Cardinal-designate Burke says Catholics can’t vote for pro-choice pols
Archbishop Raymond Burke, soon-to-be Cardinal Burke, apparently hadn’t read Cathy Kaveny et al — or even Joseph Ratzinger — when he gave an interview last week in Rome to Catholic Action for Faith and Family, a conservative advocacy group whom he advises.
In the interview, which Catholic Action is pushing out ahead of Tuesday’s elections, Burke was quite straightforward in saying that Catholics could not in good conscience vote for pro-choice pols (or those who vote in favor of same-sex marriage). From my write-up at PoliticsDaily:
[Catholic Action head Thomas J.] McKenna asks Burke, “Is it ever licit for a Catholic to vote for a pro-abortion candidate, a candidate who either in a platform or who has voted, has shown himself to support that. Is it ever valid?”
“No,” Burke answers. “You can never vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb or the right to a procured abortion.”
He adds that voters “may in some circumstances, where you don’t have any candidate who is proposing to eliminate all abortion, choose the candidate who will most limit this grave evil in our country. But you could never justify voting for a candidate who not only does not want to limit abortion but believes that it should be available to everyone.”
The cardinal-designate’s latest comments on Catholic voters also seem to diverge somewhat from the current policy of the U.S. hierarchy, as developed in 2004, and based in part on advice from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican’s chief doctrinal officer who a year later was elected pope on the death of John Paul II.
Burke also says:
“No matter what good I’m trying to achieve by voting for a candidate who favors that good, but at the same time favors the intrinsic evil, the grave evil of abortion, they can never justify that, voting for that candidate.”
That struck me as as even harder line than Cardinal Ratzinger took in his letter to the American bishops meeting in 2004 to formulate their policy of Catholics in public life, Ratzinger noted that a Catholic voter would be unfit to receive communion “if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia.”
Ratzinger added: “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.”
Such a variance with other bishops is not new for Burke, but his growing influence, and the timing of the remarks, seem to signal his agreement with efforts on the Catholic right to be the dominant voice both within and without the Church, as discussed in a much-debated thread here earlier.
BTW, R.R. Reno has a post at First Things that seems very relevant here, in which he warns that “there is a danger when we theologize our political judgments.”
Even the politics of the pro-life cause isn’t always clear. The imperative to protect innocent life translates pretty directly into opposition to our current legal arrangements, which permit abortions. But what will move us forward? Here political judgment comes into play, which is a species of prudence. Should I vote for a pro-life Democrat on the theory that a lasting pro-life consensus will require bipartisan cooperation? Or is the next Supreme Court appointment so decisive that I ought to vote for the Republican candidate?
Reno adds that “Obviously, one cannot claim to be in accord with the magisterium of the Church will asserting the women have a right to abort the children in their wombs,” so he’d probably be more in accord with Burke than not. But the point about prudential judgments seems to complicate black-and-white judgments.
Does that mean I am morally bound to vote for Carl Paladino for governor of New York?
Yes, Paul. How could that be a problem?!
“Such a variance with other bishops is not new for Burke, but his growing influence, and the timing of the remarks, seem to signal his agreement with efforts on the Catholic right to be the dominant voice both within and without the Church” OR another step on the long road to irrelevance!
Well, you’re also allowed not to vote, aren’t you? Or does Archbishop Burke forbid that as well?
“Does that mean I am morally bound to vote for Carl Paladino for governor of New York?”
—————
The story about the aunt’s house this morning was troubling.
Rusty Reno’s statement that “one cannot claim to be in accord with the magisterium of the Church while asserting that women have a right to abort the children in their wombs” does not imply any kind of agreement with Burke’s judgment about voting.
I’m going to vote for Democrats.
I’m going to receive the Eucharist.
I’m going to write and tell the Bishop where he can put his pointy hat.
Does Cardinal Burke’s advice on how to vote in the USA really hold, now that he will also be a citizen of the Vatican? Anyone holding duel citizenship except by birth is deemed to never have security clearance in the USA. That one therefore shall be treated as un-trustworty in US governmental matters. I feel better now..
From wkipedia
However, exercising (taking advantage of the entitlements of) a non-U.S. citizenship can cause problems. For example, possession and/or use of a foreign passport is a condition disqualifying from security clearance and “… is not mitigated by reasons of personal convenience, safety, requirements of foreign law, or the identity of the foreign country” as is explicitly clarified in a Department of Defense policy memorandum which defines a guideline requiring that “… any clearance be denied or revoked unless the applicant surrenders the foreign passport or obtains official permission for its use from the appropriate agency of the United States Government”.[15] This guideline has been followed in administrative rulings by the United States Department of Defense (DoD)
Ohio Rick says:
I’m going to vote for Democrats.
I’m going to receive the Eucharist.
I’m going to write and tell the Bishop where he can put his pointy hat.
Ken says; Wow, what a pout. Your hissy fit aside Rick, do as you say of course, and you can add to your list of going-to-do, that when you get to the pearly gates you are “going to” explain why you helped promote abortion.
;-)
Does that suprise you!
“Does that mean I am morally bound to vote for Carl Paladino for governor of New York?”
No, it means you cannot vote for Andrew Cuomo and still be a faithful Catholic. You have the option of abstaining from voting or writing in another candidate rather than the remote cooperation with grave evil of voting for a pro-abortion politician.
“Ratzinger added: “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.”
By “proportionate reasons”, he does not mean weighing some sort of moral balance between abortion and various other social justice issues. Proportionate reasons means other positions of the candidate which would lead to a reduction in abortions. The prudential judgment still involves abortion either way, not some consequentialist equation between x number aborted babies and x number of hungry children or whatever.
Note that even in this case, voting for the pro-abortion candidate remains “remote material cooperation” with grave evil.
I wonder what Burke would say about voting in Virginia’s 8th congressional district. Specifically, in the GOP primary, a pro-life gay candidate ran against a pro-choice (and anti-gay) candidate. If you were a Catholic Republican, for whom should you vote?
I think it’s interesting that this case confounded the story that many Catholics like to tell about the culture of life.
ps, for those who don’t know, anti-gay won out over pro-life among that district’s Republican voters.
I’d just like to point out and respond to the “straw man” quality of some of Archbishop Burke’s remarks.
“You can never vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb or the right to a procured abortion.” Under current US law, there is no absolute right to abortion. The law may be more permissive than some would like. It may be that some would prefer the US Constitution be amended in such a way as to outlaw all (or most) abortions. But in today’s politics, there are few politicians who favor changing the law to favor “absolutely the right to choice”.
Voters “may in some circumstances, where you don’t have any candidate who is proposing to eliminate all abortion, choose the candidate who will most limit this grave evil in our country. But you could never justify voting for a candidate who not only does not want to limit abortion but believes that it should be available to everyone.”
If I recall correctly, the abortion rate declined during President Clinton’s terms of office. Does that mean that Clinton did more to “limit this grave evil in our country” than his immediate predecessors? And that Catholic voters would therefore be justified in voting for Clinton? What if a candidate does not favor, as a matter of prudential judgment, outlawing or further restricting the legal right to abortion, but favors a comprehensive set of social and economic policies (e.g., increased child tax credit, universal health care, increased minimum wage, greater bargaining power for workers on wages and benefits) that would likely reduce the number of abortions in the country? Can a Catholic voters use their own prudential judgment to voter for such a candidate?
I understand that a live interview is different from, for example, a pastoral letter, and that the archbishop may not have (or may have!) spoken as clearly as he would like to have spoken. Speaking just for myself, it’s just not that helpful for bishops to speak in this manner.
I will NEVER allow the Catholic church tell me who to vote for.
The Pope may tell me what to do religion wise, but never how to vote.
Abortion is legal in this country.
And I hope you were kidding about voting for Palidino. He also broke a Commandment, Thou shalt not commit adultery, or doesn’t that matter???
Yeah well Diane, Slavery was also “legal in this country”, as was Jim Crow segregation.
Being “legal in this country” did not make them right. Abortion denies the humanity of the unborn baby; slavery and subsequent segregation laws denied the full humanity of Blacks.
As for the personal pecadillos of our Democrat and Republican politicians, surely you understand the notion that some sins are greater than others. In other words Diane, surely you can see (or admit) that some guy cheating on his wife is not the same as millions being enslaved or millions being aborted.
It is important to keep things in proportion.
“Abortion denies the humanity of the unborn baby; slavery and subsequent segregation laws denied the full humanity of Blacks.”
And killing in war denies the humanity of the enemy.
“It is important to keep things in proportion.”
Yep.
Proportionate reasons means other positions of the candidate which would lead to a reduction in abortions.
