Dear George,
Thank you for your very thoughtful reply.
We are so in agreement on most of what you have said. However, we depart on where the emphasis of our Christianity should be placed. Your statement that “intrinsic evils outweigh all other issues when it comes to electing a candidate” is a good place to start and truly does seem to qualify as our main difference.
Why would you choose intrinsic evils as the single element for determination of a candidate when there are many other issues?
For example, abortion is an intrinsic evil but that does not say that it is the single element to be considered in a consistent ethic of life? The second Vatican Council in its “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (1964) included abortion not as a single issue but as the third item in a list of 16 examples of violence against human life. Again, in accord with Vatican II the U.S. bishops inaugurated their Respect Life program the year before Roe v. Wade. They invited Catholics and others to focus on the “sanctity of life and the many threats to life in the modern world, including violence, hunger and poverty.
I accept that the church has designated certain things under the definition that you have given as “intrinsic evil.” And I would agree that intrinsic evils must be given greater weight –but not to the elimination of all other considerations..
I agree poverty is not evil. It is not the state of poverty that is evil; it is the failure of Christians to care that is evil––given Christ’s clear directive for us to care.
I’ve read and reread your answer about being morally bound not to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil if another viable candidate who does not support an intrinsic evil is also running. I am not convinced. First they say a conscientious voter faces a dilemma. To me, their meaning of a conscientious voter is one who is working to resolve his own personal conscience. Those that agree with those bishops that the single issue of intrinsic evils has no other issue to influence their vote “may” not vote or “may” choose between the two. But those that form their conscience as I do will look more at other parts of the document that insist we must look at more than one issue when we vote.
Your reading of this passage and my reading differ. To me, if the bishops wish to forbid us from voting for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil if another candidate who does not support an intrinsic evil is also running, the bishops would have said—you must not vote for such a candidate rather than you “may” and you “may.”
Exactly what do the bishops advise regarding a vote for a candidate whose policy supports an intrinsic evil (intrinsic evil as defined by our church)? Reading their document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship1 helps us understand the principles that support the possibility of voting for such a candidate. Consider the following guidance from their document;
1. Catholics are not single-issue voters.
2. Nowhere in their document do the bishops say a vote for, for example, a pro-choice candidate must always be rejected and opposed.
3. It is important to note the exact words of the bishops when they state a candidate’s issue “may” (and not “must”) cause you not to vote for the candidate. Or when all candidates hold a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate or, after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods.”
4. When voting for a candidate who holds an intrinsic evil among many issues, one does not commit a direct act of voting for that intrinsic evil (voting does not support or condone a candidate’s view on any single specific issue).
5. The second temptation in voting is to choose a pro-life candidate to protect innocent human life, and in doing so to dismiss other serious threats to human life and dignity.
6. The right to life implies and is linked to other human rights—to the basic goods that every human person needs to live and thrive.
7. It is not enough to oppose evil, we must do good. (What I think the bishops mean by this statement is that some preach and pray, for example, against abortion and fail to fulfill with the same determination Jesus’ second commandment to love and care for our fellow man.)
Monday, March 30, 2009
George's most recent letter 3/09
George said...
