Posted on 09/17/2004 9:47:44 AM PDT by ELS
HOUSES OF WORSHIP
A Voter's Guide
Pro-choice candidates and church teaching.
BY ARCHBISHOP JOHN J. MYERS
Friday, September 17, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
Amid today's political jostling, Catholic citizens are wondering whether they can, in conscience, vote for candidates who support the legalized killing of human beings in the embryonic and fetal stages of development by abortion or in biomedical research.
Responding to requests to clarify the obligations of Catholics on this matter, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, under its prefect, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, released a statement called "On Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion." Although it dealt primarily with the obligations of bishops to deny communion to Catholic politicians in certain circumstances, it included a short note at the end addressing whether Catholics could, in good conscience, vote for candidates who supported the taking of nascent human life in the womb or lab.
Cardinal Ratzinger stated that 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 a candidate's permissive stand on abortion." But the question of the moment is whether a Catholic may vote for a pro-abortion candidate for other reasons. The cardinal's next sentence answered that question: A Catholic may vote for a pro-abortion Catholic politician only "in the presence of proportionate reasons."
What are "proportionate reasons"?
--- snip --- (follow the link to read the rest)
Archbishop Myers heads the archdiocese of Newark.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
What's your thought on the Church's pragmatic approach to Non-Negotiables?
I'm not impressed.
We're fighting Kerry every day, join us. Help keep his hands off the wheel.
catholicsagaintkerry.com
I'm also disgusted by the Novena put out by Priests for Life on our "solemn duty" to vote? What is this? Belgium or Greece?
Democracy is nothing but a recipe for tyranny by the volonte generale. What's particularly galling is the way Republicans are somehow framed as "pro-life" when in actuality they are the architects and prime movers of the population control programming and birth control mentality whose linchpin is abortion and whose strange fruit is the Artificials on whose Excess Manufacture siblings our Pro-Life president's associates are capitalizing big-time.
Sickening. I hate the way the Church is being co-opted. But, given the way key hierarchy have carried water for the eugnecists since Spellman and Roosevelt's day and given the free rein most radicals and homosexuals ... not to mention contracepting and artificially reproducing Catholics ... enjoy anymore, utterly understandable.
Just another, perhaps the prime, reason I'm delighted to be sticking to my convictions this year: Women shouldn't vote.
(Talk about your women's liberation ... =)
The last thing we need is that "mandate" of which Barbara Bush has been speaking when defending our "Lesser of the Same Evils" political system. If folks would just once have the moxie to vote FOR someone instead of AGAINST the greater of the same damned evils, we'd finally open this nation up. Third parties might still lose but NO CANDIDATE could then pretend the measly 30-40% by which he took the election (among those Americans actually still interested in elections) somehow translates to a "mandate."
Perhaps then Presidents wouldn't be so quick to gift themselves with brand new, strictly unconstitutional powers as done in the aftermath of 9/11's insta-Mandate where fearmongering and chest-beating made for nearly lockstep bipartisan support for the unthinkable.
Surely Catholics find "non-negotiable" the notion that the Powerful are entitled to profile as they please for purposes of political murder. I'm not sure that the strictly confidential (and even outsourced, if necessary) summary execution option our Executive Branch now enjoys is a step in the right direction either.
BTW ... thanks for asking. The thread on which you posted was pulled so I'll just tell you that -- in order to ease my Momma's mind -- I did evacuate and it took 13 hours to go 140 miles my cousin's in Lafayette/Opelousas area.
THIRTEEN HOURS.
The dog was a prince. I've treated him to a weekend in the country as a result while I have the car I still can't believe I got on Tuesday.
I'm guessing Romulus rode it out as I'd intended to do. If so, I know he's fine (and probably much less strung out than I ... but that's kinda a given as a rule =)
Cheers.
Sorry I missed you guys two weekends ago, but I didn't get your FReepmail till Monday.