P Flanagan,
This is, of course, not true. If it were, Cardinal Ratzinger would obviously have said so if that were the case. Note the report from CNS regarding what Cardinal Ratzinger said:
Most pro-life politicians — for example, John McCain — oppose abortion with the usual exceptions (rape, incest, threat to life of the mother). If what you assert is correct. A Catholic would always be obliged to vote for the candidate who favors the most restrictions on abortion. This would generally be a third-party candidate who had no chance of winning. By your logic, Catholics would have to throw their votes away.
Flanagan,
To understand the way politics works in this country is to understand that to have voted for the winning candidate in just about any national election involves remote material cooperation with evil. If you believe that the moral life is mainly about avoiding remote cooperation with evil, then you should avoid voting — or, if you are going to vote, you should vote only for candidates who have no chance of winning. Of course, keeping that kind of innocence intact will require a lot more than not voting; it will also require, just to start with, not buying anything made by a corporation that is financially implicated, however indirectly, in grave evil. I suspect you will find this a difficult trick to pull off.
You write: “By ‘proportionate reasons,’ [Ratzinger] does not mean weighing some sort of moral balance between abortion and various other social justice issues. Proportionate reasons means other positions of the candidate which would lead to a reduction in abortions. The prudential judgment still involves abortion either way, not some consequentialist equation between x number aborted babies and x number of hungry children or whatever.” If that is really all the pope meant by “proportionate reasons” — if, that is, there is really only one proportionate reason — why didn’t he just say so? Why did he force us to rely on codecrackers like you to make sense of his directive?
But let’s say you’re right about all that. What makes you so confident that a vote for a prochoice candidate in favor of measures that directly benefit the poor, including poor pregnant women, does not satisfy the pope’s requirement as you define it? The abortion rate among the poor is higher than the overall abortion rate. Yes, I know, correlation is not causation. Maybe you think the sort of moral degenerates who allow themselves to become poor are the same kind of moral degenerates who are more likely to get abortions. But many of us reason the way those who run emergency pregnancy centers do: if we offer pregnant women in distress the material support they need, they are less likely to get abortions.
What is it you think is likely to happen if you vote for a prolife congressional candidate? How do you imagine that in our current legal and political situation, that vote will have an important effect on abortion law and policy? As for indirect effects, do you really imagine that implementation of the small-government, laissez-fair economic policies favored by prolife Republicans will bring the abortion rate down? If so, please explain.
Speaking of cooperating with evil, see this from the New York Post a couple of weeks ago:
Yeah well Diane, Slavery was also “legal in this country”, as was Jim Crow segregation.
Ken,
Were Catholics required to vote for Abraham Lincoln? Were they forbidden to serve in the Confederate Army?
But can we, in good conscience, vote for a candidate who supports torture? Isn’t torture an intrinsic evil? Are we not torturing people who have not had due process of law, and who may well be innocent? Can we vote for a party or an administration which has redefined torture to only mean “pain equal to that of organ failure” ? Can’t the more “liberal” bishops speak authoritatively and loudly about this horror?
Matthew Boudway ( a subscriber!) wrote: “Maybe you think the sort of moral degenerates who allow themselves to become poor are the same kind of moral degenerates who are more likely to get abortions.”
Let’s just file that away in the “unprovoked, uncharitable attacks” comments folder until traditionalist commentators are maligned once again for their supposedly unique invective.
As for “proportionate reasons”, I defer to the wisdom of Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin when this statement first came out in 2004: What Ratzinger Said
An important question, it seems to me, is not whether the candidates you are voting for are pro-life or pro-choice, but what they will (and will be able) to do in office.
I remember ages ago when Ed Koch was running for mayor here in New York, and he made a big deal of his support for the death penalty. Now, the Mayor of New York has absolutely no power to do anything at all, one way or the other, about the death penalty. If you were a staunch opponent of the death penalty on religious grounds, would it have been remote material cooperation with evil to vote for Ed Koch for mayor? No, because there was no “chain” at all connecting you, through Ed Koch, to any executions.
Although Carl Paladino opposes abortion (except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger) and Cuomo is pro-choice, what will be the actual impact on abortion of voting for one or the other? What has Paladino said he would actually do about abortion in the state of New York? (Nothing, than I am aware of.) And if he has pledged to do anything, will he be able to do it?
To repeat, in order for there to be remote material cooperation, there must be some kind of “chain” connecting you with actual abortions, not with a candidate’s stated position on abortion.
It also makes a difference how far removed you are in the “chain.” Say you voted for Obama over McCain even though you are pro-life and Obama is pro-choice. Is there a “chain” you can follow through your vote, to Obama, to actual abortions that Obama permits and McCain would have prevented?
In order to use the argument about remote material cooperation, you must demonstrate that you are really cooperating with actual evil, although remotely. I don’t see at the moment how the argument could even be made regarding the choice between Paladino and Cuomo.
Can anyone think of a greater impact that pro-life Democrats could have than to vote for a pro-life 3rd party candidate (or a write-in candidate)? Based on the professed number of such creatures, it would have a monumental impact on the first election following your decision to vote pro-life. If you are truly pro-life, are you not even willing to sacrifice (at most) a single election to move your party towards your deeply felt pro-life convictions? And since all the polls show a Republican takeover of the House anyway, then you’re probably not sacrificing anything at all.
Let me go out on a limb here and venture the opinion that Jimmy Akin is all wet regarding his example of innocently selling a pen to somebody who then uses it as a murder weapon. In order to cooperate with evil, you have to cooperate with the evil. If you don’t know about the evil, you can’t be cooperating with it. You are innocently cooperating with an evildoer, not cooperating with evil.
“An important question, it seems to me, is not whether the candidates you are voting for are pro-life or pro-choice, but what they will (and will be able) to do in office.”
In other words, what will be the consequences of their election? Which would make such a moral decision…a consequentialist one?
Has Abp. Burke’s position evolved over time?
Flanagan,
There really are people who think that poverty is usually, if not always, a sign of moral failure — that the poor are usually responsible for their own poverty — and some of these people are also opposed to abortion and therefore believe, not unreasonably, that those who choose to abort their unborn children are morally suspect. I’m glad and not terribly surprised to hear you’re not one of the people who believe both these things, and I’m sorry if the word “degenerate” was too indelicate for you.
As for the question about “proportionate reasons,” please don’t hide behind a link. If you have an argument, make it, even if it’s the same as Jimmy Akin’s.
You write: “In other words, what will be the consequences of their election? Which would make such a moral decision…a consequentialist one?” Bingo. That’s what voting is about, consequences — and that’s all it’s about. If you’re not interested in the consequences of an election, if voting is for you a kind of performance art whose chief value is expressive rather than instrumental, then you should save yourself the trouble: there are easier, more efficient ways to express yourself.
But then, I don’t really believe that’s what you think. I believe that in the voting booth you too are a consequentialist, that you vote for those you think will do the things you want done. The question here is: What if they can’t do the things you want done, however much they’d like to? Do you get moral credit for ignoring this fact? Do they get credit for offering to do what you and they both know they can’t? It is good for a politician to be opposed to abortion, but, depending on the circumstances, his opposition may have no more political effect than yours or mine. Not every plank in a political platform bears weight.
If you want to reduce abortion quickly, to say the level in N Europe or Canada, you would in fact institute universal health care, provide financial support to mothers, and be interested in reducing the child death rate to that of those same countries.
If that is the case you would have to vote democrat.
As it is, we know that the Bishops in fact have political reasons for wanting you to vote republican, and the protection of human life is actually not relevant to the discussion.
No Bishop in Canada would dare say this.
I’m voting for Jimmy McMillan of The Rent Is Too Damn High Party for governor of NY. His platform (as set out on his website) is completely silent on abortion as far as I can tell. Does that keep me square with the Church?
Joseph Jaglowicz – Speaking of proportion, it depned on if you are referring to a just war or not. I read something I liked, where (to paraphrase) the write noted that in the just war:
“..The soldier does not so much fight because he hates what is in front of him; he does so more because he loves what is behind him.”
In other words, the soldier fights less because he hates “the enemy” and more because he loves family and home.
But it sems just war is off-topic a bit
Ahhh… when will they learn. Jesus said it best “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.”
I listened to a historian on the history of the Catholic church in Canada and he was discussing nineteenth century politics and how it was that Catholic schools in upper Canada became publicly funded.
Cardinal O’Connor was instrumental in it because it was thought that Catholics would vote for whomever the church leaders said.
He stated that this perception EVEN THEN was empirically false. However, politicians and others acted as though it were true and policy was enacted on the basis of that perception.
Perhaps there may be some truth to it in the sense that Catholics were deriving what they understood to be benefits. That does not mean that Catholics voted according to what the leadership dictated in every instance.
Instead, then as now, Catholics as citizens, vote for a myriad of interests which their respective candidates support and advance. These interests are many but there are generally a few priorities which include the economy, health care, and increasingly in the US with the tea party a concern with deficits and so on.
