

Mark, I’ll have to take your word for it when you say you aren’t condemning anyone, because of how much time and effort you are spending equating voting for a certain candidate with going to Hell.  If you want to think that, that’s fine, but the effect of all of this defense has actually been to take someone with no previous strong feeling and increase my resolve to vote for someone who has a fighting chance of actually having a positive impact of some kind. 
Let’s get something straight: wanting to avoid Hell is not perfectionism, perfectionism is perfectionism.  Unless I am mistaken, you have yet to name this ideal third party candidate, which leads me to question whether (s)he will actually exist when the time rolls around.  If voting third party assuages your conscience, that is fine—I have declined to vote before—but I have over a century of U.S. history telling me that third parties don’t win elections.  I, personally, do not relish having to explain how I helped hand a victory to someone who is a nightmare on nearly all fronts and had the same effect for all practical purposes on the rest of the world.

I am often left wondering why anyone believes that voting for any candidate presents a chance to “make things better.” No president has ended abortion, and no president has avoided war.  And both this president and our last president, representing both of our major political parties, have both supported torture, or in their own tortured language “enhanced interrogation technics.”  In a comment above, Maggie claims that not voting is a sin of omission because we forego the opportunity to make things better.  I am not voting for any candidate who supports killing those already born, be it through war or the death penalty, or torture.  No war at present meets the Just War Theory.  The Catechism condemns torture.  The Catechism teaches that the instances requiring the death penalty are so rare that it basically shouldn’t exist.  As far as I can tell, neither major party candidate will reject these three intrinsically evil things.  I will note vote for a candidate who supports abortion, either. Therefore I won’t vote.  Not voting is not a sin if what you are choosing not to vote for is a terrible evil.  I won’t vote for evil.  Period. None of this addresses the simple fact that statistically speaking not a single one of our votes will EVER decide a presidential election anyway.  My conscience is clear when it comes to voting for politicians who support evil.  I don’t support them.

It is all well and good to write lofty articles explaining the intricasies and fine points between good and evil, sinful and unsinful actions but the fact remains: abortion in this country has been legal for more than four decades and thousands of innocent lives are continuously aborted daily.  All sin, according to the church, is an evil action of ommision or commision with varying degrees of gravity depending upon the consequences of those actions. ” What I have done or what I have failed to do”, according to our Confiteor professed at every mass. Still abortion is alive and well and legal.  How many sinful acts of ommision as well as commision does it take to allow it to continue? Does it continue due more to those sinful acts of ommision where few respond or remain silent about this insideous law of the land?  Or does it continue mostly because of activity in the voting booth?  It would seem to this writer that the act of voting (or not voting) is such a small part of the reasons this holocaust goes on and on, regardless of how many well written articles to this effect appear in print. When you have one month out of twelve devoted in a rather anemic manner by the USCCB for actively opposing this abomination, when large numbers of dioceses in this country have no vigorous campaign against this abomination, when few bishops lay down penalties for Catholics who publically support abortion and even in some cases have given support to these politicians (e.g. University of Notre Dame awarding President Obama an honorary degree debacle) then we have pretty much thrown in the towel Except for afew well worded protests, such as this one, little seems to be forthcoming in such a way to have much consequence.  It may be one can lump together all the life issues into one big fight (i.e.including torture and the others) but to me it makes more sense to take them on one at a time. In that case the fight against abortion takes center stage as it is the most grave in this list of grave offenses.  Not only in consequence but in numbers.  Without the right to be born the other rights become un-necessary and moot! A well written article on occasion does little more than prompt afew lofty thoughts like this one….and then the issue returns to back burner status for most, including the Catholic Church, who recently sidelined a living saint amongst us who had devoted his life and priesthood to saving these voiceless victims by keeping the issue front and center in the nation. Now that voice has been silenced and his work diminished.  Unless Catholics unite, both laity and hierarchy, as one voice and vigorously campaign, day in and out, both in and out of the voting booth, this holocaust will continue to spread and grow! There are many serious fronts on the battle line of the war against evil but this fight against abortion is where it will be ultimately won or lost, in terms of not only our civilization, but more importantly our immortal souls! This is a time for a crusade against the most heinous crime any civilization has known. We need a banner under which to gather and fight! That banner should be flying from the tallest steeple, the Catholic Church and all those who would join us in what could be the Final Battle! Thanks Mark for your rallying cry! Please don’t stop beating the drum!

Stephen:

I think your note is basically agreeing with my last paragraph.  My argument here is that, for *me*, I cannot in conscience go on supporting candidates who ask me to support grave and intrinsic evil.  I would, of course, urge others to imitate me (or I would not write).  But if they don’t it’s no my job to judge it.  What concerns me is how cavilierly critics of my position regard the notion of my doing something I regard as hellworthy for the sake of achieving some short term political goal.  What also concerns me is the massive embrace of consequentialism and the deep rejection of a fundamental Catholic teaching for the sake of these same short term goals.  Catholics in this country are willing to sell our birthrights very cheaply for the sake of political power—or rather the illusion of political power.  I think a massive paradigm shift need to happen and Catholics need to embrace the fullness of our tradition and stop amputating it in order to fit into the demands of parties that do not care about us.  Brent calls these acts of amputation “realism”.  I call them “folly” and point to the spectacularly underwhelming field of midgets that such “realistic” conservatism has given us in this election.  The fact that the GOP cannot mount a credible opposition to this President in this economy shows the fantastic poverty that has resulted from Catholics “playing ball” instead of being the prophetic counter-cultural witness we are supposed to be for worldlings of both the left and the right.

enness:

I have no idea who will be on the ballot a year from now in terms of third parties.  I am certain that the major parties are going to give us Obama and Romney, two men I will never vote for.  If a third party shows up that does not demand I support acts worthy of the fires of hell, I will consider what they say.  Doesn’t mean they get my vote.  Does mean I’ll consider them.

I have a healthy cynicism for all of the candidates.  As one poster has noted, none have stopped abortion but the present president sure has helped it along with our taxpayer money, and the present administration certainly is responsible for forced approving of contraceptives, limiting “the voice of conscience” and supporting end of life ideals.  Whats worse, is spreading this evil around the world.

No candidate is going to be perfect, but I believe if we vote a new President in, perhaps he will listen to the voices of the people, as this one refuses to.  None of them will be perfect, that’s for sure.  But we need also to vote other people in that will not support embryonic cell experimentation, will not force contraceptive health on people or insist on hospitals (doctors and nurses) performing abortions.

As for the torture thing, politics has strange bedfellows, Mark.  You really don’t know what they will do until the get in.  I certainly don’t support the murder of Gadahfi or Bin Ladden, but it depends what party the president is in.  I believe that if Bush had ordered or condoned this, there would have been a whole lot of demonstrations against it.  Murder is murder.  They were evil men, but condoning this is worse than condoning torture in my view.  The best thing is to pray the Rosary so the right people get elected.

@Brent - I agree that one should be realistic, rather than idealistic. But I think you have your categories reversed. Heaven, God, and judgment are real, perhaps the “most real” and certainly the most personal and practical things, to pay attention to in making a decision. Politics, in our country at least, has degenerated into idealistic ideologies and a variety of fantastic denials of reality.

It matters very little, to be honest, who gets elected to office. Their power to harm or do good is limited. We tend to forget that in a country which has adopted politics as its idolatry of choice.

[ironic captcha: national89]

Sue:

To repeat.  I’m not asking for “purity”.  I’m asking for candidates who will not ask me to support acts so evil they will send you to hell.  Nothing in JFK’s platform (or Nixon’s, for that matter) would have asked us to do that, so far as I can tell, so both were candidates Catholics could have supported in good faith.  Both men were sinners, of course.  But I’m not arguing we can’t vote for sinners.  I’m arguing we can’t vote for people who promise that they will commit us to supporting gravely evil acts.  That Catholics in this country are now so comfortable with the idea of supporting acts which are worthy of the everlasting fires of Hell, merely because those acts will put you in a different circle of Hell from That Guy over There suggests to me that we need to seriously revisit our moral tradition and stop getting it from TV and talk radio.  What has such an abandonment gotten us but marginalization, corruption, and a field of lousy candidates who nakedly exploit and then ignore us?

Mark,

I neither believe you wrong for your determination not to vote for a candidate who supports intrinsic evil, nor do I seek to convince you otherwise. However, it is not objectively wrong to vote for a candidate who supports a grave intrinsic evil if there are proportionate reasons for voting against his opponent. See Ratzinger’s NB in “Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles.”

“[N.B. A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.]”

This would apply as well, for instance, to voting for a candidate who would use the power of his office to further the intrinsic evil of torture (but who claims he would use the power of his office to outlaw abortion) over and against voting for a candidate who would use the power of his office to extend abortion rights. If one is still worthy to present himself for Holy Communion in that situation, then it is not a mortal sin, as you state that it would be for you.

Again, I respect your position and do not believe you are wrong for holding it and voting the way that you will. However, it seems an overstatement that voting for someone whom you know would support an intrinsic evil, even if there is a proportionate reason for doing so, would be, for you, a mortal sin and, by extension, a mortal sin for everyone else, assuming the same knowledge and freedom. Even within mortal sins, there are degrees of severity in the temporal consequences they wreak, which manifests proportionate reasons in voting one candidate over another when no better alternative exists.

Mark: Thanks, I appreciate that. That’s fair enough, if I’m reading you rightly.

