Conscience and the Catholic Voter (continued)

November 5, 2008

Last week, I offered you the first part of Bishop William E. Lori’s reflection on the voter’s responsibilities in an election year.  It is a reflection on U.S. bishops’ document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (It is posted on the USCCB Web site (www.usccb.org). We considered particularly the process of forming an informed conscience in order to make responsible decisions in casting our ballots in the national election.  Let us take up from where we left off and continue our study of the statement prepared by the president of the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine.

“Enlightened by faith and bolstered by prudence and courage, our conscience can see more clearly the task that lies before us. Pope Benedict has called upon us to be ‘a leaven of evangelical hope in American society, to point the way to that vast horizon of hope which God is opening up to the Church and indeed to all humanity: the vision of a world renewed and reconciled in Christ Jesus our Savior.’ We are seeking to build what John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have called ‘a civilization of love,’ a civilization where the rights and dignity of each person— especially those who are most vulnerable, the unborn and the frail elderly—are respected from the moment of conception until natural death; where the family, based on the love of husband and wife, welcomes children into the world and imparts to them the truths and values that make good citizens; where the hungry and homeless are assisted, the immigrant welcomed, the environment protected, and all legitimate paths to peace are pursued. It is in light of that task of ours, as believers and citizens, that we evaluate the moral quality of what is proposed to the electorate by candidates and public officials, and work proactively for the ongoing transformation of our society.

“Inspired by the task that is before us, we can see all the more clearly that ‘there are some things we can never do or cooperate with because they are always incompatible with love of God and neighbor. Such actions are so deeply flawed that they are always opposed to the authentic good of persons. These are called intrinsically evil actions. They must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned’ (Faithful Citizenship, no. 22). In our nation, abortion is at the forefront of these intrinsically evil actions and it is deeply embedded in laws, court decisions and government policies. Since 1973, the year abortion was legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, it is estimated that nearly 49 million innocent human lives have been taken. The annual number of abortions recently has decreased, yet some 1.2 million babies were aborted in 2005, the last year for which statistics are available. Abortion has helped create what Pope John Paul II called “a culture of death”…We can see this in legislation that provides public funding for destructive embryonic stem cell research and in efforts to legalize euthanasia.

It is sometimes alleged that the Church is only concerned about abortion. Nothing could be further from the truth. No other nongovernmental institution provides more educational, charitable, and social services— including relief services—than the Church. We should add to this the immense range of pastoral services provided on a daily basis. Because of direct service in untold proportions to those in need, the Church sees even more clearly that ‘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’ (Faithful Citizenship, no. 25). She sees how diminishing respect for the lives of the vulnerable threatens all life. As Pope John Paul II said so clearly: “the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture— is false and illusory if the right to life…is not defended with maximum determination” (Christifideles Laici, no. 38, quoted by Faithful Citizenship, no. 26).

“It is because faith and reason lead us to respect human life at all its stages that we seek to address in morally sound and effective ways other serious threats to human life and dignity. Faithful Citizenship cites racism, use of the death penalty, resorting to unjust war, failure to help those suffering from hunger, homelessness, or lack of health care, as well as unjust immigration policies. These are serious matters, and if we are serious about building a civilization of love we will address them.

“It would be refreshing if we could find candidates whose records, party platforms, and personal commitments embody the full range of the Church’s social teaching, reasonable as that teaching is. Unfortunately that seldom happens. That is why we must have a well-formed conscience capable of giving each issue its proper moral weight and making other important distinctions and judgments. For example, a Catholic may never vote for candidates precisely because they advocate and advance (an) intrinsic moral evil(s) like abortion; to do so is to cooperate formally (intentionally) with a grave evil. And while Faithful Citizenship acknowledges that one may vote for a politician who supports pro-abortion policies ‘only for truly grave moral reasons,’ a conscientious voter must question what grave moral issue rises to the level of nearly 49 million lives lost to the evil of abortion.  On the other hand, a politician who opposes abortion should not go unchallenged if he or she adopts positions that undermine human dignity in other ways.

“Sometimes voters face two ‘anti-life’ candidates and find they are unable to vote for either. Or after careful reflection, a voter may decide to vote for the candidate less likely to pursue a morally flawed position and more likely to advance other authentic human goods (Faithful Citizenship, no. 36).
“When he visited us, Pope Benedict praised Americans for their generosity and optimism and for the role which religion continues to play in our society. He called us to be true to our founding ideals and principles and to maintain the truths and values that flow from faith and reason into the public square. Now is the time to respond to his challenge.”

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 11-Jan-2010 8:22 sitemap