I think the appropriate response from laity to overtures from Bishop Burke should be along the lines of thank you for your input and I will consider that when I vote. Obviously there are other considerations that need to be looked at as well.
Democrats are for pre-birth abortion.
Republicans are for post-birth abortion.
Best not to vote at all if you are Catholic.
Ms. Ruigh, I think you may be *on* to something! I see a lot of truth in what you’ve shared.
Ken, I doubt whether a soldier loves or hates something has any ultimate moral bearing on what actually occurs in battle. The respective enemies may very well have their “likes” and “dislikes” as they go into battle, but they likely wish they were somewhere else!
Killing is killing, regardless. Somebody dies. If we assume (or even presume) that an American GI is “innocent” and the enemy “other” is “not innocent”, is such a conclusion necessarily correct?
As suggested by fellow bloggers awhile back, we probably should leave the word ‘innocent’ out of such discussion.
The guy who prevails, one can say, has merely killed the “other” who was posing a danger to the victor.
As for Burke —
(yaawn)
It seems to me that accepting this statement of Archbishop Burke as binding in the face of what the Bishop of Rome has stated amounts to superstition — believing something without sufficient reason and acting on it. Sort of like not stepping on lines in the side-walk even when your wise old grand-father told you it’s OK.
I see no conflict between Cardinal-designate Raymond Burke’s intrepid and welcome statement and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s proviso regarding “proportionate reasons” that may, in theory, excuse a vote for a politician who collaborates with legalized abortion.
First of all, voters who are not upset by the very notion of the legalized mass murder of unborn children are cooperating formally, and not merely materially, with an unspeakable evil (to use the technical language of Cardinal Ratzinger and Catholic moral theology). For that reason, no “proportionate reasons” can get voters in that category off the hook when they knowingly cast ballots for candidates who refuse to fight for the eradication of legalized abortion.
Second, given the Church’s highly developed framework for distinguishing bedrock moral principles from contingent applications of them to concrete, complicated political decisions, the Ratzinger proviso is understandable and justifiable. Still, the “proportionate reasons” would have to be of truly monumental dimensions to balance the horror of direct attacks on millions of innocent human lives in their mothers’ wombs.
A concrete scenario: a presidential candidate gives increasingly clear signals that he is willing to launch an immediate, massive nuclear attack on another nuclear nation, whereas his pro-abortion opponent vehemently opposes such an attack (which the Church explicitly and thunderously condemns as a terrible crime in CCC 2314). In such a dilemma, I suggest that a Catholic may, in good conscience, vote for the pro-abortion candidate. But such an exceptional vote, which should be cast only with the greatest reluctance and sorrow, cannot, and must not, be cited to justify the millions of votes that Catholics are now casting for pro-abortion candidates in circumstances far removed from the foregoing apocalyptic scenario.
“If you believe that the moral life is mainly about avoiding remote cooperation with evil, then you should avoid voting…”
Amen to that! It is too bad more people do not adopt this laudable practice.
Still, the “proportionate reasons” would have to be of truly monumental dimensions to balance the horror of direct attacks on millions of innocent human lives in their mothers’ wombs.
Stephen,
You are making at least one very fundamental error here. Cathy Kaveny, in her article in America tells us the following:
I don’t know where you live, but in New York we have two candidates for governor — Cuomo, the pro-choice Democrat; and Palladino, the pro-life Republican. Voting for Cuomo is not going to cause 1.5 million abortions per year, and voting for Palladino is not going to prevent 1.5 million abortions per year. Voting for a pro-choice candidate at the local or state level does not make the voter instantly responsible for all the abortions that will take place in the United States during the candidate’s term if he or she wins the election.
Your approach doesn’t even work when voting for president. Assuming we had 1.5 million abortions in the United States in 2009 and will have the same in 2010 under Obama. Would things have been dramatically different under McCain? Were there no abortions at all during Bush’s two terms? Would a Gore victory or a Kerry victory have drastically changed the abortion rate?
You also have to consider the “remote” part of remote material cooperation. To quote Cathy Kaveny again:
If you are going to argue in terms of remote material cooperation and proportionate reason, you actually have to use the concepts correctly, not take the two phrases and run with them. And you have to acknowledge the reality of abortion in the United States, the fact that it is constitutionally protected, and the fact that significantly changing the situation can’t be done simply and quickly even by a president. If the governor of New York could end abortion in the state with the stroke of a pen, then your argument would have much more validity in our race for governor. And if a president could take the abortion rate from 1.5 million a year to zero with an executive order, you might have a good case. But that’s not the world we live in, so your arguments are basically just irrelevant or wrong.
urely no one votes for a candidate based on what that candidate says they will do; that would be gullibility in the extreme. Rather one votes based on what one foresees the candidate can or will deliver. There is a personal prognostication that enters into the decision. To illustrate the same point slightly differently: how am I as a faithful Catholic to vote when I judge that the pro-life candidate is unlikely to be able to deliver much of anything in the way of a reduction of abortion (I may even be convinced that they are cynical in their pro-life stance) whereas the pro-choice candidate is almost certain to deliver a significant advance on the social justice front while in no way likely to exacerbate the abortion rate (if that is even possible)? One cannot simply say that abortion as the greatest of all evils trumps every other consideration and therefore I must vote for the self-styled pro-life candidate. Surely for myself as a moral individual the primary consideration is my own judgement of the good or evil that will actually result from my vote.
“The question here is: What if they can’t do the things you want done, however much they’d like to? Do you get moral credit for ignoring this fact? Do they get credit for offering to do what you and they both know they can’t? It is good for a politician to be opposed to abortion, but, depending on the circumstances, his opposition may have no more political effect than yours or mine.”
Matthew–
I was with you until here. I don’t question anyone’s proportionate reasons calculus because I don’t know what is in someone’s heart, and, in the end, God will let him or her know if their mathematics was sound in any event. However, I can’t help thinking that many Catholic politicians of the “personally opposed but” stripe have jumped on the proportionate reasons bandwagon as cover for their lukewarm or even non-existent pro-life bona fides. I say this because so few Catholic politicians, especially Democrats (and I consider myself a pro-life Democrat), let the Pregnant Women’s Support Act languish through multiple Congressional sessions. Some parts of the PWSA were finally incorporated into the health care reform bill, but what were supposedly pro-life Catholic politicians like Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, and Chris Dodd, with their NARAL-approved voting records, doing to push the PWSA though Congress? Very, very little. These were powerful senators who claimed to be pro-life but who did not add the full force of their influence to a bill containing multiple provisions that would provide economic assistance and other aid to mothers contemplating abortion for economic reasons. I don’t judge waht was in their hearts, but there actions spoke louder than words to me.
To reject “consequentialism” as contrary to the Catholic ethical tradition is so off-base it’s almost funny. The word is a rather new one in ethics, having emerged after the advent of utilitarianism (‘the greatest good for the greatest number’). Utilitarianism does indeed take the consequences of acts (i.e., results) into consideration in establishing the morality of an action, and the theory really isn’t consistent with Catholic teachings — but not because it holds that consequences are factors which determine the morality of acts.
The natural law tradition from Aristotle on down is *also* a kind of consequentialism in that it says that the ultimate goodness or evil of an act is determined by the goodness or evil of the end of the act — that is, by the act’s outcome, i.e., its effect, i.e., *consequence*.
Look at it this way: one of the great pillars of natural law ethics is the principle of double effect, and effects are the same thing as consequences. So you can’t consistently hold the principle of double effect and reject consequentialism at the same time.
that should have been “so many Catholic politicians …let the Pregnant Women’s Support Act languish”
If I remember correctly, during the six to eight years it sat dormant in Congress, the PWSA never got out of committee, and I don’t think it ever even got a hearing. I frankly can’t think of even one influential Catholic politician, of either party, who stepped forward and tried to shepherd it through. Democrats were afraid to face the endorsement might of Planned Parenthood and NARAL, and Republicans didn’t want to spend the money. Even if achieving passage might have been a lost cause, being the standard bearer for a program that sought to reduce the economic impetus behind many abortions would have been a heroic undertaking for a Catholic politician, and evidence of his or her being personally opposed to abortion despite a reluctance to take on Roe v. Wade legally.
“First of all, voters who are not upset by the very notion of the legalized mass murder of unborn children are cooperating formally,”
Stephen –
The morality of an act is not determined by one’s subjective reaction to it, but, rather, by what it is in itself. Founding ethics on feeling amounts to sentimentality, regardless of how wrong the objective act might or might not be. Wrong acts are not horrible not because you *feel* horrible about it.
People react to more or less emotionally intensely to what is in fact morally horrible. That doesn’t make such an act less wrong for one person than for the other.