Pressing just a bit further, it seems to me that language like “for me” and “it’s not my job to judge” can be taken in two different senses. One is in the spirit of St. Thomas More’s demurrals regarding consigning other people to hell for signing the oath: “I condemn no one. I have no window into another man’s conscience.” What St. Thomas means is “Signing the oath, i.e., denying the Petrine primacy, is in fact objectively, intrinsically gravely wrong—but I can’t judge the subjective awareness or culpability of another. If they signed in invincible ignorance, they would not be sinning mortally. But the act itself is cut and dried.”

On the other hand, there are matters of prudential judgment that are not cut and dried. For example, there are movies that I regard as pure poison—that I would passionately urge other people not to watch at all except for critical purposes. Obviously I hope people will agree with me. But (except in cases like out-and-out pornography) I would stop short of pronouncing that watching such movies is objectively, intrinsically gravely wrong, and that only subjective, invincible ignorance could save viewers from mortal sin. I acknowledge that it is a grey area where there is room for prudential judgment, and that anyone is free to disagree with me. I That’s not to say that all opinions are equally good or safe, but I acknowledge my opinions here to be mine in a way that I would not for something cut and dried.

Since you say we seem to be basically agreeing, am I right in thinking that you see this as an issue of the second sort rather than the first sort?

Ben:

I get all that.  Which is why I don’t sit in judgment of how others vote—even when they vote for Obama. (Though, curiously, I *constantly* run into Catholics in comboxes who are quite ready to tell Obama voters that they should be excommunicated, have no right to present themselves for communion, and are, in fact, going to face the everlasting fires of hell for so voting.  So it appears that Cdl. Ratzinger is being read, like so much of the rest of Catholic teaching, extremely selectively by many self-proclaimed “faithful conservative Catholics”.  It is only with respect to voting for conservative who support grave intrinsic evil that many “faithful conservative Catholics” brandish Cdl. Ratzinger’s note.

Me: I’m only speaking for myself and not in judgment of others.  If I vote for a candidate who advocates grave evil I can’t shake the fact that I’m supporting grave evil.  I can’t do that, and I wish more Catholics would refuse to do it—with either party.  The sooner we stop being played by parties that don’t care about us and reassert our own tradition in its fullness, the sooner we start to bear prophetic witness to the culture instead of be co-opted by it.  Far more significant than how a compromising vote for grave evil changes the culture, is how a compromising vote for grave evil changes you.

Steven:

See the last line of my post above.  I regard the advocacy of grave intrinsic evil as you regard a porn film.  I don’t believe it’s a matter of prudential judgment once the thing being advocated is not merely a question of prudence (“Obamacare vs. single payer”/higher vs. lower taxes”) but is something the Church describes as gravely and intrinsically evil.  Per Cdl. Ratzinger, I grasp that one can engage in remote material cooperation with evil provided one is not doing it to promote the evil.  I even grasp that with Obama voters, which is why I have never joined in the little Inquisitions that break out in Catholic comboxes where Obama voters are read out of the Church for the mere act of voting for Obama.  I recognize that we are competent not to judge souls on such a basis.  But in the case of my soul, I can tell you that I recognize that the perpetual willingness to say, “I will vote for the lesser of two evils” results in my voting for evil.  That has little effect on the election (except insofar as it has the cumulative effect of breeding a conservative movement capable of producing only moral midget and morons as our field of candidates).  But it has a huge effect on me—because I throw away my conscience in order to cooperate with evil for the sake of playing ball.  I think Catholics could do worse than to revisit the calculus of voting from the perspective, not of how my vote will effect the election (short answer: it won’t) but from the perspective of “What does it do to my soul to perpetually say yes to grave intrinsic evil for the sake of a pathetically small place at the table of temporal power?”  That we are now in a place where Catholics *routinely* speak as though desire to attain heaven and avoid mortal sin is contemptible prissiness tells me all I need to know about the baleful effects of the moral calculus behind “playing ball” for the sake of party fellowship.

Which candidates ‘advocate’ the intrinsic evil of torture? Which ones are willing to give millions of taxpayer dollars towards advancing the torture adjenda?  I sincerely want to know because I don’t see him.

I assumed that the torture thing was a repugnant choice made in certain circumstances on the part of the previous president without as much forethought and clarity as the abortion issue. I don’t see anybody vigorously defending torture… am I wrong?

May I also point out that it is highly unlikely we have tortured someone as innocent as an unborn child?

I’m not trying to be rhetorical - I despise both evils. But I have to vote for somebody.

Jessica:

When asked if they support “enhanced interrogation” (which is the standard euphemism for torture), the only GOP candidates over the past two election cycles who refused to raise their hands were Ron Paul (a man with principles) and John McCain (a torture victim).  The rest raised their hands and are enthusiastic apologists for torture, as is most of the “conservative” base who enthusiastically applaud when the question is asked in debates.  The GOP rhetoric on torture is identical to leftist rhetoric on abortion: let’s make is safe, legal, and rare.  Just as abortion was sold as being rare and only limited to a few cases.

The only reason we’re stuck with two parties is because people believe we’re stuck with two parties.

Catholics (and other orthodox Christians) should find a state (Missouri?) to focus efforts on creating a new party at partisan local and state levels, then let it grow organically from there.  It doesn’t need to be the ‘Catholic Party’, but one that adheres to Catholic social teaching, which would have broad appeal if it were, you know, actually acted out.

To paraphrase Mark, holding one’s nose to vote for someone just because they *could* win is dumb.

Mark, I don’t think it’s true that the GOP has no candidate who mounts a credible opposition to Obama.  I believe Rick Santorum is indeed a viable candidate who would be a formidable opponent.  He’s just not the GOP establisment’s “chosen.”  Too bad.  He’d be a great leader and he is a good man who walks the talk.

Catholics (those who voted for him) own Obama’s presidency and all the evil he has done.  Period.  He would not have been elected without the Catholic vote.  That’s our shame.  I pray to God it doesn’t happen a second time.

Mark,
I believe that St. Thomas (this time Aquinas) argues that it is moral to support an evil law as long as it will improve the status quo (assuming the law ruling the land is morally worse than the proposed new law). If you think of politicians as bundles of laws (when voting for a politician you are indirectly voting for the laws and policies the politician will enact), then voting for a politician who supports evil laws is acceptable if the politician’s proposals are better (less evil) than the laws that currently reign.

I am in 100% total agreement with you, Mark.  It troubles me that both sides seem to be more intent on winning an election than they seem to want to ask questions about what their candidate believes. Or hold them to a Catholic or Christian or really…any standard of morality. I also add heresy to your bottom line, so I will not ...cannot vote for Romney, who is a heretic.  My Republican friends tell me that winning is more important, but I just won’t do it.  Neither will I vote for a pro-Abortionist, either.  So, if need be I will either not vote or write in a candidate who is both Christian and pro-life.

I do not understand this insistent belief that electing a conservative Republican to the presidency will do anything about abortion.  The president can affect abortion policy through only one means: appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. As history has shown, Presidents appoint people to the court and what they end up getting is not at all what they THOUGHT they were appointing.

But EVERY president has a say, in fact, is in charge of other policies which are grossly evil, such as war and torture.  The insistence on voting solely on the issue of abortion is morally bankrupt.  It is easy for any candidate to get up on his bully pulpit and preach against abortion.  Candidates know there is nothing they can do about it. But, how many candidates are preaching an end to war?  Hardly any. In fact, I can only think of one who consistently preaches against our policies of war and our universal military presence. 

B-XVI is the peace Pope.  Give me the peace presidential andidate and he will have my vote. What is sad is that I know many people who voted for Obama despite his support for abortion because they believed his statements opposing the war in Iraq, against the freedom killing Patriot Act, etc.  What they didn’t know was that he was just telling everyone what he thought they wanted to hear and he has continued and furthered our warmaking.  So we are left with the same things these voters objected to with Bush: Abortion and War.

Jen:

Romney will be the nominee.  And when he is we will all be told that we have to vote for him or the babies will die.  And when he is elected, he will not give a fig for prolife concerns and could well give us another Souter.  I think that instead of prostituting ourselves to get played yet again, we should stand as a prophetic witness for the whole of Catholic teaching and not just the bits the GOP or Dems find useful.  We should stop asking how our compromises will affect the election and start asking how they affect us.  The answer: they have corrupted us and made us dumb patsies for powerful people who don’t care about us.

Mr. Shea:

When you entitle your column “Wanting to Attain Heaven and Avoid Hell is Normal Catholic Faith” and then discuss the candidates for whom people vote, you are, in sum, condemning those who do not agree with you as well as setting yourself up as the arbiter of good and evil. You are also disregarding the host of reasons people can vote for a candidate, which are usually larger than simply abortion. Most people are not “one issue” voters. Their votes are informed by the complexity that characterizes American life.

Frankly, it is a shame that issues such as abortion have become the fodder of political parties. Abortion is really not the business of the state.

Mark, you may or may not be right about Romney.  I’m not going there yet.  Today, I am still supporting Rick Santorum.  I’m not throwing in the towel yet.  If people stopped insisting he can’t win and started backing him, he’d be unbeatable.  And he’d be a GREAT President.

“The president can affect abortion policy through only one means: appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

True, if you mean outlawing abortion outright. Other than that, there are many ways presidential actions can influence abortion policy, and not just within the US: choice of cabinet members (HHS and Sec. of State in particular), executive orders, nominations to lower courts, ambassadorships (esp. to the UN), representation at international conferences, etc.

There’s potentially a huge difference between a president whose policy is to actively promote the culture of death around the world, particularly through foreign policy (as Obama / Hillary Clinton are doing), and one who wouldn’t.

