Early in October, I appeared at St. Theresa’s Parish in Briarcliff Manor, a leafy New York suburb, along with Commonweal contributor (and former columnist) David Carlin, to discuss the question of whether a Catholic can vote for a prochoice candidate.

Dave wrote a piece for us in May (“Two Cheers for John McCain”) arguing that a Catholic must not vote for Barack Obama because Obama and the Democratic Party support legalized abortion. Former Newsweek religion editor Ken Woodward, who organizes the lecture series at St. Theresa’s, read Dave’s article and asked me if I could offer a rebuttal.

Our “discussion” was held in the church, which was packed. I spoke first for about twenty minutes from prepared remarks. Dave, who is a former Rhode Island Democratic state senator, spoke off the cuff. My sense was that most of the audience was predisposed to agree with me. There was some confusion, however, because the event had been advertised as a “debate” between an Obama and a McCain supporter. As I hope I made clear to the audience, I was not at St. Theresa’s that night as a supporter of Sen. Obama. As a nonprofit organization, Commonweal cannot endorse political candidates or political parties. As the editor of Commonweal, I have not endorsed any candidate for any office. I was there to defend the proposition that, after honest deliberation, a conscientious Catholic can make an intellectually and morally defensible decision to vote for a prochoice candidate.

Statements by some bishops and the aggressive political advocacy of conservative Catholic pundits seem designed to confuse Catholics on this question. Although I understand why the abortion issue might be the deciding factor in how a Catholic votes, I think it is disastrous for the church and the prolife cause to create the impression that bishops are telling Catholics whom to vote for. Presumably many Catholic McCain supporters find this insulting as well. Moreover, as I told my audience, the church’s teaching is quite clear. To paraphrase the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, if you are opposed to abortion but have what you consider to be other important moral reasons for voting for a prochoice candidate, you are free to do so. A candidate’s stated opposition to legalized abortion does not trump every other consideration. A presidential election is not a referendum on any one issue. “We bishops do not intend to tell Catholics for whom or against whom to vote,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in their 2007 document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.”

How confused are some Catholics? At the conclusion of my talk, several people came up to ask me questions. One older gentleman insisted that Pope John Paul II had explicitly taught that the only instance in which a Catholic can vote for a prochoice candidate is when both candidates are prochoice. I said I had never heard that and was sure it couldn’t be true. He politely insisted I was wrong. I have subsequently learned that this bogus papal teaching has been promulgated by the EWTN “voter guide.”

Another gentleman, younger and more vigorous, lectured me for what seemed like five minutes. Ominously warning that the argument I made was “very dangerous,” he wanted me to denounce New York politicians who supported abortion rights. The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he whispered, was going to be run out of the Democratic Party because he voted to ban partial-birth abortions. He had personal knowledge of the fact that the lives and families of all the state’s prochoice politicians had been ruined by the contagious evil of abortion. Most endearing, sort of, was a petite middle-aged woman, who spoke with a thick Middle European accent. It was not clear what I had said that had so troubled her, since I had denounced abortion and called for the reversal of Roe. I had, of course, also noted that overturning Roe would not end the practice of abortion, and that some of the highest abortion rates in the world are in South American countries where the procedure is illegal. In any event, this soft-spoken and kindly woman wanted me to know that, although I was “obviously very intelligent” (duck when you hear that phrase), I was endangering my soul and risking eternal damnation. She said she would pray for me.

Talk about damning with faint praise. Still, I hope she will pray for me, and for President Obama or President McCain. Whoever wins will need it.