You are not thinking with the Church when you propose such an emotive ethics.
Oops — “Wrong acts are not horrible not because you *feel* horrible about it.” should be:
“Wrong act are not morally horrible because you *feel* horrible about them.”
Just a few random thoughts:
* Nothing brings into such sharp relief the wisdom to be found in Cathleen’s article in America, as to compare it to Archbishop Burke’s remarks
* I’ve said it before, and if he continues to make these public remarks, I’ll keep saying it: it’s inappropriate for the prefect of the apostolic signatura to comment on these political issues in public. And much more so on the eve of an election. If Justice Scalia, on the same day, had publicly stated, ‘Catholic voters can never, ever vote for a politician who supports abortion’, the uproar here would be deafening, and there would be many calls for his resignation.
I can respect and appreciate Archbishop Burke’s apostolic zeal in preaching the good news (although that respect and appreciation is somewhat tempered by his failure to get it exactly right in this case :-)); but if he feels he must continue to speak up about these issues, I believe he needs to let his judicial appointment go.
It is true that Abp. Burke has taken a stricter line than other bishops (including the Holy Father) and Church documents.
However, the differences are in degree rather than kind. The magisterium will never give a green light to voting for candidates who support abortion, the differences are between what shade of yellow and red.
I wish that those inclined to support these candidates spend a tithe of the energy they devote to justifying their own votes and bird-dogging bishops’ statements to moving their preferred candidates away from support for abortion or finding candidate to support who do not support abortion, and thus render this question irrelevant.
It is depressing that we have this same argument every election.
William Collier, I don’t disagree with you. But it’s been a long time since any of the three politicians you name could call himself a prolife Democrat. And of course you would have needed more than prolife Democrats to get PWSA through; you would have needed all (or most of) the prolife senators and representatives of both parties. Alas, prolife Republicans wouldn’t get behind the bill for the reason you mention. They have long understood their opposition to abortion only in terms of legal restrictions, and Roe having blocked the way to most restrictions, they’ve been left with little to do. They do block federal funding for elective abortion, as they should, but they show little interest in using federal funding for programs that would reduce the number of abortions. This is because prolife politics is merely an accessory for the GOP, whereas opposition to the welfare state is its DNA. This doesn’t mean that prolife Republicans aren’t sincere in their opposition to abortion (I suspect most of them are). It means two things: first, that their position on this subject is not the thing they have in common with all the other members of their caucus — that would be support for lower taxes — and, second, that they don’t spend much time worrying about how to turn their position on this subject into public policy. For them, the force of this conviction is wholly negative: from time to time it gives them another reason to reject things they already didn’t like for other reasons (e.g., the Affordable Care Act).
However, the differences are in degree rather than kind. The magisterium will never give a green light to voting for candidates who support abortion, the differences are between what shade of yellow and red.
John McG,
There is a dramatic difference between saying a Catholic may not vote for a pro-choice politician and saying a Catholic may vote for a pro-choice politician with proportionate reasons. The difference between yes and no is a difference in kind, not degree.
You are presuming that requiring proportionate reasons sets the bar so high that, practically speaking, yes and no yield the same results. That is not the case, and in fact it seems to me that for voters who honestly believe it really makes no difference who is elected — perhaps because they believe either pro-choice candidates have no intention of criminalizing abortion, or have no ability to even if it is their intention — abortion is not even an issue in choosing between candidates. You may disagree with their assessment of the situation, but each voter gets to make up his or her own mind.
I would say such an attitude is part of the reason nothing happens, and thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
John McG,
And you may (or may not) be correct. But you are the only one who is required by conscience to vote based on your perceptions of the situation. Each individual voter must judge for himself or herself.
“You are not thinking with the Church when you propose such an emotive ethics” (Ann Olivier).
The following warning is framed in emotional language, but it is squarely based on the natural moral law:
“Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother’s womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cries from earth to Heaven [Gen 4:10]” (Pope Pius XI, encyclical Casti connubii, section 67).”
The claim that Pius XI was not thinking with the Church is irrational.
By the way, Cardinal-designate Raymond Burke’s otherwise outstanding statement can be criticized for having omitted the urgent need to excommunicate legislators who, flouting their obligation to protect unborn children, “betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others.” Those politicians should be excommunicated in accordance with canon 1369 and other relevant canons.
“I wish that those inclined to support these candidates spend a tithe of the energy they devote to justifying their own votes and bird-dogging bishops’ statements to moving their preferred candidates away from support for abortion”
The problem is that “move away from” suggests motion along a spectrum, while most pro-life activists acknowledge only two positions: “100% in agreement with the pro-life position” and “100% evil”. I think the unilateralist position on this is self-defeating because it virtually assures that people will get caught up in the “can it ever be right?” questions rather than engaging more fully in the “is it right here?” ones. A lot of people who might agree with a good deal of the Abp’s substance are offended by his arrogant dismissal of their good faith questioning.
By the way, Cardinal-designate Raymond Burke’s otherwise outstanding statement can be criticized for having omitted the urgent need to excommunicate legislators who . . . .
Stephen,
It doesn’t seem to me that legislators have all that much power regarding abortion. The principle roadblock to doing anything about abortion is the Supreme Court, which has six Catholic justices. They could dramatically change abortion in the United States with a single ruling. Do you think the power of excommunication should be used to prompt Catholics on the court to either overturn Roe (or better yet, prohibit abortion by interpreting the 14th Amendment) or resign?
“The problem is that “move away from” suggests motion along a spectrum, while most pro-life activists acknowledge only two positions: ”
–
Is your claim that there has been movement along the spectrum that has gone unacknowledged by pro-life groups? As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been. We’re still in the “Abp. Burke inartfully takes a hard line position; progressive Catholics elaborately flop to the floor” place we were six years ago.
I am open to and would welcome movement in a pro-life direction, but I haven’t seen it.
I should also acknowledge that it seems to me that the Republican Party is moving in the wrong direction, emphasizing economic issues (their positions on which are difficult to reconcile with Catholic Social Teaching) and de-emphasizing support for the unborn.
“Do you think the power of excommunication should be used to prompt Catholics on the court to either overturn Roe (or better yet, prohibit abortion by interpreting the 14th Amendment) or resign?” (David Nickol)
No Supreme Court justice who is willing to use his or her authority urgently and courageously for the purpose of saving the lives of unborn children should resign. Instead, he or she should make use of that authority to do whatever is humanly possible to realign U.S. laws with the natural moral law as quickly as possible.
Yes, the power of excommunication should be used to prompt the Supreme Court’s Catholics to do their duty in accordance with Pius XI’s warning; however, as in the case of legislators, the threat of excommunication should be preceded by pastoral counsel–first in private, and then in public, even at this late hour in our country’s history.
Yes, authoritatively interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment to protect every innocent human life from the very moment of conception is the outcome for which every Catholic on the Supreme Court ought to have been working day and night ever since the Roe decision was handed down on January 22, 1973.
(In my last post on this thread, I’m retroactively deleting the superfluous second quotation mark after my quotation from Casti connubii.)
“Is your claim that there has been movement along the spectrum that has gone unacknowledged by pro-life groups? ”
Pro-life groups were pretty hard on Bart Stupak after his compromise on healthcare reform without — as far as I could see — and debate at all about whether he’d moved the ball in the right direction. Because they don’t see a right direction, only a right and wrong. Fine, on their own terms, but, as I said above, I think the unilateralist position is in fact self defeating.
If I lived in a district where I was tempted to vote for a pro-choice democrat over a pro-life republican (believing that there are other issues on which Jesus might have an opinion), the Abp’s comments would make my vote easier, because I’d be voting against his arrogant belief that his analysis invalidates my own sincere moral wrestling.
Matthew, and I don’t disagree with you. ;)
However, I wasn’t concentrating on Republicans, many of whom, pro-life or not, would not support the PWSA because of the economics in and of itself, a shame given the financial hardship underpinning substantial numbers of abortion.
As is no doubt evident, the focus of my ire about the PWSA is with Democrats, especially Catholic Democrats, who did virtually nothing (with the exception of Robert Casey) to help move the legislation along. As to the Senate, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, and Chris Dodd were just the tip of the iceberg. Off the top of my head there were at least a dozen or so more Catholics in the Senate when the PWSA was pending: Maria Cantwell, Richard Durbin, John Kerry, Mary Landrieu, Patrick Leahy, Tom Harkin, Claire McCaskill, Barbara Mikulski, Robert Menendez, Patty Murray, Jack Reed, Kenneth Salazar. If all of these Catholic legislators had been behind the PWSA, they would have been a formidable force in getting the ball rolling. It stayed buried in committees each time it was introduced in a new Congress. And since there is at least some agreement on both the pro-life and pro-choice sides of the abortion issue that economic conditions are a major factor in decisions to abort, an organized, motivated group of 15 or so senators may have been able to get other members of the Senate to join them. At least the effort should have been made on issue designed to save lives. (In addition, many bills have eventually become law with initial support numbering far fewer than 15 senators.)