Mark Shea: Is voting for a candidate that supports intrinsic evil, objectively evil?  Yes or No will do.

Brent:

Yes or no will not do.  If you vote for Obama *because* he supports abortion and so do you, you are sinning.  If you vote for Obama because you, say, think that by doing so, you will stop our involvement in unjust war (hah!) but not because you want his abortion policies, then you are not sinning, as near as I can tell from Cdl Ratzinger’s letter.  Same deal with “conservatives” who advocate torture but who get your vote because you want lower taxes (hah!).

I, on the other hand, would be sinning either way because my conscience no longer lets me get played by pols who keep asking me to accept their gravely sinful acts in order to get something else done.  The principal effect my vote has is on me, not on the election.  I’m sick of throwing away my vote by choosing somebody I know advocates grave evil.  I can’t judge what others do, but I must judge my own actions.

Jen:

Rick Santorum has zero hope of becoming President.  But if he did, I would never vote for him because a) he advocates the use of torture while disgracefully claiming to be prolife and b) he is prolife second and a loyal Republican first, as he demonstrated by disgracefully supporting Arlen Specter.

Nemo:

Murder is the business of the state.  That you cannot see something so elementary is but one more reason I believe Catholics who have sold their birthright for a place at the table of temporal power need desperately to reclaim their heritage.

Ben has the last word and is 100% correct! Case closed.

Mark,
With all due respect, you are absolutely wrong that Santorum is pro-life second and Republican first.  Nobody is perfect, and he acknowledges that supporting Specter was a huge mistake.  He regrets it and wishes he’d listened to his wife, who told him not to do it. His reasons were well-intentioned, and not at all a reflection on his commitment to life.  He LIVES his pro-life convictions every single day faithfully, and neither you nor anyone else can credibly say otherwise.  You need to forgive him this one, Mark.  He respects the sanctity of human life and has fought for it more than all the other candidates combined.

I do forgive him.  But that doesn’t mean I’ll vote for him or trust him, particularly when he boast of being pro-torture.

But, as I say, it’s moot because the GOP is going to nominate Romney and we will all be instructed to hold our noses and vote for him.  No thanks.

I feel strongly that while the presidential race is probably a lost cause, and I hope to never be associated with such evil by voting or otherwise, there are very important elections going on in which we have decent candidates.  The president doesn’t matter nearly as much as people assume, while local officials do. You should encourage people to learn about local politics and support good people locally. That’s the only way to prepare for a better future politically.
In short, given the way our system works I don’t see any way to argue that voting in the presidential race is obligatory, so I see no reason to cast my lot with grave evil of any kind, but there are elections where my voice does count and in which I may have a moral obligation to act, they just don’t get the media coverage.

Mark,
If you forgive him, then please stop maligning his character in that regard.  He made a mistake.  His reasons were two: Roberts and Alito.  As I said, his reasons were well-intentioned, if misguided and flawed.  He now regrets it, and I know he has learned from the experience.  Stop accusing him of selling out.  He is an honest and decent man who IS trustworthy. He knows better than most how hard it is to fight for life in our culture of death because he does it every day for his own daughter.

When and where exactly has he “boasted of being pro-torture”?  Just curious.

I won’t vote for Romney either.  He’s a con-man at best. Now THERE’s a man who is untrustworthy.

When and where exactly has he “boasted of being pro-torture”?

Everytime he has raised his hand (to thunderous applause from the pro-torture GOP audience) and declared that he favors “enhanced interrogation” (which is a standard “conservative” euphemism for torture).

If you tell me that no GOP candidate says they are in favor of torture, I will reply that no Democrat says he is in favor of child slaughter either.  The fact that politicians never have the guts to accurately name the evils that they favor only means that they are skilled at replacing plain English with euphemism.  See my piece on the Euphemistic Treadmill.

Mark, I won’t be happy if Romney is nominated, that’s for sure.  But I would rather vote for him than “hold my nose” and vote for the most pro-abortionist president we’ve ever had, so he can continue upholding evil acts.  Even bringing our troops home doesn’t equal an embryonic cell experiment, the murder of one baby, his suppression of the Church (in promoting abortions at Catholic hospitals and withholding money for the UCCB trafficking victims) and forcing contraceptives in his “health care ” plans. 

I don’t see how Romney can do even worse.  Yes, he flip flops at times, however he also values family life and I doubt that he would recommend an abortion for any of his daughters if “they made a mistake” as Obama declared when he was running.  I’d love to see another candidate, but politics being the way they are, anything may change in a year’s time.

The number one issue in America today is abortion.  Anyone who votes for a candidate condoning abortion commits a mortal sin under all conditions.  That should be a no brainer. Any practicing Catholic that voted for the Socialist Democrat Obama was automatically excommunicated, and every time they receive the Eucharist is a sacrilege.  How many have been penitent and returned to the Church?  From their indicated actions, very few I suspect.

I don’t see how Romney can do even worse.

I do.  He can do nothing, or quietly let stand all Obama’s “advances” in suppression of conscience and pro-abort zealotry, while screwing up so badly in other areas that, as with W., the public then elects an even more extreme enemy of life, conscience, and religious liberty following his term in office.

Bob:

Apparently you are one of the Inquisitors who only believes in remote material cooperation with evil when it comes to voting for the grave intrinsic evil you don’t care about.  It’s fine to say that you would deem yourself unworthy to approach the Eucharist if you voted for Obama.  I’d say the same for myself too.  But Cdl. Ratzinger makes clear you are not competent to declare that somebody else who votes for Obama is to be barred from the Eucharist, so long as they did not vote for him in order to support abortion.  So you are, in fact, dead wrong to say that anybody who voted for Obama is excommunicated.  Read Cdl. Ratzinger’s letter.

It’s funny how some Catholics can totally get my point about not voting for pols who advocate grave evil when it comes to abortion, yet totally miss the point that we cannot sit in judgment of others, while at the same time feeling like I am sitting in judgement of them (which I’m not) while refusing to vote for their fave rave pro-torture candidate.

We could demand a referendum on universal suffrage and vote it down and then we wouldn’t have these conscience problems.

im not voting for anyone who is doin or supportive of evil - even if that means i dont vote at all…
...
i have aduty to vote my conscience for everything… i dont have a duty to vote for a when b is seemingly more evil than a… even if nobody turns up “good”... if they dont, i dont vote fot him/her
...
i dont care if joe blow feels necessitated to vote against someone to keep him out… i dont care how many times rep-dem is goin to win…
...
i wony vote if i cant find someone to votr for…

I must not be understanding Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter because the whole rationale seems flimsy and a cop-out to me.  That’s what allowed millions of Catholics to vote for Obama in the first place; this assertion that they didn’t like his pro-abortion policies, but they liked him otherwise, so they weren’t voting FOR his pro-abortion policies, but FOR him in every other way, and that makes it okay.  But see, Obama didn’t keep it a secret what he planned to do if elected.  He told us upfront that he’d be a staunch proponent of death via abortion, so nobody can claim they didn’t know what he might do.  So, it does seem to me that Catholics who voted for him were, in fact, voting FOR his abortion policies because they knew what he planned to do.  So where’s the excuse here?  (I’m not being a smart-ass, I’m really asking.)

Jen:

Here is what Cdl. Ratzinger wrote:

“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

Similarly caveats apply in the case of voting for candidates who support intrinsic grave evils like torture.

The point is this: unless you know for absolute certain that that somebody voted for a candidate who advocates intrinsic grave evil *because* they wanted to support that evil, you cannot (as Bob does above) don a paper mitre and declare, “Any practicing Catholic that voted for [the pol advocating intrinsic grave evil] was automatically excommunicated, and every time they receive the Eucharist is a sacrilege.”  If the person who voted for the pol believed they had a proportional reason to do so (say, wanting to get us out of an unjust war or lower taxes that were crushing his family) but were not voting because they supported the intrinsic grave evil, then it was morally permissible.  The point here is “You shall not judge others.”

But we are expected to judge ourselves.  So while I will not join the Inquisition against others who vote for pol advocating grave evil (since I cannot read heart), I will say that I could never, in good conscience, vote for a pol who I know will advocate grave and intrinsic evil.

I think I understand.  Thanks for the further explanation.  I guess I’m a bit surprised by it.  But I know our Holy Father is indeed a holy man who is far wiser and more knowledgeable than I am in complex matters of faith and morals, so I will humbly defer to his authority.  In my own zeal, I’d like to see Catholics flat-out told not to vote for Obama because it would be a moral travesty to allow him more years of power to continue to solidify the culture of death, not just in our own country but in others where he “exports” his pro-abortion policies with our money.  But I know that cannot happen, and probably shouldn’t happen.  Still, a girl can dream.  :)

Mark,

how about if one of the ‘pro-torture’ Republicans were running against Adoft Hitler? Wouldn’t you want to prevent Hilter from becoming President? Would you still vote 3rd party

And suppose you could only stop World War II by offering your daughter as a human sacrifice?  And what if a lunatic was going to nuke New York if you didn’t shoot your own son in the head, Jasper?  Wow!  Fun moral conundrums.  But in real life…

IN this imperfect world I will usually have to vote for the one who I believe will do the least harm and if two candidates are pro aborts, who do I believe will do the least evil or who is the least pro abort, for example. And if If I fail to vote I am, at least partly responsible if the worst of the two is elected.

“And if If I fail to vote I am, at least partly responsible if the worst of the two is elected.”

That’s why Mark Shea is partly responsible for the the election of the most pro-abortion President in history. I don’t any faithful Catholic that supports this type of insanity.