Dear Susan,I must apologize for being so long in posting a response. I just recently stumbled across my bookmark to your blog again and saw, for the first time, your response to my post.Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts. Of course, the election is over now, but this conversation can continue despite that.I would first like to address your chosen title for this post, specifically the phrase "pro-choice," along with a paragraph in your post that says, among other things, "[A]lmost no candidate is actually pro-abortion. Most do not personally believe that abortion is moral but believe that the woman should have that choice."The phrase "pro-choice" connotes a belief in the right to choose, period. However, "pro-choice" candidates are not, in fact, pro-choice. They would not allow me to choose to kill someone. Hence, they think certain choices are wrong. We must then ask what they think we should have a right to choose. The answer is, of course, abortion. So, whether or not they would personally procure, permit, or encourage an abortion for themselves or a family member is beside the point. If they deny the passage of laws restricting or outlawing abortion, then they must be said to be pro-abortion. They may talk as if it is an ugly thing, but they still think it is a necessary thing, or they would eliminate it. "Pro-abortion" is an intellectually honest label for such individuals. "Pro-choice" is not. It is merely a euphemism – a word or phrase invented to hide a taboo reality.Now, I would like to travel through your post in order, addressing things as I see them.You say that "love of our fellow man is our most all-encompassing, fundamental, moral challenge..." I agree completely and would simply like to point out that "our fellow man" includes unborn children.In the second paragraph, you take my words out of context. You make it sound as if I interpret the bishops' document as categorically forbidding voting for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil. A careful reading of my entire post will show that I believe it is illicit to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil if there is another candidate who does not support an intrinsic evil. In such a case, we would not necessarily be bound to vote for the second candidate, but we would be bound not to vote for the first candidate. I think you will find that the bishops' document agrees with this interpretation.You say that refusing to consider a candidate because they support an intrinsic evil would "set serious limits on our ability to vote for the best candidates to carry out love for humanity." Are not such limits good? Can they ever really limit our ability to vote for the best candidates? Would you vote for Hitler if he were to run for president? Would you vote for a candidate that wanted to legalize slavery? I would hope that both you and I would refuse to consider such candidates. Hitler's eugenics and slavery are both intrinsic evils. Abortion is in this same category. It is the willful slaughter of innocent human life and is directly analogous to Hitler's willful slaughter of innocent human life. It is not an accident that the pro-life movement has dubbed it "the abortion holocaust." Do you not think that a candidate that supports an intrinsic evil such as slavery, eugenics or abortion has a serious moral character flaw? It shouldn't matter, in practical terms, whether such things are already legal. If Abraham Lincoln hadn't been elected while slavery was yet legal, he wouldn't have done what he did. If we don't elect pro-life candidates to office, we are dooming our country to continue under the oppression that is abortion. Even if we don't believe the pro-life candidate will be willing or able to eliminate abortion, would it not be prudent to not vote for the pro-abortion candidate? After all, the pro-life candidate may surprise us. If I am not mistaken, it was not a part of Lincoln's platform to end slavery; yet, while in office, he did just that.You say that "we may decide with sufficiently grave reasons that we can vote for a candidate even though he is pro-choice -- grave reasons being a candidate we believe can best work for the billions of starving, sick, and lost human beings living in a world with ever greater pollution." Yes, we may, with a sufficiently grave reason, vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil such as abortion. But the bishop's document is clear that a sufficiently grave reason is only present if all candidates support some form of intrinsic evil. The reasons you site are not sufficiently grave. Hunger is not an intrinsic evil. It may be voluntarily chosen and can even be offered up in an efficacious way. It is also a sad reality that many do not choose, and in such a case it is evil, but not an intrinsic evil. Nor is sickness an intrinsic evil; nor is pollution. If it were, we wouldn't be able to drive cars or even light a campfire. That is the nature of an intrinsically evil act -- it cannot be done under any circumstance.Furthermore, while involuntary hunger and sickness are deplorable human conditions, can they really be legitimately compared with murder? Can anyone honestly maintain that the support of murder -- which is the reality of abortion -- could be offset by good economic, social and environmental policies?You are correct that supporting a candidate despite their stance on abortion would not necessarily be formal cooperation with evil and could be justified for sufficiently grave reasons. But as discussed