Opinion: A Plea to Catholic Obama Supporters, Part I

It is much like the autumn of 1860, when the nation was (as usual) divided on many issues, but one in particular exercised the conscience and stoked the passions of everyone: the intrinsic moral evil known as slavery.

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BRITISH COLUMBIA (Catholic Online) - Back in August, I wrote a series of three articles for Catholic Online and thedivinemercy.org about the upcoming presidential election, entitled "The Quandary for Catholics." In those articles I reviewed the three most pressing life and death issues of moral concern facing the nation today: abortion, healthcare, and war and peace. I concluded that from the standpoint of Catholic Social Teaching, there are solid arguments that can be presented for the positions staked out by both Obama and McCain on the best way to extend health coverage to the uninsured, and the best way to approach the conflicts in the Middle East. However, the abortion issue remains (as Deacon Fournier so aptly phrased it), "the 800 pound gorilla in the room" of this election.

On this matter, Sen. Obama clearly, unequivocally, and unapologetically supports what the church considers an "intrinsic moral evil": the continuation (and even expansion) of the legal permission to kill unborn children in their mothers' wombs. In most respects, Sen. McCain opposes this extreme moral evil. This issue, I said, should be the "tipping point" for Catholic voters in this election. As I wrote back in August: "Those who understand and accept the Church's Social Teaching, with its recognition of human life as an absolute value and priority, simply cannot support [Obama's] candidacy in the upcoming presidential election without seriously violating their conscience."

Those articles generated plenty of comment and debate. Sadly, it seems that since that time, Catholic Obama supporters have continued to duck and weave, finding new reasons for marginalizing the issue of abortion in this campaign, and for the dubious contention that an Obama presidency would actually result in a lower abortion rate than an administration run by his relatively Pro-Life opponent. The hour is late; the election is nearly upon us. But it's not too late for sincere Catholics of good will to cease from engaging in convoluted rationalizations that simply lead us all to "lose sight of the forest because of all the trees." This article is a final plea (from me anyway) to Catholic Obama supporters please to reconsider your position. So much is now at stake.

It is much like the autumn of 1860, when the nation was (as usual) divided on many issues, but one in particular exercised the conscience and stoked the passions of everyone: the intrinsic moral evil known as slavery. The two main candidates were the Republican, Abraham Lincoln, and the Democrat, Stephen Douglas. Lincoln was hardly a pure anti-slavery candidate: he only proposed new legal limits to the spread of the institution of slavery, confining it to the southern states where it already existed, and keeping it out of the new American states and territories forming in the west. He believed that the institution of slavery, so strictly confined, would gradually wither away. Douglas was hardly a pure pro-slavery candidate: he simply proposed the continuation of the right of all states of the union, new or old, to choose for themselves whether or not to keep slaves. Lincoln was therefore only relatively anti-slavery; he did not support an immediate national ban on slavery, only greater restrictions of it. The pure abolitionists thought of him as compromiser, or even as disingenuous on the issue. Douglas was the "pro-choice" candidate of the day. He wanted to keep the legal status quo with regard to this intrinsic social evil, and protect freedom of choice by each state. Two "third party" candidates were on the ballot too, but neither of them had any chance at all of winning.

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Can anyone doubt that for those who understand the Church's Social Teaching (and not many U.S. Catholics did at the time) the morally right thing to do was to choose the lesser of evils and vote for Lincoln? Can anyone doubt that a Douglas victory would have resulted in the continuation and probable extension of the evil institution of slavery on the American continent for at least another generation? This election was a turning point in American history. But what would you say if there were sincere, well intended people at the time who argued: "Look, like it or not slavery is an institution in this country that is legally protected and here to stay. So let's support the candidate who can best bring us all together as a nation, and whose economic policies will help the cotton trade, providing the nation's economically beleaguered cotton farmers with enough financial security that some of them won't even bother to keep slaves any longer: they will be able to pay hired hands instead. That candidate is the highly principled and eloquent orator, Stephen Douglas. Statistics show that when times are good down south, the plantation owners are less likely to look for slave labor and more likely even to free their slaves. You see, Douglas will do more good for the slaves indirectly than any of Lincoln's half-hearted legal efforts to restrict slavery!"