@Mark Shaw

“It is normal Catholic morality that makes the good the enemy of the evil.”

So why do you make an enemy of the good?

Why do you create a straw man and then lie about their position?

You’re talking about the morality of supporting someone who takes abominable positions.  But this is everybody at all times!  And not just in politics, but in the economy and all walks of life.  Try finding a “socially responsible” mutual fund (that doesn’t lose money), or an artist or performer that doesn’t represent behind the scenes something truly detestable.  Even baseball, our erstwhile national pastime, is “juiced” into oblivion.  And look at our priesthood, dragged into the dust by abominations.

Where’s your hideaway, Mr. Shea?  You can abstain from voting, while the entrenched minority labors at depriving you of all freedoms.  But you have to work, you have to shop, you have to eat, you have to worship.  And yet everything is sullied and polluted.

We have no representation, Mark: in the white house, in the boardroom, in hollywood or city hall.  We are the silenced majority.

Mark,

I agree with you that we should make no judgment on the subjective guilt of anyone, and it’s not my present concern to discuss when a person should or shouldn’t present themselves for Holy Communion, etc. My point concerns the objective morality of a person (Catholic or not) voting for a non-viable candidate versus voting for a viable candidate who supports intrinsic evil, in the situation where there is another viable candidate who supports even graver intrinsic evil.

I accept that your conscience presently tells you not to vote for the candidate supporting the lesser intrinsic evil, and of course I don’t want you to transgress your conscience. However, I suppose I do wish to persuade you that your conscience in this instance is erroneous! (I should emphasise I think the ‘error’ is one of general moral reasoning, not one of opposition to any specific Catholic doctrine.)

You write in response to me: ‘Far more significant than how a compromising vote for grave evil changes the culture, is how a compromising vote for grave evil changes you.’ I think you confuse two senses of ‘compromise’ here: there is political compromise, and moral compromise. Voting for an imperfect candidate is political compromise, granted. But this is not necessarily moral compromise. Rather, depending on circumstances, it can be good, obligatory, holy and meritorious to politically compromise, even to the extent of materially cooperating in moral evil (the evil remaining unintended on your part) for the sake of attaining a greater good or avoiding a worse evil. Unless you think that otherwise legitimate material cooperation might well tempt you into formal cooperation, there is no reason to suppose this material cooperation is changing your state of soul for the worse. On the contrary, if it is obligatory and indeed meritorious, then it improves your state of soul, and avoids the sin of omission in failing to do what was reasonably possible and legitimate to prevent the victory of the worst candidate.

I have no special brief for supporting ‘conservative’ politicians as such. However, ‘selective’ application of Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter is quite legitimate in this sense: we may morally use the principles he outlines to justify and defend voting for the candidate supporting what we see as the lesser degree/amount of intrinsic evil, while refraining from using those principles to justify and defend voting for the candidate supporting what we see as the greater degree/amount of intrinsic evil.

Now, an Obama voter might rightly say they are not formally cooperating in evil, and so they are still within the bounds of Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter. The question then becomes, is there proportionate reason for their material cooperation in evil? Or is their action in fact supporting the greater evil?

Granted, it is a prudential judgment, not a judgment of absolute principle, how we assess the various goods and evils involved. Catholics can differ in such judgments without transgressing Catholic orthodoxy – this is not ultimately the question. It doesn’t mean there is no objective truth involved, or that one person can’t perceive, and try to persuade another person, that objectively, the right and moral prudential judgment in the situation is clearly ‘this’ and not ‘that’. (This is not at all a matter of judging the other person’s ‘heart’, their subjective responsibility. And really, all this is regardless of whether these two persons having the discussion are Catholic or not, which has little or nothing to do with it.)

There is no comparison. One president authorized torture during his term to extract from terrorists information which may or may not have led to saving hundreds of thousands or millions of lives. The other president based an entire campaign on a strategy that included making more readily available and acceptable the destruction of innocent life for no other reason than some subjective concept of convenience; who seeks legislation that makes every American taxpayer materially complicit in those activities; and who is making it virtually impossible for those who morally object to those activities to express or practice their beliefs. To acknowledge the difference has nothing to do with “choosing the better of two evils.” We elect our leaders knowing they will have to make difficult decisions, but those candidates who have dedicated their careers to such horrific causes as abortion “rights” cannot be trusted to make the best decision when it comes to any question of human dignity.

I’m beginning to think Mr. Shea is pro=abortion, it’s because of people like him that we have this president who’s appointed nothing but pro-abortion judges incuding 2 on the suprem court whick guarentees for many more years the murder of millions of unborn babies per year.

Robert:

Don’t be silly.  I did not vote for Obama and I have urged people not to vote for him.  The tired tendency of some Catholics to accuse people of being pro-aborts merely because they do not agree to vote for your guy is like the tired tendency to explain everything as part of a conspiracy.  I won’t vote for a pol who upholds policies gravely contrary to the Church’s teaching.  How in the world that is anti-Catholic or pro-abortion is completely opaque to me.

When faced with challenging ethical activities (like voting) you cannot ‘avoid hell’ by washing your hands of the responsibility like Pontius Pilate.

Mr. Shea,

In the case of abortion, while it is now legal, “murder” is the business of the parties at hand, the woman and her doctor. To characterize it as the “business of the state” is disingenuous. Women have been getting abortions forever, long before it was legalized. You are taking responsibility away from the truly responsible parties. Again, you are setting yourself up as the sole arbiter of right and wrong and not very effectively. It’s not the state that’s the problem. It’s the people. There’s no abstraction you can blame here.

As citizens of this nation we have certain obligations, one of which is to do our part, as we are able, to shape our society in conformance with the gospel. We have but a few tools at our disposal, with our vote being among the most efficacious, though admittedly seeming quite insignificant. I do not see how, by refusing to accept our responsibility as Catholic citizens, we become more worthy of heaven.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s.

It is a grave sin for Catholics to neglect their God given duties.  Many bishops provide voter guides for the perplexed Catholic that wishes to make serious and informed decisions at the ballot box.  Sitting on the sidelines wagging your finger at politicians with one hand, while patting yourself on the back for your moral superiority with the other hand, is not an option.  Thank goodness our leaders in the Church do not ascribe to such mushy headed thinking in regards to the morality of voting.

Moreover Mr. Shea,

Do not assign to politicians and the “state” the duties, such as contending against abortion and euthanasia, that fall to individuals. It is individuals who engage in abortion and euthanasia. Why not persuade individuals that these actions are wrong rather than tilting against the windmills of the “state”?

Your argument makes the state our nanny and takes away from individual rseponsibility. This is clearly not Church teaching.

Craig:

Refusing to vote for a couple of national level pols who advocate grave evil is not “washing my hands of responsibility”.  It is taking responsibility and not letting my fidelity to the fulness of Catholic teaching be edited or co-opted by the absurd notion that my puny vote will alter the outcome of the election.  It won’t.  But it will alter me if I prostitute myself and play ball with pols who mean to use my vote in order to do grave evil.  Meanwhile, there are lots of other local issues to vote on where my vote will actually make a difference.

Nemo:

Your argument, in translation, is this:

Do not assign to politicians and the “state” the duties, such as contending against murder, that fall to individuals. It is individuals who engage in murder. Why not persuade individuals that these actions are wrong rather than tilting against the windmills of the “state”?

You have just offered an argument against all criminal law.  Amazing how stupid sin can make people.

Mark:
Your exercise in self-absorption is not very helpful. By focusing on yourself so entirely, you seem to miss a few important big-picture points: 1) there is no greater evil today than the systematic, state sanctioned, mass-murder of the most innocent and defenseless among us; 2) until this greatest of evils is rooted out of our society, our society has no real moral foundation for rooting out lesser evils; and 3) if we are not using whatever means we have to combat this greatest of evils, then we are, by default, cooperating with it.

No, Mr. Shea, I did not offer an argument against all criminal law. And I am not “stupid.”

What I said, which you are apparently too obtuse to understand, is that it is fatuous to assign some fantasy argument of responsibility to the state that lies with individuals.

You seem to be the product of some kind of welfare system, wherein the state is responsible for everything, including our moral actions. You assign no culpable action to individuals (and that includes you also, I assume)but absolve them, preferring to concentrate on some mythica super-entity. You cannot even summarize a person’s argument correctly. Perhaps you should stand down from topics of this complexity.

Long ago I read a book called “Hell, and How To Avoid It.”  It was a pretty mundane work until it got to the part about Works of Mercy.  It challenged the reader to rate himself on how well he was imitating Christ in these works.  I gave myself A+ on most corporal works of mercy, but went cold when I honestly evaluated my efforts at the spiritual works of mercy.

A problem with most honest liberals today is that they think there are only the challenges of the corporal works of mercy, and so they rate themselves highly in their efforts to help their fellow man.  They only see it a challenge to make man happy here on earth, not in heaven.

Mark-

It is not the Churches position that a person acting in good conscious can do evil by voting.  Therefore, it is simply sanctimonious to assert that your “fidelity to the fullness of Catholic teaching” requires that you abstain from national elections. 

I don’t know any Catholics that think “our desire to avoid hell and attain heaven is ridiculous prima donna sanctimony…”  (Although Mike McCants might agree!)  What’s ridiculous is the naïve assumption that you can be excused from difficult moral decisions by virtue of your superiorly enlightened view point.

You wanna avoid hell?  Try to avoid the self-righteous moral vanity that you are above the fray.