So why didn’t these Catholic senators line up behind a bill specifically tailored to reduce the number of abortions? The answer was simple: NARAL and Planned Parenthood and other influential pro-choice organizations didn’t like the bill. And why should they? Reducing the numbers of abortions is not their primary interest. And it is unfortunately the present state of the Democratic Party that most of its national legislators who are “personally opposed to abortion but” will not dare to cross swords with NARAL, Planned Parenthood, etc., on anything related to abortion, even economic legislation that would likely reduce abortions and save lives. This is why I feel so estranged from the Democratic Party and why I live on its edge among the pro-life Democrats for Life of America.
Many opponents of Archbp Burke’s statement have remarked to the effect that, since no single pro-life politician can actually do anything in practical terms about abortion, then voting for them or for their pro-abortion opponent is irrelevant or moot. By that same logic, it would be fine to vote for a candidate who publicly proclaims his desire to (say) exterminate the Jewish race…since that candidate would not be able to actually put that policy into effect should he be elected.
The morality of voting in this context is actually quite simple: it is wrong to want to kill babies.
By that same logic, it would be fine to vote for a candidate who publicly proclaims his desire to (say) exterminate the Jewish race…since that candidate would not be able to actually put that policy into effect should he be elected.
P Flanagan,
There are a number of things wrong with what you say, but let me point out the most egregious. You and Archbishop Burke are using a specific argument about voting for pro-choice politicians — that is, that it’s remote material cooperation with the intrinsic evil of abortion. Now, loathsome though it would be for a candidate for office to endorse genocide of Jews, if he had no possible way of bringing it about, no one who voted for him could be accused of remote material cooperation with genocide. There would be no genocide to materially cooperate with, no matter how remotely. A dramatic way of putting your and Archbishop Burke’s argument about abortion would be to say that people who vote for pro-life candidates have the blood of unborn babies on their hands. But to vote for a candidate who advocated, but did not in any way bring about, genocide could not expose voters to the charge that they have blood on their hands. You can’t have blood on your hands if no blood is shed.
So you are saying responses to your argument about remote material cooperation are illogical, but instead of defending your argument to show why they are illogical, you are making a different argument. Your new argument is that it would be immoral and impermissible to vote for someone who advocated reprehensible views even if they won’t have any real consequences. If you want that to be your argument against voting for pro-choice candidates, then you have to make that argument.
The morality of voting in this context is actually quite simple: it is wrong to want to kill babies.
P Flanagan,
Those who are pro-choice in general do not want to kill babies. They are willing to tolerate other who want to “kill babies” (have abortions). Tolerating something is not the same as willing it. Now, I think it is reasonably accurate to say the Church says legislators should not tolerate abortion. So those who do so might still be considered to be at odds with the Church. But there is no reason to characterize them as wanting to kill babies.
Stephen –
Please read my post more carefully. It did not deny the Church’s teaching on abortion (though in fact there is reason to think that that requires some revision). What it faulted was your saying that BECAUSE abortion is horrible (which it is), THEREFORE, it is wrong. Your and my feelings about the matter have nothing to do with the morality of the act.
To say that your or my feelings are what make something wrong is not Church teaching and so far as I know it never has been. Further, to say that everyone *ought* to share your intense feelings has nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with whether or not abortion is wrong. You are confusing a subjective reaction with an objective fact.
To say or imply that those who do not share your intense feelings are on the wrong side of the abortion issues is simply irrelevant. Such emotive talk has an unfortunate result, however — it insults people whose feeling might not be as intense as your own but who nevertheless are very, very much anti-abortion for rational reasons, not emotive *so-called* reasons.
If emotion determined morality, then every pregnant woman who intensely wanted an abortion would be justified in having it. I don’t think either you or I want to grant that. Not that what you or I *want* is relevant to the ethical issue. What we *feel* about something and what we *know* about something are two different matters.
P Flanagan, the flaw in your reasoning is twofold: first, there actually may be circumstances where the “pro-genocide” candidate would be the lesser of two evils. Now, I can’t imagine any, but I am reminded of the governor’s race in Louisiana some years back where one of the campaigns relied on the slogan, “Vote for the Crook — It’s Important.” In order to prevent David Dukes from being elected the poor citizens of Louisiana had to elect Edwin Edwards, a known corrupt pol. I can’t remember whether he had already been convicted or if it was on appeal or whatever. The point is: sometimes you are offered some pretty awful choices as a voter.
Second, most people voting for pro-choice candidates aren’t endorsing abortion at all — they are voting on some other grounds entirely that they consider to be far more relevant to their lives, like, for instance, not privatizing social security. In many cases you are actually asking them to vote against their own interests in favor of an issue that is not necessarily front and center for them personally. That’s what they find it difficult to bring themselves to do. This is where my mom is at.
“Your new argument is that it would be immoral and impermissible to vote for someone who advocated reprehensible views even if they won’t have any real consequences. If you want that to be your argument against voting for pro-choice candidates, then you have to make that argument.”
If you say so. Let it be my argument, then. Voting is a moral choice. Voting for someone who thinks it is perfectly fine for people to kill babies is immoral. Voting for a pro-abortion politician is no different in moral terms than voting for a white supremacist. Is it acceptable for someone to support the white supremacist because of their other policies which are unrelated to white supremacy, as a matter of proportionate reason?
“Those who are pro-choice in general do not want to kill babies. They are willing to tolerate other who want to “kill babies” (have abortions).”
Confiteor: “For what I have done, and for what I have failed to do…” (i.e., failed to correct someone who believes it is perfectly fine to kill unborn children). The “pro-choice” position is morally absurd.
If, in 1856 America, someone said “I would never own a slave myself, but I support the right of someone else to own a slave, and for the government to sanction the owning of other human beings”, you would be willing to “tolerate” that as well?
Attended Fr. Charles Curran’s talk yesterday at SMU in Dallas at the Maguire Center for Ethics and Policy. Here is a link to a summary of what Fr. Curran outlined:
http://ncronline.org/news/politics/curran-how-bishops-challenge-abortion-laws-flawed
Some highlights that underline statements above by some of you e.g. Ann, Jim, David. He makes four arguments:
“In contrast, today the bishops “now clearly state abortion is the primary issue.” Their rationale for doing so, he said, rests on their conviction that other issues of public policy and law “involve prudential judgments,” but that abortion laws “deal with something that is intrinsically evil and does not involve prudential judgments. Catholics have certitude on the abortion law issue.”
However, Curran states, the bishops’ thesis is wrong for four reasons:
“The speculative doubt about when human life begins;
“the fact that possibility and feasibility are necessary aspects involved in discussions about abortion law;
“the understanding and role of civil law;
“and the weakness of the intrinsic evil argument.”
Before some of you react – please note that Curran explicitly repeats and supports that direct abortion is a moral wrong. His arguments are based on different points that have much relevance to our current political voting cycle and the unwarranted and untimely comments of Burke. He does include a new approach using Murray’s Religious Freedom criteria rather than the neo-Thomistic approach.
BTW – Prof. Kaveny – I asked him how his arguments are supported by your recent writings on “prophet” and “pilgrim”. He remarked that he had drinks with you and your father and went on to explain and connect your thoughts with his moral points.
“they are voting on some other grounds entirely that they consider to be far more relevant to their lives, like, for instance, not privatizing social security. In many cases you are actually asking them to vote against their own interests in favor of an issue that is not necessarily front and center for them personally.”
And you fail to see how profoundly selfish such an attitude is, especially in light of the moral abomination of killing unborn children? Forget the babies, my Social Security check is at stake! You may be explaining such a position, but you surely cannot justify it.
Forget the babies, my Social Security check is at stake!
P Flanagan,
You are framing your own argument inaccurately. According to the Church, someone who votes for a pro-choice politician in spite of the politician’s stand on abortion is remotely cooperating materially with abortion. The voter is not responsible for the enormity of abortion itself, but for his or her role in abortion. The less influence that one single vote has on the reality of abortion, the less responsible the voter is. The farther removed the vote is from actual abortions, the less responsible the voter is. Let’s suppose the voter is voting for a congressional representative. How much impact does one vote for one pro-life congressional representative have on women who have abortions of their own free will? We are talking about a very dilute responsibility.
Now, if there is actually something at stake over social security, which the voter needs in order to survive, then legitimate concern over the social security check may very well override whatever moral responsibility the voter might otherwise have to vote against that legislature.
Each individual voter, and each individual politician, cannot be held responsible for all abortions.
