Kansas City bishops find their voice, teach the truth unambiguously

On Wednesday, I made the case that the American bishops are at a cross-roads, where they have begun "waging an offensive (as opposed to defensive) war on behalf of unborn children in this country." Tonight, two American bishops have begun an all-out assault on the culture of death.

The Catholic Key (the offical blog of the diocesan newspaper) provides us with the joint pastoral statement "Our Moral Responsibility as Catholic Citizens" of Archbishop Joseph Naumann, the Archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas and Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph on the question ""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?"

The bishops cover their doctrinal bases, citing the normative documents in the social teaching traditional of the Church. I urge my readers to read the entire text, as I'm only excerpting the "radioactive" passages. After speaking of a wide range of moral matters that the Church intersts herself in for the best good of the human person in society, they come to the solid food of their statement.

First, they rule out voting for candidates that support intrinsically evil actions because one agrees with their anti-life stance (underlining mine):

There are, however, some issues that always involve doing evil, such as legalized abortion, the promotion of same-sex unions and ‘marriages,’ repression of religious liberty, as well as public policies permitting euthanasia, racial discrimination or destructive human embryonic stem cell research. A properly formed conscience must give such issues priority even over other matters with important moral dimensions. To vote for a candidate who supports these intrinsic evils because he or she supports these evils is to participate in a grave moral evil. It can never be justified.

Clearly such a decision-making process is gravely disordered.

But what about the situation where one is considering voting for a candidate who supports intrinsically evil acts not because one agrees with them:

In another circumstance, we may be confronted with a voting choice between two candidates who support abortion, though one may favor some limitations on it, or he or she may oppose public funding for abortion. In such cases, the appropriate judgment would be to select the candidate whose policies regarding this grave evil will do less harm. We have a responsibility to limit evil if it is not possible at the moment to eradicate it completely.

The same principle would be compelling to a conscientious voter who was confronted with two candidates who both supported same-sex unions, but one opposed abortion and destructive embryonic research while the other was permissive in these regards. The voter, who himself or herself opposed these policies, would have insufficient moral justification voting for the more permissive candidate. However, he or she might justify resorting to a write-in vote or abstaining from voting at all in this case, because of a conscientious objection.

They then mention the all-important communique from Cardinal Ratzinger (before he became pope):

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 candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. 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.”

And here they go, applying the cardinal's principles to the concrete situation confronting American catholic voters today (underlining mine):

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 candidate’s 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.

They conclude with some excellent observations regarding the state of the Church in America at this juncture, and the incredible opportunity afforded to Catholics to shape public policy informed by the teachings of Christ, which ultimately have the best good of the human person at their source and heart.

Where does this leave us Catholics? It does not bind us, necessarily, on penalty of sin, to agree with the conclusion of these bishops. But it binds us, in our conscience, to be confident that our evaluation of the situation is more correct than theirs.

The bishops are not imposing a course of action upon us, they are proposing an approach that is illumined by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, directed by the tradition of the Church, and supported by their own hard-earned wisdom from being pastors of souls and guardians of ours.

Some readers might respond that I am "stacking the deck" too heavily in favor of agreeing with their position, and that I have not used such language in similar circumstances where bishops have spoken on other moral matters (and I have disagreed with their particular judgement).

This observation, while true to some degree, misses the fact that in this case the bishops argue that their description of the moral gravity concerned here trumps that of other moral issues. When other bishops, say, argue about immigration, health care, or a working wage, they never claim that such-and-such a specific issue holds a special place (this does not mean it can't still occupy an important one), but it seems nearly universal that when bishops speak out about abortion and other equal life issues that involve the life and death of human persons, they boldly and unequivocally state their case.

I believe we are called to as boldly, and as unequivocally, join them in taking a stand for the dignity and right to life of every human being from conception to natural death. This does not mean we can cease fighting other injustices in this world, it means that we must address the totality of issues, and like a house built on a rock, firm up the foundational life issues even as we seek to build up a culture of life, a house and world worthy of the children of God.

I end with the words of the above-mentioned bishops:

The number of Catholics and the percentage of Catholics in the United States have never been greater. There has never been a moment in our nation’s history when more Catholics served in elective office, presided in our courts or held other positions of power and authority. It would be wrong for us to use our numbers and influence to try to compel others to accept our religious and theological beliefs. However, it would be equally wrong for us to fail to be engaged in the greatest human rights struggle of our time, namely the need to protect the right to life of the weakest and most vulnerable.

We need committed Catholics in both major political parties to insist upon respect for the values they share with so many other people of faith and good will regarding the protection of the sanctity of human life, the upholding of the institution of marriage between a man and a woman as the foundation of family life, as well as the protection of religious liberty and conscience rights. It is particularly disturbing to witness the spectacle of Catholics in public life vocally upset with the Church for teaching what it has always taught on these moral issues for 2,000 years, but silent in objecting to the embrace, by either political party, of the cultural trends of the past few decades that are totally inconsistent with our nation’s history of defending the weakest and most vulnerable.

Okay, let's talk about it.

update: I've re-posted one of my above comments over at the Catholic Vote blog, which I'll be contributing to from time to time. My thanks to its organizers for the kind invitation.