Ken:

You are right that abortion is the gravest issue of our time.  You are wrong that the best way to oppose it is to sacrifice the rest of the Catholic moral tradition on the altar of opposition to abortion.  It is not self-absorbed to accept the fullness of Catholic teaching.  It is quite arguably self-absorbed to adopt a moral theory that opposition to abortion taketh away all sin.

Nemo:

Your argument is a sort of hyper-individualistic Randian lunacy which says that that state has no interest in preventing murder.

Craig, you write:

“It is not the Churches position that a person acting in good conscious can do evil by voting. “

True.  Which is why I do not sit in judgement of how others vote.  But since I cannot, in good conscience, vote for candidates who advocate gravely and intrinsically evil acts, your point is moot.  What you are really demanding is that I vote in bad conscience.  And you are insulting me and sitting in judgment of me for not doing so.  You should try obeying the Church and not sitting in judgment of how others vote.

Mark:

You misunderstood my 3 simple points, so I’ll put it even more simply: Be a man. Step up, accept the responsibility of your Catholic citizenship, and engage in the battle against evil on all fronts with all means available to you. This means making tough choices, even though you’d prefer to hide in the shadows while the battle rages around you.

FYI, My argument was clear and to the point regarding evil. I never mentioned the “altar of opposition to abortion” or the “taking away of any sins” in my argument, so please don’t assign these to me. You should be able to make your case without the red herrings.

Ken:

Right. Writing this column was “hiding in the shadows”.

If you are demanding that I *must* vote for a GOP candidate, merely because he stand in opposition to Obama and despite whatever grossly immoral or foolish stand he is liable to take (unjust war, torture, wrecking the economy as Bush did (resulting in more abortions by poor women) and that failure to do so is “hiding in the shadows” then I submit that, no, I don’t have to knuckle under to this simplistic scenario.  I will, as I have said, vote for a candidate who does not ask me to sacrifice my allegiance to Church teaching on *all* matters for the sake of what you call “tough choices” and I call editing the Faith in order to play ball with party bosses who have no interest in my faith.  It’s only if no such candidate exists that I will not vote.

Sorry man, but I won’t be strong-armed into voting for grave and intrinsic evil.

I see now what I should have seen before.

That I won’t vote for either major party candidate and will, if I vote, vote for some doomed third party candidate who does not support grave and intrinsic evil?  It’s not like it’s been a big secret for the past four years, Ken.

Hi Mark, thank you for engaging everyone in this comment box conversation, even the more hostile ones. You have truly gotten me thinking.

One question - Don’t we have a better chance at changing Candidate X’s mind about torture than we do trying to get millions of Catholics to vote for Candidate Y?

Voting is a purely consequentialist activity. It’s not about candidates’ belief states and what they support and don’t support, except in so far as those things have a bearing on what they will do. We vote to bring about the best possible consequences for the whole.

Voting is *not* about affirming how morally enlightened someone is, raising your hand to state how you agree or don’t agree with any assorted belief states of a candidate, or of expressing your distaste over stuff a candidate supports.

If this is true, and if there is an obligation to vote, then it follows that one has an obligation to vote for a candidate that has a chance of winning. It means one has an obligation to cooperate remotely with evil for the greater good. For if one doesn’t vote for a realistic candidate, than this is no different than not voting at all.

The only thing a voter can do to risk Hell, is to vote for evil for evil’s sake. Or to vote for good consequences that are disproportionate to the evil a candidate will do—say for selfish reasons.

There is a full year before the election. Time for views to change and the unexpected to develop. Time we should spend in prayer for Gid to give us aa government of His choice. That may not be one we would expect as God uses mysterious ways to accomplish
His ends. But we will be doing what we should. I disagree that there are no real pro-life candidates, that water-boarding is equivalent to abortion as an evil, and that Romney will surely be the Republican candidate. Those are not given facts, just your opinion, apparently. In the meantime, we can be contributing our views and support where warranted. I believe Newt is in the process of drawing up a “Contract 2012” and asking for input. Instead of sitting around bemoaning the lack of a perfect nominee candidate, let us be in touch with those who seem likeliest to listen and possible prove strong in the virtues we seek. It is in God’s hands to do the rest. But I would NEVER consider failing to vote against our present president, even if the alternative is less than perfect. We can at least vote AGAINST his policies and actions. Not to oppose such blatant sin evil would be itself a grievous sin!

I’m curious Mark.Who did you support in 2000, Bush or Gore?

Mark-
Sorry if I sounded harsh, but aren’t you insulting the Church when you imply that “the fullness of Church teaching” has left you unable to discern the difference between major party candidates?  If the bishops can support candidates, why can’t you?

It is not your voting but your reasoning which I would like to judge.  You misrepresent “the fullness of Church teaching” by implying that it’s complexity and diversity ties your hands when comes to making decisions.  By saying that you cannot sully your pristine conscious because “Church teaching” has shed a light on the evil behind every candidate, you are insulting Church teaching.  It is the teaching of the Church that allows us to form our conscious so that we are able to discern which political issues we should focus on and which candidates we should support.  If you are unable to tell from the clear teaching of the Church how to vote, that is your own lack of understanding.

You are trying to use “Church teaching” to justify your neutrality.  But as you well know, the Church does not advocate neutrality in moral matters.

Steve: Bush.  I was naive.

Craig:  You didn’t sound harsh.  You were harsh.  Since you are all about preaching responsibility for one’s actions, why don’t you try it yourself.

I can tell the difference between candidates just fine.  The big noises in each major party advocate very different grave and intrinsic evils for very different reasons. I opt not to support either party therefore. And I repeat, I can support candidates.  Just not ones who advocate grave intrinsic evil.  I’m not such a pessimist to assume that *no* candidate can be found who refuses to do this.  If one turns up on the ballot here in Seattle, I will likely support him or her.

If you can find Church teaching that declares it is immoral to vote third party or abstain from voting for grave intrinsic evil, I’m all ears.  But mostly you are coming across like a bully, Craig.  Flinging terms like “sanctimonious” in my face and then trying to claim you do it because I am “insulting” the Church (by advocating we listen to the fulness of her moral teaching???) is a particularly transparent act of bullying, in fact.  I repeat: What you are really demanding is that I vote in bad conscience.  And you are insulting me and sitting in judgment of me for not doing so—in direct contradiction to Cdl. Ratzinger’s letter.  You should try obeying the Church and not sitting in judgment of how others vote.

Nor are my hands tied with respect to making decisions.  I freely choose to vote for somebody who does not advocate grave evil, or to abstain from voting if no one can be found.  That’s a real decision.  It is you who are trying to force me to vote against my conscience and insulting me for refusing to do so.  You’re the one sitting in judgment, not me.

Mark,

There seems to be a fundamental inconsistency implied in your position.

On the one hand, you say that we mustn’t ‘sit in judgment of how others vote.’ On the other hand you imply that voting for a candidate who supports (greater or lesser) intrinsic evil ‘sacrifices one’s allegiance’ to the fullness of Church teaching. (Even though elsewhere you admit such might only be merely material cooperation.) Anyway, this definitely implies a principled judgment on the moral legitimacy of a Catholic voting for either Obama or the GOP.

Personally, I don’t think there is necessarily a problem with making a prudential judgment on the objective moral legitimacy of (a random person) voting this way or that way. This is not judging the secrets of an individual’s personal culpability, but making a prudential assessment of whether there are objective proportionate reasons (accessible to all) permitting or even mandating material cooperation with evil in the given circumstances.

However, you seem to say that you do have a problem with any such judgments of how others vote, but in effect go ahead and make them anyway, at least by implication.

(Unless you mean that for *you personally*, voting Obama or GOP would (as a matter of principle) sacrifice your allegiance to the fullness of Church teaching, but this principle is not a general principle applicable to assessing the objective legitimacy of others’ actions. Which seems to lean towards a kind of relativism: how could this principle be binding and true for you, but be unable to be generalized?)

Ben:

I thought I made it rather clear in the article—(“for myself”, “for me” re-read the first through third paragraphs)—that I would regard it as sacrificing my allegiance to Catholic teaching.

Now, obviously, I think this is a position worth trying to persuade others to or else I would not write.  But I don’t make judgements about how others vote.  Rather, lots of others make very pointed judgments about how I vote and I am told frequently that I am secretly pro-abortion, or an Obama supporter, or sanctimonious or what have you.  All because I opt not to vote for any candidate who advocates sins which the Church says are gravely and intrinsically immoral.

Fascinating.

Rather than re-explain my position on this topic, I thought I would just re-post an ‘old’ comment I made to another site a few days before the 2008 election:

[Well, my friends, the time is quickly coming for Catholics (and others) to make a ‘final’ decision on how they will vote in this 2008 election.

Then, my friends… simply do… what He would do.]

You’re not culpable for cooperating remotely in evil for a proportionate good.

However, you may be culpable for the disproportionate evil that you allowed to flourish by not choosing to cooperate remotely in evil.

I think there’s a danger here of a false idea of purity which would refrain from any cooperation whatsoever with evil, even if it might bring about much good. This could be a sin of omission or a disguised way of choosing the greater evil.

Just a thought.

I’ve been struggling with this dilemma since ‘08, and still have no comfortable “solution”.  But a couple of thoughts came to me recently, which might help… or might just be more to chew on, still difficult to swallow: 

When we vote for the lesser of two evils, and that candidate wins, does he know how many voted “for” him, and how many voted “against his opponent”?  This is important, because it can affect his understanding of how much of a mandate he has.  Which should (ideally) affect how he acts while in office.