above, those reasons are not "starving, sick and lost human beings."Further down, you correctly point out that the bishops say that "...a candidate's position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil...may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate…" (42). You emphasize that "may" is important. Indeed, it is. "[S]erious moral issues" may unfortunately (but legitimately) lead us to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil. "A world crying for justice" is not a concrete reason and cannot be considered on a practical level as a grave reason.Later in your post, whether you mean to or not, you convey a very defeatist attitude regarding abortion laws. "Roe v. Wade has been long established as law and has withstood the challenges of arguments...." That may be the case, but the law is intrinsically evil and unjust. We must continue to fight against it. Voting for a pro-abortion candidate does nothing to further this fight and instead contributes to a deeper entrenchment of the abortion mentality in our country. It sounds as if you weigh Christ's command to love our neighbor against the hope that abortion will be outlawed. You imply that hope is dim that abortion laws will be reversed, so we should abandon that cause if it means that we'll be able to better love our neighbor. However, these two things do not belong on opposite sides of the balance. Can we really claim to love our neighbor if we permit the slaughter of innocent children -- the least of our neighbors, they who will be greatest in the Kingdom of God? In abandoning hope that abortion laws can be changed, we are really abandoning the root of Christ's command to love our neighbor -- the love of life itself. Can a candidate who supports murder really be considered a better "lover of neighbor" than a candidate who has poor economic, social or political policies, but spurns such murder?You rightly claim that a pro-abortion candidate may be concerned with reducing the number of abortions. That is a practical consideration, but again, one must first have a grave reason for even considering a pro-abortion candidate in the first place. Keeping abortion legal is not the most effective way to reduce abortion. Furthermore, we have but to look at the fruits of this past election. As President, Barack Obama has already reversed the Mexico City Policy which forbade federal funding of abortion in other countries. This doesn't sound like he wants to reduce abortion. It maddens me to think that my tax dollars may be going to support abortion in other countries. Haven't we messed our own country up enough? Now we are exporting our gross immorality? And on my dollar?President Barack Obama has also promised Planned Parenthood that one of the first things he would do as president would be to sign FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) into law. FOCA removes all state and local restrictions on abortion and effectively creates abortion-on-demand -- no parental consent necessary, no factual information required to be provided before abortions are performed, no ultrasounds, nothing that might inform a woman that she has a human life within her. With the election of this pro-abortion candidate, we are already sliding backward on the protection of unborn life.President George W. Bush may not have done a lot to eliminate the abortion laws, but at least he didn't further them. Not only that, he put the Mexico City Policy back in place after President Clinton had reversed it. He also refused to sign into law a gravely immoral bill, which would have given federal funding to embryonic stem cell research, despite it having passed both the House and the Senate. Whatever one may say about his foreign and domestic policies, he has been consistently pro-life in his actions.An additional fact bears mentioning. In the weeks prior to the election, many bishops -- I heard numbers between 80 and 100+ -- came out with strong statements which said, in essence, you may not vote for pro-abortion candidates in this presidential election. The meaning and intent of their statements was clear. Some of them even named Barack Obama, despite the danger of losing tax exemption for their dioceses. I believe the Magisterium has spoken loudly on this matter.In closing, Susan, I commend your love for the poor, the down-trodden and your concern for our environment. I share those concerns. I and my family try not to be one of those who "preach and pray against abortion and fail to fulfill...Jesus' second commandment to love...our fellow man." We believe that inasmuch as possible, all good must be sought. But when one candidate supports an intrinsic evil and the other supports questionable environmental policies, we will vote against the first candidate every time. It must be noted that I (and I believe the bishops with me) do not try to tell anyone for whom to vote, only for whom not to vote.God bless,GeorgeP.S. Sometimes one doesn't truly appreciate the horror of abortion until one is exposed to photos of it's violence. WARNING: the following link contains graphic images of aborted children. I encourage everyone who has the stomach to look and see what is carefully hidden from the public eye by the abortion industry.http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/photosbyage/weeks2.html