One has to realize that it is impossible to live in our society without cooperating remotely with all kinds of evil, and it is also impossible to avoid every act of omission regarding the evils in the world.
How much impact does one vote for one pro-life congressional representative have on women who have abortions of their own free will?
I meant to say “pro-choice congressional representative,” but of course it works both ways.
I put Flanagan in the same class as Kathy–wouldn’t want to tangle with either of them. Luckily, I don’t have to!
Regarding voting with candidates who have reprehensible views that they can in no way use their office to turn into policy or law, as long as one can vote for them and make it clear the vote is not an endorsement of their views, I don’t seen any concern about the morality of the vote. One might conceivably vote for a racist dog catcher if his opponent is a saintly dog catcher who is inept when it comes to catching dogs.
Whatever obligation there is to vote against a candidate who has reprehensible personal views, or whose personal behavior is less than exemplary, it is of a different nature than the obligation to vote against someone when that vote would constitute remote material cooperation with evil.
“This is why I feel so estranged from the Democratic Party and why I live on its edge among the pro-life Democrats for Life of America.”
It’s why I left, a long time ago. There are some other important reasons, but that is probably the most important.
“I should also acknowledge that it seems to me that the Republican Party is moving in the wrong direction, emphasizing economic issues (their positions on which are difficult to reconcile with Catholic Social Teaching) and de-emphasizing support for the unborn.”
Hi, John, I agree that the libertarian strain of conservatism is difficult, or impossible, to reconcile with Catholic social teaching, and there is undeniably a libertarian strain in the Tea Party movement.
It occurs to me that pro-life Catholics in the Republican Party have an important responsibility to call their party to a better position. For example, if a Republican primary features two pro-life candidates who differ on economic issues, I’d think that those who vote in that primary should vote for the one whose economic views coincide with Catholic social teaching.
Pro-life Democrats, unfortunately, are marginalized in the Democratic Party right now. But the same is not true of pro-life Republicans – they are extremely influential in their party, and should use that influence to work for more than a pro-life plank at the national convention.
If one is to consider the heirarchy of life issues one must begin at The Beginning, for every life issue depends upon protecting our Right to Life from the moment we are brought into being.
David, if you don’t agree with P.Flanagan’s post on 10/28@3:35P.M., why don’t you go directly to the source and contact Pope Benedict for clarification?
“The morality of voting in this context is actually quite simple: it is wrong to want to kill babies.”
Flanagan –
No, *wanting* to kill someone not of itself wrong. Wanting is only a feeling. What is wrong is killing someone. You, like Stephen, are appealing to an emotive ethic. That is not the teaching of the Church.
“No, *wanting* to kill someone not of itself wrong.”
Thanks for pointing out the imprecision, but it’s easily restated: “The morality of voting in this context is actually quite simple: it is wrong to think it is alright to kill babies.”
I’ll add a corollary: “And it is wrong to vote for anyone who thinks it is alright to kill babies.”
David Nickol: ” One might conceivably vote for a racist dog catcher if his opponent is a saintly dog catcher who is inept when it comes to catching dogs.”
Anyone else here have no problem with voting for a self-avowed racist, whatever the elected position?
David, if you don’t agree with P.Flanagan’s post on 10/28@3:35P.M., why don’t you go directly to the source and contact Pope Benedict for clarification?
Nancy,
Because what Benedict said was perfectly clear. Do you feel he inadequatly addressed the issue? The concepts of remote material cooperation and proportionate reason have been explained many times. It is you and P Flanagan who require clarification. See my messages of 10/28/2010 – 5:20 pm and 10/28/2010 – 11:22 pm. I responded to P Flanagan at length. Or better yet, read Cathy Kaveny’s article in America. If Benedict had meant what Archbishop Burke has said, Benedict would have said so. However, he said something quite different.
By the way, are you going to withdraw the statement you made on Mirror of Justice that “Always Our Children” was approved only by the committee that wrote it and not by the USCCB? That was a very serious statement about the American Bishops. I hope you will correct it.
“P. Flanagan,” enough interrogating. You can consider your duty to correct others performed.
Anyone else here have no problem with voting for a self-avowed racist, whatever the elected position?
P Flanagan,
Please note that “no problem” are your words, not mine. I might have a “problem” voting for an avowed racist, but I do not think it would necessarily be immoral. Voting for someone is very much like hiring him for a job. Some years ago, I had two plumbers working in my kitchen, and I overheard them talking about good places to go to enjoy the services of prostitutes. Was it immoral of me to let them finish their work, or should I have said, “Get out, you sinners! I will find a plumber who doesn’t frequent prostitutes!”
Suppose you are going to have open heart surgery, and you have a choice between the best surgeon in the country, who is an anti-Semite, or a bumbling young doctor just out of medical school. Are you morally obliged to choose the latter?
Bush and Reagan did nothing for pro life in 16 years in office, If you believe Reagan, Bush and McCain are really pro-life just because they say so, you fail at elementary character reading. Cardinal Burke wants us to believe politicians under the pain of sin.. what a joke.. Their own family members are not pro-life… Why? because they are not running for office under the Republican.. banner. …
Those who claim to be anti-abortion sometimes (often?) make exceptions when it comes to their own pregnancies or to their daughters’.
The spiritual directors of the Supreme Court justices should explain why they haven’t cracked the whip. (Or tightened the cilice.)
Suppose you are going to have open heart surgery, and you have a choice between the best surgeon in the country, who is an anti-Semite, or a bumbling young doctor just out of medical school. Are you morally obliged to choose the latter?
———–
Jonathan Katz, a Washington University physicist, was kicked off a panel to investigate the BP oil spill because he is a “homophobe”.
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2010/10/son_of_avowed_wash_u_homophobe_comes_out_in_post-dispatch.php
This subject is well on its way to get the usual 100 plus posts. However.
“Over 22,000 children die every day around the world.
That is equivalent to:
•1 child dying every 4 seconds
•15 children dying every minute
•A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring almost every 10 days
•A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 10 days
•An Iraq-scale death toll every 18–43 days
•Just under 8.1 million children dying every year
•Some 88 million children dying between 2000 and 2009
The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. Despite the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.”
“No, *wanting* to kill someone [is] not of itself wrong. Wanting is only a feeling. What is wrong is killing someone. You, like Stephen, are appealing to an emotive ethic. That is not the teaching of the Church” (Ann Olivier).
It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that the intention to commit an evil act is wrong, just as the commission of the evil act is wrong. If someone forms the intention of committing murder or adultery, but later retracts that intention, the evil intention must still be confessed as a sin.
In its section dealing with the Ninth Commandment, the new catechism cites the words of Jesus: “Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28; RSV).
Jonathan Katz, a Washington University physicist, was kicked off a panel to investigate the BP oil spill because he is a “homophobe”.
Gerelyn,
The word homophobe doesn’t need to go in quotes. He described himself as a homophobe (a proud homophobe). However, kicking him off the panel was not a matter of morality. It was PR.
It’s interesting that his son turned out to be gay. Homophobes often seem to believe their children won’t be gay, because they will raise them not to be.
The word homophobe doesn’t need to go in quotes. He described himself as a homophobe (a proud homophobe). However, kicking him off the panel was not a matter of morality. It was PR.
——–
I was quoting him. That’s why I used quotation marks. (Maybe I have trouble remembering if homophobia is the fear of homosexuals or the fear of being homosexual.)
It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that the intention to commit an evil act is wrong, just as the commission of the evil act is wrong. If someone forms the intention of committing murder or adultery, but later retracts that intention, the evil intention must still be confessed as a sin.
As I recall, the Catholic Church makes a distinction between having thoughts, entertaining thoughts, and acting on those thoughts. If the thought comes into your head, “I’ll throw the baby out the window if she doesn’t stop crying!” you are not guilty of anything. If you fantasize about throwing the baby out the window and enjoying it, you may be doing something wrong. And if you throw it out the window, you have definitely done something wrong.
I think in the case of looking lustfully, the thought must be entertained to qualify as sinful.
In any case, politicians who are pro-choice — at least those who are “personally opposed but . . . — do not want to “kill babies.” I would say it is wrong to even claim abortionists want to “kill babies.” I don’t think we would want to say our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan want to kill, even though it is their job. If a soldier actually wants to kill the enemy, in the sense of enjoying it and being glad he gets to do it, he is committing murder.
Oops, forgot to un-italicize. The first part was by David N., the second part by me.
Gerelyn,
I understand. It’s interesting that quotation marks can have more than one meaning. Did you see the episode of Friends in which on of the characters keeps making air quotes (finger quotes) when he says something, but he clearly doesn’t know what they mean?
YES. I love him. Joey.
1)I think Cardinal Burke was out of bounds on the topic.
2) The continuing argument about abortion/politics here will probably (as Bill M.) notes reach another (repetitive of previous?) posts.