If we are very, very vocal about our voting reasons, and if he/his party actually listen to the people after the election… then our voting + voicing our objections can result in more good.

On the other hand, if we could get enough people saying, as Mark does, that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil, and we don’t want to vote for evil… and all get behind a 3rd party, even if they have “no chance” of winning, we might be giving them a chance.  Maybe not at this election, but that party would get a better hearing - and much more of a chance - at future elections.

One thing I now know that cannot do: abstain from voting.  We can always write in a name, can we not?  (If you can’t think of anyone you really want, may I suggest writing in the name of a good Bishop?)

Because every vote has value, even (or especially?) when we vote for “none of the above”.  The only time we are “throwing away” our vote is when we don’t vote at all.

May the Holy Spirit guide us all.

I think there’s a danger here of a false idea of purity which would refrain from any cooperation whatsoever with evil, even if it might bring about much good. This could be a sin of omission or a disguised way of choosing the greater evil.

Sorry, but I can’t escape the sensation that this means “Shut up and vote GOP.”  It certainly doesn’t mean, “I sure understand all those folks who voted for Obama because they thought it more likely they’d end wars, try to fix health care, and maybe do something about an economy that Bush drove into the ground, than that much would change about American’s already permissive abortion regime that Republican have done nothing about for 30 years.”  Those people could not possibly have thought they had proportional reason.  They were clearly voting for grave intrinsic evil, whatever proportional reason they through they had.  As somebody insists up above, such people are excommunicate.

That’s the general tenor of opinion in these comboxes, no?

Very well then.  Exercise some imagination, Brian, and think it possible that I make exactly the same calculus about voting for other grave evils as the overwhelming number of people here do about voting for a pro-abort candidate who promises to do all sorts of other things.  Rather than edit my faith, I thinkk it more important that Catholics stop compromising their faith and talking as though somebody who doesn’t want to go to hell is a perfectionist.  Doesn’t mean I won’t vote and it doesn’t, as you accuse, mean a sin of omission is being done.  It means that I am refusing to omit part of what I believe for the very dubious gain of pleasing party bosses who regard the Church only as a thing to be exploited or opposed. The faith sits in judgment of our human ideologies, not vice versa.

What I said could mean “Shut up and vote (realistically)”, but it certainly doesn’t mean “Shut up and vote GOP”.

I defend the right of Catholics to vote for Obama or whoever they think is the best choice. And I’m very critical of the typical republican voting philosophy. I’m just thinking that if it’s reasonable to cooperate with evil for a proportionate good (whatever side we’re talking about), doesn’t that also mean that it’s unreasonable not to so cooperate?

I’m criticizing the various forms of throwing the vote away for what I think is a falsely idealized sense of moral purity.

Brian:

My apologies.  You are one of the rare folk I have met in these comboxes who actually consider it possible an Obama voter felt they had a proportional reason for their remote cooperation with evil.  Personally, I think that they were wrong and that they are—as all Catholics are—paying the piper for yet again sacrificing a core Catholic moral principle in order to make almost entirely imaginary gains in the “proportional good” department.  I mere add that conservative who ditch the Church’s teaching on such matters as unjust war and torture in pursuit of the almost entirely imaginary gain the GOP promises are likewise going to reap the whirlwind.  I become more and more convinced that the *real* good we as Catholics have to offer is *an intact Catholic faith*, not one that has been whittled down and mutilated and truncated and edited and abbreviated in order to suit the barbaric demands of our party bosses.  Sacrificing that in order to preserve a place under the table of our debauched political powers is, I have become convinced, a fool’s errand.  And I only become more convinced as I see the spectacle of Catholics talking as though the desire to avoid hell and attain heaven is fussy prissiness.

Mark,

I guess my primary and immediate goal in entering this discussion was to challenge what I see as the false and dangerous idea that voting for a candidate who supports any intrinsic evil is always, in principle, something that should be avoided and is, indeed, in itself corrupting of the soul. As I think I’ve made clear, I have no interest in judging you as an individual on your beliefs and actions in this matter - indeed I highly respect you and your work (in general!!). I am trying to engage simply on the level of ideas, which I’m sure you will agree is a legitimate pursuit.

Obviously, you are aiming to advance this principle (which I am calling false and dangerous) - as you say, you think it is something worthwhile trying to persuade others about, or else you would not write. Fair enough. However, the moment the principle is challenged or analysed, you seem to retreat to saying it is simply your own personal judgment of conscience, and so beyond the realm of discussion! So you can promote it, but others cannot attack it…

This is why I will be supporting Ron Paul in the primaries.  All the other candidates have serious flaws when it comes to pro-life issues, the debt, and endless war.

Ben:

If I thought it beyond the realm of discussion, I wouldn’t be discussing it.  What I think is that it is increasingly delusional to argue that perpetually voting for candidates who advocate grave intrinsic evil is really achieving some “proportional good”.  If it could be shown that our cooperation with the Duopoly has, over the past several decades, achieved anything besides the permanent establishment of an abortion regime, an oppressive security state, perpetual and permanent war of empire, and a state that is now turning its attention to crushing Catholic conscience in the name of gay “marriage” while bestowing upon our God King the unilateral power to murder anybody he deems an enemy of the state without arrest, evidence, trial, judge, jury, or verdict, I would say, “Okay, ‘proportional good’ is an excuse for voting for representatives of the duopoly.”  But, in fact, all I have seen from Catholics voting for these people is excuse-making for why we need to ignore the Church in matters of grave moral evil when Our Guy is on the throne, coupled with denunciations of Catholics who advocate embracing the whole of our Tradition as perfectionists, traitors, and fools.  The duopoly has us well-trained to neuter ourselves.  They don’t have to do it.

I decline.  I don’t have any power and, frankly, don’t want any if I have to keep trimming what I believe in order to suit party agendas.  The only thing I have is the Faith.  It’s the only thing I have to offer.

Mark-
Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but your feelings are not the issue here.  Any number of posters exposed the gaping hole in your argument and you have failed to even acknowledge that one exists.  The simple facts are that:

1)  The Church expects us to participate in society and that includes voting,

2)  The Church provides teaching and guidance for making moral decisions and that also includes voting.

If I find myself unable to vote in good conscience there are two possible explanations for my failure to do so:

a)  The Churches expectations and/or teaching are unreasonable

b)  It is actually possible that my conscience isn’t as smooth and polished as I thought it was.

Pointing out that your ‘enlightened conscientious objection’ in the voting booth may in fact be construed BY THE CHURCH as a failure to exercise your God given freedom of choice to the best of your ability is not bullying, or judging, or even condemning…it’s just a warning.  You’re worried that you will have to sit before the throne and explain your vote.  Good, but maybe you should also worry that throwing away your vote and even encouraging others to do the same will not be judged as the moral and prudent behavior you think it is.

The sin of presumption is subtle and dangerous.  It can take any of us by surprise.  Only by humbly acknowledging that even our best efforts to ’avoid hell’ are useless without the help of the Holy Spirit can we see the pitfalls of pride.

Craig:

You didn’t hurt my feelings.  You merely attempted to and then did not take responsibility for your bullying.  You still haven’t.  You merely move on to prating about “presumption” while being stone blind to your stunning act of presumption, bullying and judgmentalism whereby you assume that my efforts to avoid hell and attain heaven are done without seeking the help of the Holy Spirit.  And you have the gall to do that while charging me with pride on the basis of nothing.  You should really stop trying to pretend you can diagnose my soul and stop sitting in judgment of me.

While you do, you should also deign to answer the questions I put to you and stop ignoring them so that you can bully and accuse somebody for trying to follow their conscience and uphold the teaching of the Church in its fullness as he thinks best.

Mark, there is a whole year left before this election.  A lot of things can happen between now and then.  For example, there’s a rumor (and aren’t there a lot) that if the economy is still in the soup Obama will be persuaded NOT to run and either Biden or Hilary in his place.

I’m not a Democrat but an independent, but I think I would have rather voted for Hilary who seemed to know what was going on in the world (look at her clear scenario of the Mexican drug cartels that Obama didn’t pay attention to.

Main thing I’m against Obama (besides the abortion and anti-religion thing) is his refusal to ever say he made a mistake and to blame it on others.

I certainly hope that the next candidate will at least have the humility to admit he made a mistake.  Meanwhile, what about praying the Rosary that the right person will be elected, instead of squabbling?

Rosemary:

I don’t believe for a moment that Obama won’t run.  He is not a modest man, though he has much to be modest about.  I am morally certain that barring unforeseen circumstances, it will be Obama vs. Romney: the fruit of “playing ball” with our party bosses instead of refusing to be played.  Then the rest of the campaign will consist of trying to get conservatives to muscle down the gag reflex and vote Romney.  If the propaganda campaign succeeds and people manage to blunt their consciences and pretend that Romney somehow cares about conservative concerns, then he might win and we will be left with, well, nothing really since he has no intention of caring about our “proportional good”.  We will be rid of Obama, which is sort of something.  But all the damage Obama did will just be consolidated and compounded by Romney.  So we will have ditched our commitment to the fulness of the Faith and gotten nothing in return.  Oh, they might pass a token measure or two to bring our abortion regime up to it’s normal sub-Carthaginian standards.  But that will be about it.  Romney doesn’t care about prolife issues.  He cares about exploiting your vote.

Mark-
Hunh?  You do righteous indignation real well.  Open minded debate…er…not so much.  Only someone cocksure of their moral superiority could mistaken good faith efforts at discussion for personal attacks on their piety.  I’m not the only one asking “is it wise to advocate a fence-sitting posture in regards to voting?”  So why don’t we stick to it and cut the “don’t you judge me!” canard.