Thanks for letting us know you're safe : )
Thank you, Archbishop Myers! Get this word out folks, the social justice crowd is hell bent on confusing voters so that their favorite son can get Catholic votes, so we need to work hard to counter them!
What a terrific letter! Everyone should read this. I may print it out and put several hundred copies by our bulletins this weekend.
According to Rev. Norman Thomas, who has formed a coalition of catholics under the title: Catholics for the Common Good ...
"It's OK to vote for George Bush if your conscience and experience with life issues leads you to," said Thomas. "It's also OK to vote for John Kerry if your conscience and experience in life issues leads you to believe he can do a better job, which I do."
Catholic voters in abortion firestorm
Well, Reverend, that's where you are dead wrong! The Vatican message couldn't be any clearer. Sucking the brains from a fully developed infant trumps social programs.
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
I'm really sorry I missed you too. (As you know, I'm usually conveniently located anytime I'm in town and ... as a bonus ... finally have both morning and evening rush hour traffic under my belt where the City's concerned. I'll definitely catch you next time.)
==== Better safe than sorry.
No doubt. Still, absent some kind of Brilliant Strateregy's forthcoming from the Gov's office on evacuations, the whole exodus experience has seriously diminished my will to get out next time.
The whole thing was surreal.
Political correctness invades the Church. The smoke of Satan has entered the building.
Part of the problem is that the Church, for the most part, took a 35-40 year hiatus from speaking the truth "in season and out of season." So, to do that now would seem "harsh" to minds that aren't used to it.
Where are today's saints who can speak eloquently, movingly, and charitably to move hearts and minds to the right perspective? St. John Chrysostom? St. Anthony of Padua? Where are your brothers of today?
If we are going to have a republic (the Founding Fathers knew democracy didn't/wouldn't work), I think we should go back to the Founding Fathers idea that only property owners should vote. Was it de Tocqueville who said that the beginning of the end of a democracy was when the voters realized that they could vote themselves the riches of the public treasury? (Whoever said it, said it much better than I have.)
St. John Bellarmine?
I was thinking of this as I listened to Mary Landrieu on the radio talking of how she already was working on getting Louisiana some hurricane money which ... if Florida's any indication ... basically just rebounds back into Fed pockets courtesy of FEMA.
I'm with you on the "property owners" only idea. (Still leaves me blessedly out of the System =). But, I wonder if there are any genuine "property owners" left to vote in the first place.
I found this storyline of eminent domain abuses very interesting this morning. (Note to self: more stories at Google for later reading.)
Not to mention that the social programs he champions cannot possibly be sustained permanently. The very nature of governmental welfare and unemployment benefits makes them doomed to fail, which is what is happening in continental Europe as we speak. Things are going to be very painful around there for a few decades or so while the government works on "re-adjusting" the economy.
Ultimately, the social welfare system probably harms the same people it purports to help.
I looked back at my reply #13 and realized that his first name is Robert, not John. Apparently, my brain was not communicating with my fingers as I typed that reply. Mea culpa.
Cardinal Ratzinger stated that 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 a candidate's permissive stand on abortion."
Certainly policies on welfare, national security, the war in Iraq, Social Security or taxes, taken singly or in any combination, do not provide a proportionate reason to vote for a pro-abortion candidate.
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E-mail archbishop Myers
Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics
Catholic Outreach [to Republicans]
Kerry Wrong for Catholics.com -- CATHOLIC ISSUES OVERVIEW by the RNC
Analyst cites abortion stance as some Catholic voters shift to Bush
Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics - 5 NON-NEGOTIABLE ISSUES FOR CATHOLIC VOTERS
Newark, NJ, Archbishop Myers Denies Rebuking McGreevey
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Tkae part in the Life Chain in your locality. We need to get this out into the lamestream media.
Ours is Oct. 3rd and I am signed up for it. Will take my chair -- LOL! We are only one block from Planned Parenthood so I am going to try to talk everyone in our block to walk down there and say a Rosary. Should drive PP nutty! (Even on a Sunday!)