3)I thank Bill D. and think Cathy’s approach on the issue most cogent.
4)Finally, though, an HT to Bill Collier for his words on pro-life Dems(and GOPers) -I fear a voice crying in the wilderness. And that is a major problem in our divided Church today.
:One has to realize that it is impossible to live in our society without cooperating remotely with all kinds of evil, and it is also impossible to avoid every act of omission regarding the evils in the world.”
Bob N. –
This problem of our limitations has been raised before. I think it needs discussion. As I see it it ultimately boils down to this: we have only limited time and means to do good, but sometimes we do not have times and means to do what we are *obliged* to do. It is a metaphysical fact that we cannot be everything that we can be nor do everything we can do — all because we can do only one thing at a time.
So how can be be obliged to do what we can’t do? The solution lies, I think, in the fact that if we cooperate with someone else, then we can both accomplish more — i.e., do more good — than either can do alone. We really have no choice but to cooperate, at least at times. But when?
Other practial problems emerge from these facts: how does one prioritize one’s obligations? and is it permissible to seek help in doing good from a person who sometimes does evil to get a good accomplished? The latter question is, I think, what is involved in the problem of supporting pro-choice candidates. Those who say No (no cooperation is justified) are assuming that to cooperate in *any* project with an evil=doer is thereby to do evil. But why should that necessarily follow? I don’t see it.
“Just under 8.1 million children dying every year…The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes.”
42 million* children deliberately killed every year. The quite loud, immediate, direct cause is abortion.
(http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html) Guttmacher was formerly the statistics arm of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the USA, for those who may question the source for this number.
“No, *wanting* to kill someone [is] not of itself wrong. Wanting is only a feeling. What is wrong is killing someone. You, like Stephen, are appealing to an emotive ethic. That is not the teaching of the Church” (Ann Olivier).
It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that the intention to commit an evil act is wrong, just as the commission of the evil act is wrong. If someone forms the intention of committing murder or adultery, but later retracts that intention, the evil intention must still be confessed as a sin.”
Stephen –
You’re confusing feelings with intentions. Feelings emerge whether we want them to or not. Intentions are what we do when we direct or command ourselves to act for a particular outcome. This is an act of the will, not a feeling. They are not the same sort of internal act though feelings are usually part of a whole process we go through between feeling a reaction to something and doing something to produce an intended effect. (See Aquinas Summa Theol. Pt 1,Q 12, A 3.)
Ann, I think you have clarified this well. As I understand it, temptation itself is not a sin, but indulging that temptation, willfully, in thought or deed, is sinful to varying degrees. Your distinction between feelings and intentions is well stated.
To the various armchair and professional ethicists who have weighed in on the issue of conscience and Catholicism:
I wonder if it is morally permissible to vote for a politician who is “pro-life” but would allow for exceptions to the eventual criminalization of abortion in cases of rape or incest. Since the human life created by these acts is no less sacred than other human life, would voting for this kind of “pro-life” politician (especially if he/she were in a position to legislate on such distinctions) be as morally unacceptable as voting for his/her pro-choice counterpart? I believe that is the choice facing Pennsylvanians this time around in pro-life Catholic Toomey (he’d allow some unborn children to be killed based on the circumstances of their conception) and pro-choice Catholic Sestak (who is in the Biden/Kerry/Kennedy/Mikulski mold). I find the Toomey position to be incoherent and repugnant because it would in effect given to the judicial or the executive branch the power to determine which abortions can proceed.
How do Archbishop Burke’s directives help me on this choice?
P Flanagan, your response always brings me back to the same place. If abortion is so important, more important than social security could possibly ever be to anybody, at any time, or any place, why is it always one side, but not the other, that has to compromise in order to make change over the issue? How many more pro-life people would be willing to cast their vote for avowedly pro-life candidates if they only moderated other views on social issues? Isn’t that candidate, or whoever else is voting for him, also being selfish? Why is it only the pro-life voter, but not the politician, who is expected to hold their nose and vote in a way that compromises other values? I don’t negotiate with myself. If someone REALLY wants me to vote for a pro-life candidate, they can jolly well show a spirit of compromise on other things that are important to me.
Thanks, P. My thinking on the matter is just about pure Aquinas. I mean his analysis of the various factors that are involved in the whole complex process that begins with wanting something and ending with producing and enjoying it. His analysis of this process show him to be a great psychologist/phenomenologist. (And I’m not even a Thomist saying this.)
Check out the Summa Th. I-II (the first part of the second part) Ques. 1-48,
Oops — I see that I just gave a wrong reference to Stephen — that should also have been to the the first part of the second part (I-II) of the Summa Theol. Sorry.
42 million* children deliberately killed every year. The quite loud, immediate, direct cause is abortion.
P Flanagan,
And 13 million of those are in China, and 11 million are in India. Do we have a responsibility only for the 1.3 million in the United States?
Also, 1 billion people in the world — 1 in 6 — don’t have enough food. Is our only responsibility to end abortion in the United States?
Thanks, Bill. My father came with me to the moral theology conference in Trent. He really likes moral theologians–he went to the one in Padua a few years ago and thinks we’re a fun crowd!
William F.
As a Pennsylvanian, I was interested in your thoughts on Toomey/Sestak. I think you give an excellent example of when it’s morally permissible (even obligatory) to vote for the candidate (Toomey) who, though perhaps not 100% pro-life, is clearly the more pro-life major candidate. But I’m not sure I understand you–assuming you are pro-life, if you find Toomey’s position repugnant, what must you think of Sestak’s position?
The words of moral theologian Curran bear repeating. In other words there is nothing proven, nor infallible about when life begins. IOW the poor children who die early are an absolute fact
“In contrast, today the bishops “now clearly state abortion is the primary issue.” Their rationale for doing so, he said, rests on their conviction that other issues of public policy and law “involve prudential judgments,” but that abortion laws “deal with something that is intrinsically evil and does not involve prudential judgments. Catholics have certitude on the abortion law issue.”
However, Curran states, the bishops’ thesis is wrong for four reasons:
“The speculative doubt about when human life begins;
“the fact that possibility and feasibility are necessary aspects involved in discussions about abortion law;
“the understanding and role of civil law;
“and the weakness of the intrinsic evil argument.”
“You’re confusing feelings with intentions” (Ann Olivier).
No. When a voter, willing the continuation of legalized abortion, knowingly casts a ballot for a candidate who takes the same position, the voter intends (in the objective sense) that unborn children continue to be murdered under color of law. That intention is not a mere feeling akin to a passing sensual temptation. Moreover, that intention is evil, inasmuch as abortion, like any other kind of murder, is evil.
Stephen –
Of course an intention is not a feeling. That was my first point. You are the one who didn’t make it clear that there is a difference.
I know we’ve gone ’round this bend before, but I don’t hear the people who insist that we never vote for someone who is pro-choice being concerned about voting for people who voted for the war in Iraq. Their vote made the war happen. Without their vote, we would not have a war that is against Catholic teaching on just war. But even with a vote for anti-abortion laws, people can still have abortions. Shouldn’t they be concerned about people who voted to re-instate the death penalty? Their vote kills people, again, contrary to Catholic teaching. But even voting for someone who will put an anti-abortion justice on the Court, abortions still happen.
My point is that people vote for actions that directly kill people, many who are innocent. If one professes to follow Catholic teaching, this is direct action. People are killed who would not die unless legislators voted for unjust wars and the death penalty, just to name two examples. But we are told never to vote for someone who might allow people (what I think is a wrong choice) to have an abortion that they (as they did in the old days) might find another way to accomplish.
Those who say that they would outlaw or criminalize abortion (except in certain cases, where the state will rule on the circumstances of the pregnancy) enter a moral morass who pragmatic and ethical complexities I simply cannot fathom. Such statements, it strikes me, are electioneering not policy making. I do not feel obliged to cast a vote for candidates who would dismantle the current system of private choice (to do something evil) only to allow for that choice with the full sanction of law in certain cases. That position or plank in a party platform is fundamentally unseriespecially when voiced by a Catholic politician; for it undermines the fundamental moral position on abortion in the first place–never permissible, intrinsically evil–even as it reserves to the state the power to rule on who may or may not have a legal abortion.
I might say the same thing with respect to those who, imagining a brighter day ahead for our country, would enact statutes to incarcerate medical professionals who perform abortions but not those who procure them. Anyone who believes abortion is a form of premeditated murder must be willing to mandate proportionate sentencing to all moral agent involved. To do otherwise is to recognize that abortion is somehow a lesser crime than other forms of homicide. When a candidate is willing to run on a commitment to make the law conform to the absolute clarity of the moral vision articulated by the Catholic church, I will consider letting abortion trump all other concerns. At the moment, I do not feel at all compelled to vote for “prolife” candidates who openly admits that they would allow some abortions to continue, perfectly legal, if only we would allow them through out vote to criminalize the vast majority. I find the Toomey position to have no basis in Catholic moral teaching.