Dear Susan,I must apologize for being so long in posting a response. I just recently stumbled across my bookmark to your blog again and saw, for the first time, your response to my post.Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts. Of course, the election is over now, but this conversation can continue despite that.I would first like to address your chosen title for this post, specifically the phrase "pro-choice," along with a paragraph in your post that says, among other things, "[A]lmost no candidate is actually pro-abortion. Most do not personally believe that abortion is moral but believe that the woman should have that choice."The phrase "pro-choice" connotes a belief in the right to choose, period. However, "pro-choice" candidates are not, in fact, pro-choice. They would not allow me to choose to kill someone. Hence, they think certain choices are wrong. We must then ask what they think we should have a right to choose. The answer is, of course, abortion. So, whether or not they would personally procure, permit, or encourage an abortion for themselves or a family member is beside the point. If they deny the passage of laws restricting or outlawing abortion, then they must be said to be pro-abortion. They may talk as if it is an ugly thing, but they still think it is a necessary thing, or they would eliminate it. "Pro-abortion" is an intellectually honest label for such individuals. "Pro-choice" is not. It is merely a euphemism – a word or phrase invented to hide a taboo reality.Now, I would like to travel through your post in order, addressing things as I see them.You say that "love of our fellow man is our most all-encompassing, fundamental, moral challenge..." I agree completely and would simply like to point out that "our fellow man" includes unborn children.In the second paragraph, you take my words out of context. You make it sound as if I interpret the bishops' document as categorically forbidding voting for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil. A careful reading of my entire post will show that I believe it is illicit to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil if there is another candidate who does not support an intrinsic evil. In such a case, we would not necessarily be bound to vote for the second candidate, but we would be bound not to vote for the first candidate. I think you will find that the bishops' document agrees with this interpretation.You say that refusing to consider a candidate because they support an intrinsic evil would "set serious limits on our ability to vote for the best candidates to carry out love for humanity." Are not such limits good? Can they ever really limit our ability to vote for the best candidates? Would you vote for Hitler if he were to run for president? Would you vote for a candidate that wanted to legalize slavery? I would hope that both you and I would refuse to consider such candidates. Hitler's eugenics and slavery are both intrinsic evils. Abortion is in this same category. It is the willful slaughter of innocent human life and is directly analogous to Hitler's willful slaughter of innocent human life. It is not an accident that the pro-life movement has dubbed it "the abortion holocaust." Do you not think that a candidate that supports an intrinsic evil such as slavery, eugenics or abortion has a serious moral character flaw? It shouldn't matter, in practical terms, whether such things are already legal. If Abraham Lincoln hadn't been elected while slavery was yet legal, he wouldn't have done what he did. If we don't elect pro-life candidates to office, we are dooming our country to continue under the oppression that is abortion. Even if we don't believe the pro-life candidate will be willing or able to eliminate abortion, would it not be prudent to not vote for the pro-abortion candidate? After all, the pro-life candidate may surprise us. If I am not mistaken, it was not a part of Lincoln's platform to end slavery; yet, while in office, he did just that.You say that "we may decide with sufficiently grave reasons that we can vote for a candidate even though he is pro-choice -- grave reasons being a candidate we believe can best work for the billions of starving, sick, and lost human beings living in a world with ever greater pollution." Yes, we may, with a sufficiently grave reason, vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil such as abortion. But the bishop's document is clear that a sufficiently grave reason is only present if all candidates support some form of intrinsic evil. The reasons you site are not sufficiently grave. Hunger is not an intrinsic evil. It may be voluntarily chosen and can even be offered up in an efficacious way. It is also a sad reality that many do not choose, and in such a case it is evil, but not an intrinsic evil. Nor is sickness an intrinsic evil; nor is pollution. If it were, we wouldn't be able to drive cars or even light a campfire. That is the nature of an intrinsically evil act -- it cannot be done under any circumstance.Furthermore, while involuntary hunger and sickness are deplorable human conditions, can they really be legitimately compared with murder? Can anyone honestly maintain that the support of murder -- which is the reality of abortion -- could be offset by good economic, social and environmental policies?You are correct that supporting a candidate despite their stance on abortion would not necessarily be formal cooperation with evil and could be justified for sufficiently grave reasons. But as discussed above, those reasons are not "starving, sick and lost human beings."Further down, you correctly point out that the bishops say that "...a candidate's position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil...may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate…" (42). You