Honestly, I can’t find the questions for me that you are referring to.  If you would please reiterate them I will be happy to respond.

Craig:

What are you really trying to say?  Speak plainly and simply…

Are you in any way saying that Mark, or I, or anyone else who decided NOT to vote for either ‘Baby Obortion’ (a baby-killer) or ‘Jedi McBush’ (a warmonger) in 2008 is not a good Catholic?

Craig:  I said, “If you can find Church teaching that declares it is immoral to vote third party or abstain from voting for grave intrinsic evil, I’m all ears.”

You aren’t making good faith efforts at discussion.  You are repeatedly calling me names and insulting me for trying to vote my conscience.  You should repent and stop doing that.  You should also stop trying to bully people who don’t agree with you by calling them “sanctimonious” and “morally superior”.  You are free to vote how you like and I won’t sit in judgment of you.  Try returning the favor.  And, I repeat, voting for a third party is not “fence-sitting.”  So you should also stop bearing false witness in addition to name-calling, bullying and sitting in judgment.

Mark, for what to it’s worth .... I’m of the very same thinking.  I could say more, but enough has already been said.  Stick to your guns!  I shall be doing the same.

Mark,

Interesting (and lively) discussion, as usual.

You cited then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who wrote:

“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of **proportionate reasons**.”

You then noted that those Catholics who vote for Obama (Democrat) do so for their own “proportionate reasons” as a counter to those who vote for a candidate (Republican) who is against abortion yet who also supports “enhanced interrogation” or the death penalty (basically, “see, both sides do it”).  But I don’t see how any Catholic can make a serious, reasoned argument that torture and even the death penalty in this country are actually **proportionate** to 50 million unborn children being murdered.  In terms of essence, the death penalty isn’t intrinsically evil.  Torture is intrinsically evil, but the definition of “torture” isn’t always completely obvious to people of good will (personally, I don’t think all water-boarding automatically qualifies as torture, for instance).  In terms of magnitude, there’s no comparison between the number of people who have received the death penalty (1,300 since 1976) and the number of unborn children murdered (50,000,000 since 1973).  Neither is there any comparison between the number of people who have been tortured (however that is defined) and the number of unborn children murdered.  As such, I believe that Catholics who vote for Obama are failing to make a reasonable application of Catholic teaching.  I’m not judging their hearts, just their thinking.  The only possible “proportionate reason” that I can see one citing to offset support for abortion at this time in history (and the intrinsic evils like it), is unjust war.  In my judgment, the “Bush Doctrine” is immoral, dangerous and could potentially cost millions of innocent lives (according to some reports, it has already cost hundreds of thousands). 

I’m not saying I’m personally convinced by that line of reasoning to vote for someone like Obama, but at least it seems to be somewhat more defensible from a Catholic moral standpoint that arguments that cite the death penalty or torture.

You write:  “I’m asking for candidates who will not ask me to support acts so evil they will send you to hell.”

I feel the weight of your argument.  But I’m curious to test your exact boundaries for voting for people who support things that will send you to Hell.  Which candidates out there are against legal contraception?  Legal divorce and remarriage?  Legal pornography?  Legal homosexual adoption?  Legal artificial insemination?  Legal fornication?  Legal co-habitation?  All of these things are gravely sinful - and fully capable of sending one to Hell. So, where do you draw the line?  I’m not asking that rhetorically.  I think that’s worth batting around.

I hear your concerns and I think they’re important to air.  It can be far too easy to just go along and become a party apparatchik without making a serious examination of the issues from a Catholic perspective.  Personally,  I don’t think I could vote for Perry because of his stance on the use of war.  He seems more prone to misuse it than Bush.  I’m not sure whether I could vote for Romney either because I don’t trust him to be pro-life.  I’ve had experience with him in my home state.  His moral compass turns in the direction of the political winds.  But I could certainly vote for Santorum (although I agree it’s very unlikely he’ll win the Republican nomination).  While I genuinely appreciate your principles and concerns, your stated unwillingness to even consider someone like Santorum seems too idealistic to me.

In the back of my mind, I tend to think of Lincoln and slavery.  Lincoln wasn’t the best candidate.  As you know, he even once said that if he could have ended the civil war without freeing a single slave, he would have done so (he also had some other ideas about blacks that people today would find morally repugnant).  I’m sure some idealists refused to vote for him because of it.  But the fact is, he was the best candidate who was electable, and he grew into his position over time.  The rest is history. 

But I genuinely appreciate you raising these issues, making sure that no one gets complacent - ensuring that Catholics don’t compromise so much that they bargain away their country…and their souls.  There’s an important balance to be maintained and it’s important that you say what you’re saying, I think. 

If this is meandering or unclear….my apologies.  I’m on some painkillers after surgery.  :-)

Mark-
Thank you for responding.  I will try to repent.  The biblical injunctions that show that we must refrain from abdicating our natural responsibilities range from Genesis ( 3:12) to Revelation (3:16).  Mathew (25:24-30) clearly illustrates that no excuses will be accepted for failing to make the most of what the Lord has given us.  I never said that voting for a third party or abstaining from voting was immoral.  I honestly don’t know.  What I do know is this:

We are expected in this life to make difficult moral decisions.

We can count on the Church to help us with these decisions.

The Church does not advocate abstaining from difficult moral decisions to ‘avoid hell.’

I never meant to imply that this means that your decision not to vote is immoral.  I only meant to point out that it is unorthodox, possibly dangerous, and at least questionable.  Hopefully you will not take offense at being questioned.

I don’t take offense at being questioned, merely at being bullied.  Thanks for finally backing off and abandoning your insults like “sanctimonious” and “morally superior” (which, despite your phony demurral, were *obviously* meant to imply my choices were immoral—the sin being the capital sin of “pride” if you recall).  Next time, instead of lying about what you were saying, try being straightforward and honest and just repenting instead of going the mealy-mouthed “I’m sorry you were offended” route after saying things calculated to offend.  Take some responsibility for your words.

As to the rest, yes, we sometimes have to make hard choices.  One such choice is, for me, to vote for a third party who does not ask to support grave intrinsic evil—and then to have to put up with bullies such as you who call people names like “sanctimonious” and “morally superior” because I do not believe there is a proportional good that offsets voting for the duopoly.  I arrive at this calculus precisely because I believe the teaching of the Church about the grave intrinsic evils that each party advocates and conclude that the game is not worth the candle supporting either party.  That is not “abstaining from action”.  It is taking an action calculated to awaken other Catholics, if possible, to the idea that there may be ways of engaging the culture that transcend abandoning the fullness of Catholic faith in order to play lapdog to a party system that consistently teaches Catholics to neuter themselves in order to enjoy a few table scraps.  I decline to do this anymore, though I do not presume to judge those who still believe there are proportional reasons to vote for Obama or whatever the GOP burps up to run next year.

Failing to vote because none of the candidates are without grave error or sin is, in itself, a grave error of OMISSION.  By allowing non-Catholics and non-Christians to decide the future of our city/state/nation, we a abdicating morally and as a citizen of this country.  Perform due diligence and search the candidates, moral law, and your heart, but we are obligated to do the work of democracy and prevent the most blatant of national sins.

When did voting turn into an exercise of prediction about who is ‘electable’ and who is not.  Are we not morally bound to vote for the person who we, objectively - without the intrution on the ever so reliable MSM, think, not feel, will do good, avoid evil and perform the best in the political realm?  Can we end the discussion of who is electable because to vote for anyone else is to throw away your vote?  This is how we were duped into always supporting establishment canidates that really vary little in their political positions.  We are on the verge of losing our soveriegnty to international banks and corporations and people want to argue about who is going to give it away faster?  It would seem that we should indeed vote our conscience and leave the rest to providence instead of trusting that we can peer into consciences of other men, or at least likely voting habits.  the later seems to be an exercise in pride, attributing far too much power to our feable intellects.  Heck, we can not even predict what the weather is going to be like tomorrow!

Mark-

Thanks for the response.  Try not take this one too personally (it really isn’t all about you).  I gotta go with Patti, RN on this one.  She cuts right to the heart of it.  Despite what you may think, she (and all the other posters) are not attacking you…just your silly cry for “a pox on both your houses.”  The scary thing is that you are too sensitive and entrenched to acknowledge that she may be right and you might be wrong.  You even insult everybody that disagrees with you by carefully explaining that only your way embraces “the fullness of Catholic teaching” and that people that vote are “abandoning the fullness of Catholic faith in order to play lapdog.”  For somebody so sensitive about insults you sure don’t mind dishing them out.

You’ve invested so much time (four years was it?) and energy into your high-minded hip independent ‘conscientious objector voter’ identity that when someone threatens to knock you off your high-horse with simple facts, logic, and Church teachings, you accuse them of being “phony” “lying” “mealy-mouthed” “judgmental” “bullies” whose only purpose is to write things “that are calculated to offend.”  The idea that sincere constructive criticism and honest disagreement can sometimes be harsh and even hurtful never seems to occur to you.  But if your being obstinate and thick-headed and somebody calls you out for it…it’s going to sting a little bit.

In all sincerity I hope that you can find it in your to heart to forgive me for not having the grace and wisdom to diagree with you in a way that will not offend your tender sensibilities.  But if you can’t have any fault of yours pointed out without crying foul, you’ll never see your errors.  Now how would you describe somebody that cannot see their errors?

