Bishop Finn does everything but name Obama

In his upcoming column for the Catholic Key, Bishop Finn responds to the question "Can a Catholic vote, in good conscience, for a candidate who supports abortion?" He says he is asked this question "over and over again", and this is his response.

(You will remember, at the outset, that Bishop Finn co-authored this excellent pastoral letter along with Archbishop Naumann of Kansas City. Finn made it into AmP's '06 coverage: Everyone Loves Bishop Finn - "and with good reason!" I added at the time.)

First of all, Finn explains that a politician who seeks the Catholic vote on an issue in which he opposes the Church is doing something very wrong:

"I must say that there is another question I would pose. What is the effect on Catholics of a candidate who has been consistently supportive of abortion?

When a candidate supports ready access to abortion on demand, they are inviting Catholics to put aside their conscience on this life and death issue. Such a candidate is inviting conscientious Catholics to look elsewhere for moral leadership.

When a candidate promotes total unhindered “choice,” he or she discourages the Catholic vote, and at the same time tempts the voter to betray one of the most obvious intuitions of our humanity and to support the continuation of the willful destruction of human life.

If the candidate has supported partial birth abortion, he or she asks the voter to affirm the continuation of an act that 75% of the population has rejected as repulsive."

Finn puts quotation marks around those who advocate a vote for Obama, and explains why:

Some groups calling themselves “Catholic” have suggested that generous programs for the poor will reduce abortions more than the repeal of Roe v. Wade. But a candidate who pledges that he or she will seek to immediately ratify the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), signals to voters that the reduction of abortions is not a goal. They are asking voters to suspend the effort to constitutionally protect human life, and – at the same time - to discard all the good progress we have made to actually reduce the number of abortions in the last thirty-five years. Such a candidate is asking Catholics to “give up” on abortion. They want us to deny our conscience and ignore their callous disregard for the most vulnerable human life.

And now, Obama is named, in every way except by using his name (underlining mine):

If the candidate has addressed their legislative assembly, urging opposition to the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, then it must be concluded that this candidate wishes Catholic voters to be complicit in infanticide. Rejection of this Act, which would require that a baby who survived an unsuccessful abortion attempt be cared for and not laid aside to die with no medical assistance, is a convincing example of the numbing of our moral sensibility. The candidate who supports this fatal neglect of life and asks our vote, asks too much of any fellow human being.

Our country is at the edge of the precipice concerning the protection of the life and dignity of the human person. A significant new attack on innocent human life will likely send us into a moral freefall that would rival any financial decline. The price for such a “walk over the cliff” is millions more human lives for many more years to come.

A candidate who asks us to add our weight to such a destructive momentum in our society, asks us to be participants in their own gravely immoral act. This is something which, in good conscience, we can never justify. Despite hardship, beyond partisanship, for the sake of our eternal salvation: This we should never do.

Following the statement released by the bishops of Texas and Fort Worth (blogged extensively here), we have a third bishop unambiguously a) rejecting the argument of pro-Obama Catholics, b) condemning the actions of pro-choice politicians who seek the Catholic vote, and c) calling Catholics to unapologetically reject candidates that support and promote the evil of abortion to the degree that Obama does.

I described the Texas statement as a "game changer," I think this is the beginning of momentum. Bishops are gaining courage in their position, and systematically ruling out the reservations, objections and counter-arguments that have been brought forward.