Here is an excellent article by Creighton University professor of theology, Thomas M. Kelly: https://omaha.com/opinion/columnists/midlands-voices-neither-political-party-fully-follows-catholic-doctrine/article_67c3317a-e39d-5c1e-873e-7769c45d5644.html
He had this to say:
"Catholics are not called, nor should they be expected to support, either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party carte blanche. We are called and expected to exercise prudential judgment by informing ourselves about the policies of both party platforms and to understand the ultimate implications of who and what we are voting for. We must grapple with the most effective way of addressing a variety of evils in our society. (Bold print mine), One guide for this process comes from the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops and is titled “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the U.S.”"This document explicitly states that Catholics are not single-issue voters. It clearly states the importance of unborn life but leaves to the conscience of believers their choice of candidates. As Catholics go to vote this year, I hope they think through the fullness of Catholic teaching on a whole range of “life” issues, and that they struggle in good conscience to translate the common good into civil law and social policy. The Church has never taught its members to be single-issue voters. To intentionally avoid naming other notable intrinsic evils allows them to go unchecked and undermine the common good."
The whole article is short and well worth reading.
Thanks Katherine. I sent it to my sister. Love that he is savvy enough to quote JPII instead of Francis. I told my sister that I sent it not to change her mind but to clarify why someone like Biden can be a “good” Catholic while taking a different stance on keeping abortion legal. She sneered at the idea that Biden is a good Catholic.
ReplyDeleteSingle issue voters abuse their privilege.
DeleteHonestly, I think God Almighty will give a pass to any voter making a sincere effort to make a faith-informed vote. If voters believe abortion is the ultimate evil and believe their vote will create a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe, fine. If voters believe there is more human suffering that has to be weighed in the balance, fine.
ReplyDeleteNo human judgment is ever perfect.
As Katherine said a few days ago, God calls us to love, not spy behind the curtains of the souls of others and draw lines in terms and and judge.
But I am Bad and Fallen Away, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Well, you are right Jean. However while people like my sister think that voting a single issue is called for to follow their conscience, they often sit in condemnation of Catholics lead them to consider the bigger picture, as my sister does. That is why I sent her the article.
DeleteCatholics whose own consciences lead them....
DeleteMy problem with issues voting is not simply single issue voting, or what priority to give to issues.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that we are a republican form of government not a parliamentary democracy. We elect people not parties to make decisions on our behalf. Many of the decisions of government are extremely complex and may vary from day to day, and year to year. We have no idea when we elect someone what problems we are entrusting to them, e.g. a pandemic.
While there has always been partisanship there were years in which people respected each other. In part I think that was because there was greater personal leadership and integrity. When you voted for somebody it was not because of their score on somebody's ideal scale but because they could be counted upon to think things out and not necessarily vote along partisan or ideological lines.
Voting for someone is hiring someone to do a job. When we hire someone we don't go through a lot of theoretical situations and ask them what they would do. We usually look at what they have done and how that predicts what they will do in the future.
Right now I have been very impressed with DeWine's handling of the pandemic even though he is a Republican. If he handled every thing like he handles the pandemic I would be comfortable with him in the White House, I might even vote for him as a balance if I knew the House and or Senate were firmly in the hands of the Democrats.
"Voting for someone is hiring someone to do a job." That's a good way to look at it.
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DeleteVoting = hiring.
DeletePerhaps we should bring more dispassionate considerations into play when voting as we do when hiring an employee: are they qualified, competent, present themselves to the public while on the job in a manner consistent with the image and goals of the organization? (Trump fails on at least two of those counts, imo.)
Employers are barred from asking questions about religion, sexual orientation, living arrangements, and other things. For good or ill, these get a lot of play in political campaigns, probably more than they should.
However, to the extent that they might affect a candidate's legislative and spending priorities, they sometimes seem fair game to me.
Kelly's second paragraph, where he quotes JPII on evils, lists a lot of things that are as intrinsically evil as abortion. But when I read pro-life literature -- and we get a lot of it -- the explanation for why it is worse than anything else is always that it is "intrinsically" evil. As torture isn't? I guess the argument might go on to claim that the victim is more innocent than the victims of torture, who must have done something or they wouldn't be on the waterboard, or the old sinners who are being euthtanized. But, frankly, I'd rather have a neighbor who has been able to convince himself that a fetus is not fully human than a neighbor who has convinced himself that Muslims are against, and if his superior officer says smack him around he shall be smacked. At least he fetus can't look you in the eye.
ReplyDeleteISTM that when you are defending your position by asserting that there are clear levels of intrinsicality you are standing in midair.
And I'll always vote for common sense against 100% on a morality test. Heck, Rick Santorum probably aced the test.