I like Dr. Pia de Solenni’s latest facebook status update: “I Voted”
Dr. Pia de Solenni received her doctorate in sacred theology summa cum laude from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome.

I had lunch with Pia on Friday.  Good woman.

Craig:

And so you return to insults and bullying after a promising start.  I’m done trying to carry on a good faith conversation when you keep writing in bad faith.

I guess I will put my 2 cents in for a change.  A story: my parents were Italian immigrants, Dad came here at age 21, Mom came with her family at age 10. [Ellis Island immigrants] We were brought up to be 100% Catholic Americans. We did not fly the Italian flag, we flew the American Flag. I remember Dad coming home from just voting and I asked Mom who Dad voted for and she said “I don’t know, he never tells anyone, I asked why? and she said, that is his privilege in this country”. [my Mom would tell us ;o)]  Yes, both my parents thought it was a “PRIVILEGE TO VOTE”. We Americans take so much for granted. People should vote for whomever they please, according to their conscience. The then,Cardinal Ratzinger is correct in my view; but since it is everyone’s PRIVILEGE, then Mark should vote as he pleases,  he has been put on the ‘rack’ long enough. ;o)

Sheesh Mark…did you stay up all night drinking coffee?...you need to take a break and go watch Baby Monkey on YouTube so you can have a chuckle and unwind that ‘everybody is trying to get me’ attitude.  It’s an unhealthy conscious that sees ‘bad faith’ and ‘bullying’ where none exists. God Bless and get some sleep.

Craig:

Why not stop harassing Mark about his views on this difficult topic and try someone else for a change?

Oh… let’s see.  Hmm-m…??

Hey, why not Dr. Robert Moynihan for example:

http://www.insidethevatican.com/articles/the-return-of-the-king.htm

Please let us know how the conversation went Craig.  OK?  LOL

I’m with Shea here, EXCEPT in one thing he did not say. I am done, done, done being a patsy for politicians who do the pro-life minstrel show and commit other acts of repulsive hypocrisy to get my “reliable” vote.

However, and this is where I think Mark goes wrong, I have written to the RNC to tell them so. I think his stance is absolutely correct and indeed consistent with the Gospel and his duty as a Catholic. But we cannot expect any party to change unless and until we put them on notice that we’re done with them, and on what grounds.

To all the so-called realists: what would be the consequences if all of us pro-lifers sat out the next election cycle? Heavens forbid, we might end up with a pro-abortion, pro-torture, spend-crazy President! Just like today! Gasp! But we collectively sat out and let the Republican party go down in flames, AND told them why beforehand, maybe, just maybe, they might actually start fielding some candidates that we could vote for without swallowing back some of our own vomit.

Mark, I just ask you: let the RepubLIEcan party know your stance, and why, and what they can do to change it. All of you, I ask the same!

Thanks ED…despite your annoying propensity to LOL at everything, you still provide some very interesting links.  Dr. Moynihan manages to make his case without scolding people that elect to vote for “abandoning the fullness of Catholic faith in order to play lapdog.”  He doesn’t even seem to imply that voters are suckers that are too dumb to understand that they are being manipulated by evil politicians so that they can carry out their wicked plans to ruin the world.  It is a difficult topic.  Thanks again for providing the link.

Craig:

There something so fetchingly passive-aggressive about the way you insult people, then pretend that they are at fault for pointing out that you are trying to insult them, then “apologize” by saying “Sorry you feel insulted, you oversensitive jerk”, then deny you write in bad faith, then lather, rinse, repeat.  I need a shower after to talking to you.

Patti, you write, “Failing to vote because none of the candidates are without grave error or sin is, in itself, a grave error of OMISSION.”

I don’t refuse to vote for a candidate because he is in grave error or sin. Romney is in grave error as a Mormon, but I would consider voting for him if it were not obvious he is both pro-abortion and another pro-torture Republican.  I would likewise vote for a fornicator if I thought he was competent to be mayor or dogcatcher or whatnot.  What I will not do is vote for somebody I am sure will *enact policies* that are gravely and intrinsically immoral.  How on earth a Catholic can argue that it is a sin of omission to refuse to support gravely evil policies is beyond me.  Again, I defy you to show me where the Church teaches that, as I defied Craig to do so.  My first choice is to vote for a third party candidate who does not advocate grave evil.  If none can be found, then I refuse to vote and I tell the major parties why.  That is not “remaining silent” or “doing nothing”.  It is a very active form of political engagement.  As I said above, if I’m so “silent” and “passive” how come I’m having a very loud and public conversation in a newspaper that reaches thousands?

Well, well….Male Ego…Who is going to win! All a president can do is Veto. Write your Senators and Representatives, as well as the Pres. Try to find out who the man/woman you are voting for, would like as his advisers. Anyway, what voting outcome is really accurate….I am skeptic enough to believe that the big machines already know who will get in…they say the one with the most “money”.  So does money run this country? In this country the “money” likes Obama. Check out Soros, the big money man who likes to control elections, even in other countries. I’d vote for anyone so Obama would not get in. He is the worse when it comes to abortion, etc. that you all are talking about.

“All a president can do is Veto.”

I have feeling Moammar Gaddafi’s ghost would beg to differ.

Alasdair Macintyre saw it in 2004:

“When offered a choice between two politically intolerable
alternatives, it is important to choose neither. And when that choice
is presented in rival arguments and debates that exclude from public
consideration any other set of possibilities, it becomes a duty to
withdraw from those arguments and debates, so as to resist the
imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to
themselves the power of framing the alternatives. These are
propositions which in the abstract may seem to invite easy agreement.
But, when they find application to the coming presidential election,
they are likely to be rejected out of hand. For it has become an
ingrained piece of received wisdom that voting is one mark of a good
citizen, not voting a sign of irresponsibility. But the only vote
worth casting in November is a vote that no one will be able to cast,
a vote against a system that presents one with a choice between Bush’s
conservatism and Kerry’s liberalism, those two partners in ideological
debate, both of whom need the other as a target.”

[“It is a difficult topic. Thanks again for providing the link.”]

No problem.  Hope it helps you understand that this view is shared by *many* Catholics… not just Mark.

And since you’re into reading my links young man… don’t forget to read the link I gave you last week on a different thread:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/alphonsus/uniformity

If you actually take the time to slowly read and understand it… you might lighten-up and be able to actually LOL a bit more too!

Just saying…

ED- Thanks.  I remember that link…heavy stuff…hopefully it will help me to lighten-up. LOL

Mark: Now you are getting sarcastic with an 84yr. old. Now you are comparing Obama to Gadaffi. You ARE in a cranky mood, feel sorry for your wife and kids tonight.  My husband fought in 5 battles in WWII for your freedom of religion and speech, so don’t give me the Gadaffi bit. Now you have a patriotic woman on your hands.  Our country is not perfect but to compare it or the President to Gadaffi and his regeme is ridiculous. Unless you get a little more realistic, nothing will change. My way is writing to my Senators and Representatives & the President.

No.  I am not comparing Obama to Gadaffi.  I am merely pointing out that Gadaffi is dead because a President can do a lot more than just veto bills.  He can also wage war, sign executive orders, and exercise a massive amount of power beyond his power to veto.  I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic, just make a point in a somewhat humorous way.

“President can do a lot more than just veto bills.  He can also wage war, sign executive orders, and exercise a massive amount of power beyond his power to veto.”

but he can’t do much about abortion, so why vote pro-life?

He appoints judges to the Supreme Court.  Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

Then there are things like the Mexico City policy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Policy

And the kinds of things listed here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1140835/posts

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Why is it that the only thing we can agree on is that we disagree! I for one believe our heavenly father knows each of our hearts, minds, bodies and souls and that we will answer for what we did or did not do based on his perfect understanding of each one of us. In this life we are primarily asked to do two things; Love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, body and soul and love our neighbor as we love ourself.  How do we do this? none of us can be sure, but as St. Paul stated; “... be courageous and strong with the Lord’s mighty power.  For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline.  Lets fix our thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and the God of peace will be with us…If we do, in the end, we will say we have fought the good fight, we have finished the race, and we have remained faithful, and now the prize awaits us.” May or heavenly Father bless and keep each of us, regardless if we vote for the “lesser of two or more evils”, write in our own candidate, or abstain from voting for any “evil-willed” politician.

Why not vote for Ron Paul then? I wish so badly Catholics would know what an amazing candidate he is, and he isn’t phony about his beliefs like so many others.

Newt’s not phony about his beliefs and his conversion to the Catholic faith is real, heard him disscuss his conversion on EWTN and the positive effect it’s had on him.  He’s been called divisive but that’s just because the left hates christian conservatives.

Alistair McIntyre, brilliant philosophe though he may be, uses sophistry in his first sentence by his use of the weasel words ‘politically intolerable’.  According to whom, Mr Mac, are the 2 choices politically intolerable?  You may agree with his evaluation, but assuming one’s conclusion is not usually the mark of rigorous philosophizing.  Nor is it a way to think clearly about politics.

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Mark, you write, “I will not support any candidate who asks me to support grave and intrinsic evil.”

I’m curious if you follow this same rule when voting with your dollars in the economy, Mark.  Do you investigate who is using your money to support abortion?  Same sex marriage?

To the degree I can.  It’s an extremely complex economy.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says in paragraph 1446 that, “Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification. The Fathers of the Church present this sacrament as “the second plank [of salvation] after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace.”“

According to Pope John Paul II the Catechism of the Catholic Church “is given as a sure and authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine.”

By the way a bible verse that supports the sacrament of confession is John 20:23 if anyone wants biblical proof.