Would you be convinced? Neither would I, but, as we shall see, it is not unlike the choice facing us now. Let's look first at the Catholic case against voting for Barack Obama (today's eloquent orator and pro-choice candidate regarding today's greatest intrinsic social evil, abortion) and then we shall explore how the pro-Obama Catholics have tried to refute that case. Two quotations will help us here. First of all, Patrick J. Buchanan in Human Events set the positions of the candidates in clear contrast for us:

"Near the end of a town hall meeting in Johnstown, Pa., a woman arose to offer a passionate plea to Barack Obama to "stop these abortions." Obama's response was cool, direct, and unequivocal. 'Look, I've got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. ...I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.' Punished with a baby. Obama sees an unwanted pregnancy as a cruel and punitive sanction for a teenager who has made a mistake, and abortion as the way out. ...The contrast with Sarah Palin could not be more stark. At the birth of her son Trig, who has Down Syndrome, Gov. Palin said: 'We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives. We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed.' Between the convictions and values of Palin and those of Obama, there is obviously a world of difference. Yet we are being asked to believe that a McCain-Palin administration would be less likely than an Obama-Biden administration to safeguard the lives of unborn children. Clearly, the burden of proof is on those who make such an extraordinary claim."

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Second, Dr. Jeff Mirus of CatholicCulture.org ably sums up for us the bearing of the Church's Social Teaching on this matter:

"Church teaching could not be more clear on this point. The magisterium has stated repeatedly that direct abortion is intrinsically evil under all circumstances, and that it is immoral to vote for a politician because he supports abortion. The Church has also taught that voting for a politician in spite of the fact that he supports abortion is at least remote material cooperation with evil, and so can be justified only when there is a proportionate reason.... The problem, for those who wish to take advantage of this to support pro-abortion candidates, is that there is no issue on the contemporary American political scene that is even remotely proportionate to abortion. No issue exists that can be cited as a proportionately moral reason to support a candidate that favors abortion, especially in a presidential election.... The number of abortions reported in the United States is over one million per year.... By contrast, there are about 17,000 other homicides per year in our country.... When compared with the issues that are widely argued to be somehow proportionate, the lack of proportionality is even more astonishing. Thus, while abortion claims between one and two million lives per year in the Unites States, premature deaths due to inadequate care are estimated at about 34,000 per year; the Iraq war has claimed a total of roughly 55,000 American and Iraqi lives since its beginning several years ago; and the death penalty claimed the lives of 42 persons in the United States last year, most of whom were presumably at least guilty of a serious crime. You can find all these statistics in about five minutes of research on the web. I submit again, that no voter who is guided by reason can even begin to make the argument that there is an issue in the United Sates presidential election that is remotely proportionate to abortion (NB: even those who include in their body count in Iraq all those who have allegedly died indirectly from the conflict due to displacement, poverty and disease -some say that would bring the total to as many as 500,000 -- have to acknowledge that, tragic as those deaths are, they number roughly 100,000 per year at most, not 1-2 million per year, which is the annual carnage in the American abortuaries)."

If Dr. Muris is right, then the conclusion would seem to be inescapable: a Catholic cannot vote for pro-abortion candidate Obama without violating the dictates of a well-formed conscience. There is no conceivable "proportionate reason" for doing so. The recent statements of numerous members of the American hierarchy seem to support Dr. Muris' position as being an accurate statement of the position of the Magisterium of the Church. In only one example, Kansas City, Kansas Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann and Kansas City - St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn addressed whether a Catholic in good conscience could vote for a candidate who supports legalized abortion when there is a choice of another candidate who does not support abortion or any other intrinsically evil policy. They wrote their pastoral letter on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and released it on Sept. 11th, 2008. It contained these words:

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"In 2004 a group of United States Bishops, acting on behalf of the USCCB and requesting counsel about the responsibilities of Catholic politicians and voters, received a memo from the office of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, which stated: 'A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidateąs permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidateąs 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.'

"Could a Catholic in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports legalized abortion when there is a choice of another candidate who does not support abortion or any other intrinsically evil policy? Could a voter's preference for the candidateąs positions on the pursuit of peace, economic policies benefiting the poor, support for universal health care, a more just immigration policy, etc. overcome a candidate's support for legalized abortion? In such a case, the Catholic voter must ask and answer the question: What could possibly be a proportionate reason for the more than 45 million children killed by abortion in the past 35 years? Personally, we cannot conceive of such a proportionate reason."

In my next installment, we will look at the arguments commonly brought forward by Catholic Obama supporters to refute this conclusion.

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Dr. Robert Stackpole is an Associate Professor of Theology at Redeemer Pacific College and the Director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy

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