emphasize that "may" is important. Indeed, it is. "[S]erious moral issues" may unfortunately (but legitimately) lead us to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil. "A world crying for justice" is not a concrete reason and cannot be considered on a practical level as a grave reason.Later in your post, whether you mean to or not, you convey a very defeatist attitude regarding abortion laws. "Roe v. Wade has been long established as law and has withstood the challenges of arguments...." That may be the case, but the law is intrinsically evil and unjust. We must continue to fight against it. Voting for a pro-abortion candidate does nothing to further this fight and instead contributes to a deeper entrenchment of the abortion mentality in our country. It sounds as if you weigh Christ's command to love our neighbor against the hope that abortion will be outlawed. You imply that hope is dim that abortion laws will be reversed, so we should abandon that cause if it means that we'll be able to better love our neighbor. However, these two things do not belong on opposite sides of the balance. Can we really claim to love our neighbor if we permit the slaughter of innocent children -- the least of our neighbors, they who will be greatest in the Kingdom of God? In abandoning hope that abortion laws can be changed, we are really abandoning the root of Christ's command to love our neighbor -- the love of life itself. Can a candidate who supports murder really be considered a better "lover of neighbor" than a candidate who has poor economic, social or political policies, but spurns such murder?You rightly claim that a pro-abortion candidate may be concerned with reducing the number of abortions. That is a practical consideration, but again, one must first have a grave reason for even considering a pro-abortion candidate in the first place. Keeping abortion legal is not the most effective way to reduce abortion. Furthermore, we have but to look at the fruits of this past election. As President, Barack Obama has already reversed the Mexico City Policy which forbade federal funding of abortion in other countries. This doesn't sound like he wants to reduce abortion. It maddens me to think that my tax dollars may be going to support abortion in other countries. Haven't we messed our own country up enough? Now we are exporting our gross immorality? And on my dollar?President Barack Obama has also promised Planned Parenthood that one of the first things he would do as president would be to sign FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) into law. FOCA removes all state and local restrictions on abortion and effectively creates abortion-on-demand -- no parental consent necessary, no factual information required to be provided before abortions are performed, no ultrasounds, nothing that might inform a woman that she has a human life within her. With the election of this pro-abortion candidate, we are already sliding backward on the protection of unborn life.President George W. Bush may not have done a lot to eliminate the abortion laws, but at least he didn't further them. Not only that, he put the Mexico City Policy back in place after President Clinton had reversed it. He also refused to sign into law a gravely immoral bill, which would have given federal funding to embryonic stem cell research, despite it having passed both the House and the Senate. Whatever one may say about his foreign and domestic policies, he has been consistently pro-life in his actions.An additional fact bears mentioning. In the weeks prior to the election, many bishops -- I heard numbers between 80 and 100+ -- came out with strong statements which said, in essence, you may not vote for pro-abortion candidates in this presidential election. The meaning and intent of their statements was clear. Some of them even named Barack Obama, despite the danger of losing tax exemption for their dioceses. I believe the Magisterium has spoken loudly on this matter.In closing, Susan, I commend your love for the poor, the down-trodden and your concern for our environment. I share those concerns. I and my family try not to be one of those who "preach and pray against abortion and fail to fulfill...Jesus' second commandment to love...our fellow man." We believe that inasmuch as possible, all good must be sought. But when one candidate supports an intrinsic evil and the other supports questionable environmental policies, we will vote against the first candidate every time. It must be noted that I (and I believe the bishops with me) do not try to tell anyone for whom to vote, only for whom not to vote.God bless,GeorgeP.S. Sometimes one doesn't truly appreciate the horror of abortion until one is exposed to photos of it's violence. WARNING: the following link contains graphic images of aborted children. I encourage everyone who has the stomach to look and see what is carefully hidden from the public eye by the abortion industry.http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/photosbyage/weeks2.html
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
We Can Vote for a Candidate Even If He Is Pro-choice
George has responded to earlier discussions on the above topic. This notice is just to call your attention to his current thoughts as well as my response.
Please refer to the postings and comments with it for August 7th, 2008.
Please refer to the postings and comments with it for August 7th, 2008.
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