Muslims are against US and the (not he) fetus can't look you in the eye. Edit function! So much better.
DeleteWhether or not an evil is intrinsic says nothing about its gravity. Vi believe euthanasia is intrinsically evil but I don't consider it a top tier issue.
DeleteJim, right, intrinsic means belonging to a thing by its very nature, which doesn't speak to its gravity.
DeleteConversely, something could be gravely evil due to its circumstances, without being intrinsically so.
Back in the 1960s when I was a student at St. John’s Collegeville there was already a right to life movement and a peace movement. Both movements were very highly motivated by life and death issues. The peace movement was convinced that nuclear holocaust was just around the corner. The prolife movement saw a holocaust going on in our midst.
ReplyDeleteI was amazed that there was little overlap between the two movements. While theoretically was sympathetic to both, I simply did not have motivation to center my life on these issues. It seemed to me that it was perverse to center one’s life around negatives, evils rather than the good. This was particularly true since these evils were in other people’s lives not our own. Even in the case of our own lives it seemed to me that excessive scrupulosity about our own faults rather than doing good was spiritually unhealthy.
Now I have respect for other people’s moral choices. I believe there are some people called to protest in a prophetic manner against abortion and against nuclear warfare as a specialized vocation. But if you think you are called to those vocations, your first response should be skepticism. And pastors should be very skeptical of such vocations,
However, for the great majority of us prophetic issues are not our vocations. They are peripheral matters to real life, to the daily love of God and neighbor. To reduce the love of God and the love of neighbor to a single issue is EVIL, it is a temptation. It is the rather common sin of spiritual pride, that encourages us to think that we are better than other people because of our beliefs, or practices..
Fortunately I had read Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation during high school, and so well understood spiritual pride. How easily all the good that we do can be turned into a source of evil. Pope Francis uses the even stronger term “spiritual worldliness.” That is we can use the pursuit of spiritual goods to pursue money, status, and power. Indeed he sees spiritual worldliness at the heart of clericalism. However, it is not restricted to the clergy.
Nor is spiritual worldliness solely an evil of the right. The left is very good at reducing everything to racism, or sexism. And there are many people on the left who pursue money, status, and power by condemning racism and sexism in others. Again there are some people who are called to be prophets and devote their lives to these issues. And we are called to listen to their witness. However when we begin to substitute concern about the evil that other people are doing for the actual good that we should be doing, we can begin to suspect that we are falling into spiritual pride and spiritual worldliness. This should be at the center of our own conscience.
The lack of overlap was/is indeed odd. The only people I knew who ever went to a pro-life rally one morning and a peace rally the same afternoon are Dan Berrigan and my late brother-in-law. On different days. In different cities. (Berrigan probably had some others with him.)
DeleteSingle-minded devotion to any cause tends to drive one into secular gnosticism. The people I know who are deepest and craziest into anti-abortion are constantly telling me there are "things" they know that I will never know. That's what the original gnostics used to say. I'd bet that among the QAnons there are a lot of former peaceniks.
That's quite profound and helpful, Jack. Thank you.
DeleteJack, thank you very much for these thoughts.
DeleteYes, thanks Jack. Helpful thoughts.
DeleteTom, now that you mention it, conspiracy theories like QAnon do have a ring of secular gnosticism. Or maybe it's not secular. I have been unable to find a lucid explanation of what QAnon really is. Something something child sex ring Trump hero more darkness than you can imagine. Maybe lucid and QAnon don't belong in the same sentence.
Delete"However, for the great majority of us prophetic issues are not our vocations. They are peripheral matters to real life, to the daily love of God and neighbor. To reduce the love of God and the love of neighbor to a single issue is EVIL, it is a temptation. It is the rather common sin of spiritual pride, that encourages us to think that we are better than other people because of our beliefs, or practices.."
ReplyDeleteThis paragraph should be pasted on the foreheads of a few preachers I can think of!
One of the important things that Merton taught in Seeds of Contemplation is that each of us is called to a unique form of sanctity, indeed that everything in creation praises God by being unique not another replica of a divine idea.
DeleteRahner once asked why the church canonizes so many saints rather than defined new teachings. His answer: each saint is another possibility in the imitation of Christ.. Congar says that each life of a saint is a commentary on sacred scripture.
So preaching, teaching and spiritual direction can only suggest possibilities. We are not in competition with other people; we each have to discover our unique holiness.
It is a fallacy to think that, if RvW is overturned, the "abortion problem" will disappear. As anyone born before 1970 can remember, back alley and self-induced abortions were a huge health problem in this country. Wealthy women will always be able to get safe abortions wherever they are legal. The rest of women: it is what it is.
ReplyDelete