William–
Ok, so you are pro-choice and working hard to rationalize it. Why didn’t you just say that in the first place.
“I know we’ve gone ’round this bend before, but I don’t hear the people who insist that we never vote for someone who is pro-choice being concerned about voting for people who voted for the war in Iraq” (Bob Kelly).
Since I’m active in the anti-war movement as well as the pro-life movement (please feel free to check out the anti-war material on my Facebook page), I’m extremely concerned about candidates who fail to oppose morally unjustifiable warfare. I’d love to be able to vote only for candidates who are both pro-life and anti-war.
We should be acutely aware of the frightening words of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta: “The fruit of abortion is nuclear war.”
If I could choose by referendum to outlaw all abortion (with no exception for rape or incest) and in that vote authorize appropriate criminal sanction and punishment commensurate with the gravity of the act, I would do so. Anyone else?
Thank you, Stephen. It’s a good day, I think when liberals understand the concern for unborn life and conservatives understand the desire for ‘no war ever again’ (JPII).
I want people to be as concerned for the life inside a mother as for those we send to kill in war. Sometimes, like in your case, we get the best of both.
The actual decision on who to support becomes difficult since I still want defense to protect my freedoms and support the freedom for people to make their own decisions. While the devil may be in the details, I’ll still looking for God in the details.
Anticlericalism seems to rule this thread.
Just because Burke is an Archbishop, does not mean he is wrong about abortion.
Abortion is wrong and voting for politicians who support abortion or “abortion rights” is wrong.
Nothing anyone says here, no amount of rationalizing, can make it Ok.
I’d think that voters in Rwanda in the early ’90′s, faced with the choice between a candidate who wanted the genocide to continue and a candidate who wanted to stop the genocide, would have had only one morally acceptable choice. That the candidates also may have differed on the marginal tax rate for the wealthy, or the means and methods for funding social security, would have been secondary.
Abortion isn’t “just another issue”. It’s on an entirely different moral scale.
We can’t allow ourselves to become inured to this. Ubiquity doesn’t equal moral acceptability.
The Republican Party, which has been the closest thing that the pro-life movement has had to a friend for the last thirty or so years, is energized this election cycle around economic issues. Well and good. But we can’t permit the Republican Party to become complacent on pro-life issues because it has succeeded on economic issues.
Clerical politicians, like “Eminenza” Burke, flog the abortion issue because it is a wedge that allows them to distract Catholics’ attention away from their dismal record of the leadership of betrayal and corruption, and beat-up on women at the same time.
I dare say if Burke or one of his bishop buddies got some poor nun pregnant (as has been documented in the media), abortion would not be the anathema bishops pretend it to be.
This all reminds me of the crude joke from many years ago told by Nixon’s agriculture secretary, Earl Butz when considering the recently published Humane Vitae which continued the prohibition on birth control: (In a mocking imitation of an Italian accent) “You no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules!”
I support the criminalization of abortion at the state level, where laws concerning life and violence are generally made and enforced. However, I would not support laws that prosecute only the provider and not also the adult procurer of abortion, since there is a contract between two or more persons to this form of homicide. Nor would I support laws that grant exceptions based on proof (to an accepted legal standard) that a pregnancy is the result of a non-consensual act. I would not enshrine in law that some abortions are acceptable and beyond prosecution. The law should be that any pregnant woman (unless she were herself to die if her fetus comes to term) should be denied any medical assistance in terminating her pregnancy. To be honest, I am unclear whether the law should be likewise aggressive in prosecuting women who seek abortion unassisted through mechanical or pharmaceutical means.
I believe we would do a better service to public discourse concerning abortion and voting if we would be more explicit about what we would rule in or rule out, given the opportunity; what we would prosecute under statute and to what extent; and what level of resources we would be willing to bring to enforcing the law. For example, would we be inclined to see an end to legal abortion but not be particularly aggressive in preventing or prosecuting illegal abortion? Or would we be more thorough in our efforts to defend life? My own stance is that we can not outlaw abortion but more or less look the other way. We have to be prepared to put people behind bars, should it come to that. I would really like to hear what opposition to abortion looks like from others.
So far I have said what I would vote for, but not whom I would vote for. Here’s the rub: I will not vote for pro-life politicians who simply express the moral outrage I share but will not state what they would do (if they could). I am comfortable voting for a pro-choice politician in the absence of a candidate whose policies are not forthcoming or seriously considered. I will not vote for pro-life Republicans, in most case, just because they say they are opposed to abortion. I have a right to know what opposition means. I don’t want my vote to be based on the inducements that come from speaking in code or trading in identity politics. The candidate who can tell me what he or she would do in the policy realm to deter and prosecute abortion will have my vote. But here too this is not absolute. For example, I would not vote for someone who is both pro-life yet also in favor of the death penalty. It strikes me that most people are strikingly unable to say that they are for and against concerning abortion at the level of legislation. As committed pro-life voters, we need to be clear about what we want, where (if anywhere) there is room for compromise, and why our moral as well as legal positions are for the best.
@William FitzGerald. Let’s state this plainly: you are suggesting that both the woman and the physician should be prosecuted for homicide in all cases of abortion.
Then following the logic of your argument, as in the case of all homicide, we should we then apply capital punishment to both the woman and the physician provider.
Your views are both odiously patriarchal and patently misogynistic at the same time. Why do you assume that women are not morally competent to make a decision about the health and welIbeing of their own bodies? I also have to believe that there is something very un-Christian about your views.
That is why most Americans, indeed most Catholics, believe that such decisions are best left to the privacy of women consulting her physicians on the best medical course of action.
I have a question for you: Since obstetrical and gynecological experts tell us that nearly 40% of all fertilized ovum are spontaneously and naturally aborted before and immediately after implantation in the uterine wall, does that make God (Nature) the world’s greatest abortionist?
To be clear: I am opposed to capital punishment in all circumstances. But abortion, when undertaken as a collusive act by a pregnant woman and others (doctors, nurses, unlicensed practitioners, abettors) is certainly homicide. Perhaps it should be prosecuted and judged as a lesser form of homicide, as in shorter sentences or, in some cases, even suspended sentences. (No jail time for a first abortion?) Perhaps the contracting and contracted agents should be considered culpable to different degrees. Some people will convince themselves they are doing good, when they are, in fact, doing evil. Juries might be unwilling to convict in some cases. Prosecutors might allow various parties to plead to lesser charges. Sentencing standards would necessarily evolve. And these will certainly vary from state to state.
But clearly abortion must be criminalized if a pro-life position is to have legislative teeth. Am I really to be singled out in such pejorative terms? What other solutions to the abortion question are there in the political arena?
Am I really to besingled out as
with apologies for hitting the Submit button prematurely…
Am I really to be singled out as odious and misogynistic for arguing that the proper legislative response to the practice of abortion is criminalization commensurate with the gravity of the act? No one wants to send to send desperate women to jail. With abortion illegal and stiff sanctions in place, few women will seek that option for an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. And few medical professionals will be willing to risk their careers and their liberty to terminate the lives of the innocent. Un-Christian? I believe my approach is consistent with Catholic moral teaching on abortion and the sanctity of life.
@William FitzGerald. You cannot escape the consequences of what you are suggesting. If abortion is homicide, then you will you execute first?
Considering that you immediately begin to hedge on your “criminalization of abortion” in the face of its logical conclusions, we can assume that you know how odious the your political ideology about abortions to anyone with an ounce of humanity.
No society that respects the dignity and humanity of women will ever allow capital punishment to be applied to women who are in extreme medical distress – particularly if these women are the victims of rape or incest. Nor, will any humane culture allow those who assist and heal broken lives to be pilloried by moral absolutists like yourself.
Unfortunately, life is never as neat as you would like to make it out to be – spend some time in a hospital treating humans in their health struggles and you would soon learn that everything is a negotiation with what is possible and with what is ideal. Especially when dealing with a troubling pregnancy for whatever reason, sometimes there is no GOOD option or outcome.
That is the hard reality of human life.
Women alone in our species must face this life decision where they are forced to choose from among the least bad option. And they should be able to do that free of the intrusion and oppression of self-appointed moral mavens in the church, or by the state.
FitzGerald’s “approach” may be “consistent with Catholic moral teaching” of the dominant all-male, celibate ideological and political hegemony which presently controls the RCC. But it is ignorant of the lived human experience of women in every culture.
FitzGerald has so far refused to answer the question of why God (and/or Nature) is the single greatest abortionist humans have yet encountered. He won’t because to do so would crush his contrived moral superstructure which underlies the discounting the humanity and personhood of women.