The question of whether one may, in good conscience, support Barack Obama as a Catholic after taking into account his positions and views will be an ongoing AmP feature leading up to the November election.
After last night's debate, it's a perfect time to survey what top Catholic writers and intellectuals are saying about the decision-making process, and about the recent minority phenomenon of (militant, vocal) Catholic Obama supporters.
As an important qualification - one that I thought could be presumed but judging from the comments and emails is evidently not apparent - arguments that raise questions about the prudence of voting for Obama
do not necessarily constitute an argument
for a McCain vote. That's a separate question, and while I realize a consideration of either men does not occur in a vacuum, it is crucial to realize that my reservations about Obama are not the result of a prior decision that McCain is the right candidate. That said.
Point one: Some people are
arguing stridently that Obama is the more acceptable candidate to Catholics.
Point two: When Archbishop Wuerl was presented with the dominant strains of the pro-Obama argument by Catholic journalist John Allen,
he repudiated them.
Point three: Robby George has published a
comprehensive overview of Obama's positions on the life issues, and talks about an often-neglected aspect of Obama's anti-life views, namely, his desire to proliferate embryonic stem cell research:
But for a moment let's suppose, against all the evidence, that Obama's proposals would reduce the number of abortions, even while subsidizing the killing with taxpayer dollars. Even so, many more unborn human beings would likely be killed under Obama than under McCain. A Congress controlled by strong Democratic majorities under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would enact the bill authorizing the mass industrial production of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are killed. As president, Obama would sign it. The number of tiny humans created and killed under this legislation (assuming that an efficient human cloning technique is soon perfected) could dwarf the number of lives saved as a result of the reduced demand for abortion-even if we take a delusionally optimistic view of what that number would be.
He sandwiches this point around two statements:
"I have examined the arguments advanced by Obama's self-identified pro-life supporters, and they are spectacularly weak. It is nearly unfathomable to me that those advancing them can honestly believe what they are saying...
... In the end, the efforts of Obama's apologists to depict their man as the true pro-life candidate that Catholics and Evangelicals may and even should vote for, doesn't even amount to a nice try. Voting for the most extreme pro-abortion political candidate in American history is not the way to save unborn babies."
Point Four: George Weigel in
Newsweek has also heard the arguments and contributes in his response a summary of the current situation and a prediction of the future should Obama win:
The argument [of pro-Obama Catholics] is, some might contend, a bold one. Yet it is also counterintuitive, running up against the fact that, by most measures and despite his rhetoric about reducing the incidence of abortion, Barack Obama has an unalloyed record of support for abortion on demand. Moreover, he seems to understand Roe vs. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court decisions as having defined abortion as a fundamental liberty right essential for women's equality, meaning that government must guarantee access to abortion in law and by financial assistance—a moral judgment and a policy prescription the pro-life Catholic Obama boosters say they reject.
About the growing boldness of the American bishops, he observes:
Many U.S. bishops, in other words, seem exasperated with Catholic politicians who present themselves as ardent Catholics and yet consistently oppose the Church on what the bishops consider the premier civil-rights issue of the day. It seems unlikely that the bishops, having found their voices after discovering the limits of their patience, will back off in an Obama administration—which could raise some interesting questions for, and about, a Vice President Joe Biden, whose fitness to receive holy communion may well be discussed in executive session at the bishops' annual meeting in mid-November.
Indeed, the questions and problems we are facing now will only increase - dramatically - if this will come to pass. I join Weigel in waiting to see what the likes of Kmiec, Kaveny and Cafardi will have to say about this. I'll be here, blogging about it when that happens, but I'm not looking forward to it.
As context to this whole debate, let's add a few remaining points.
Point five: Raymond Arroyo
notes that this remains a seriously open question mostly to those who have not examined the questions carefully and at length:
"The real swing voters in this election will be the Easter/Christmas Catholics — those who infrequently attend church, but consider themselves in the fold. They too will be influenced by the cultural tug of the faith described above. How to capitalize on the inherent tendencies of Catholic voters will be for the candidates to discover. But it will take real savvy and sensitivity to win over this block — and a few novenas couldn’t hurt."
Point six: But for all that, ignorance of Obama's true positions are not just found among Catholics. Average Americans are decidedly more pro-life than Obama:
A new national poll of Americans finds a large majority take one of three pro-life positions opposing all or most abortions. The survey also finds more than one-quarter of people who say they are "pro-choice" on abortion really take a pro-life position against abortions.
Some 60 percent of Americans say abortions should never be allowed or only in the rarest of circumstances, such as rape and incest, that constitution less than two percent of all abortions nationwide. (LifeNews)
Point seven: Amazing as it might seem, I'm approaching this issue not just because of the upcoming election. Obviously we stand at a crossroads and Catholics have a critical part to play in the upcoming election. But we also have a critical part to play the whole year round, year by year, in forming a culture of life. Election moments, especially when candidates such as Obama are on the ballot, provide special opportunities to examine how, as Catholics, we form our conscience and prudentially strive to participate in building that culture of life.
I'll leave off at this point since I've already compiled a huge amount of information here to read through.
Labels: 2008 presidential race, American Papist, barack obama, catholicism and politics, commentary, john mccain
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Pretty cool:
My hands are trembling as I write this.