Great!, print up some of your planned parenthood posts you made where it showed that prayer helped closed down the clinics like those students did in CA.
THE PING!In the Catholic tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue; participation in the political process is a moral obligation.
Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Made it through the hurricane.
For the information, including that contained on the minicd mentioned below, send me a snail mail (land mail) address and I will send you a CD that you can use for further distribution, contacting individuals, etc. If Felos is saying Oct. 3rd as the soonest possible time to pull Terri's feeding tube then we don't have much time.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1226162/posts?page=227#227
bttt
What are "proportionate reasons"? To consider that question, we must first repeat the teaching of the church: The direct killing of innocent human beings at any stage of development, including the embryonic and fetal, is homicidal, gravely sinful and always profoundly wrong. Then we must consider the scope of the evil of abortion today in our country. America suffers 1.3 million abortions each year--a tragedy of epic proportions. Moreover, many supporters of abortion propose making the situation even worse by creating a publicly funded industry in which tens of thousands of human lives are produced each year for the purpose of being "sacrificed" in biomedical research.
Thus for a Catholic citizen to vote for a candidate who supports abortion and embryo-destructive research, one of the following circumstances would have to obtain: either (a) both candidates would have to be in favor of embryo killing on roughly an equal scale or (b) the candidate with the superior position on abortion and embryo-destructive research would have to be a supporter of objective evils of a gravity and magnitude beyond that of 1.3 million yearly abortions plus the killing that would take place if public funds were made available for embryo-destructive research.
Frankly, it is hard to imagine circumstance (b) in a society such as ours. No candidate advocating the removal of legal protection against killing for any vulnerable group of innocent people other than unborn children would have a chance of winning a major office in our country. Even those who support the death penalty for first-degree murderers are not advocating policies that result in more than a million killings annually.
As Mother Teresa reminded us on all of her visits to the U.S., abortion tears at our national soul. It is a betrayal of our nation's founding principle that recognizes all human beings as "created equal" and "endowed with unalienable rights." What evil could be so grave and widespread as to constitute a "proportionate reason" to support candidates who would preserve and protect the abortion license and even extend it to publicly funded embryo-killing in our nation's labs?
Certainly policies on welfare, national security, the war in Iraq, Social Security or taxes, taken singly or in any combination, do not provide a proportionate reason to vote for a pro-abortion candidate.
Consider, for example, the war in Iraq. Although Pope John Paul II pleaded for an alternative to the use of military force to meet the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, he did not bind the conscience of Catholics to agree with his judgment on the matter, nor did he say that it would be morally wrong for Catholic soldiers to participate in the war.
In line with the teaching of the catechism on "just war," he recognized that a final judgment of prudence as to the necessity of military force rests with statesmen, not with ecclesiastical leaders. Catholics may, in good conscience, support the use of force in Iraq or oppose it.
Abortion and embryo-destructive research are different. They are intrinsic and grave evils; no Catholic may legitimately support them.
In the context of contemporary American social life, abortion and embryo-destructive research are disproportionate evils. They are the gravest human rights abuses of our domestic politics and what slavery was to the time of Lincoln. Catholics are called by the Gospel of Life to protect the victims of these human rights abuses. They may not legitimately abandon the victims by supporting those who would further their victimization.
Archbishop Myers heads the archdiocese of Newark.
To consider that question, we must first repeat the teaching of the church: The direct killing of innocent human beings at any stage of development, including the embryonic and fetal, is homicidal, gravely sinful and always profoundly wrong. Then we must consider the scope of the evil of abortion today in our country. America suffers 1.3 million abortions each year—a tragedy of epic proportions. Moreover, many supporters of abortion propose making the situation even worse by creating a publicly funded industry in which tens of thousands of human lives are produced each year for the purpose of being “sacrificed” in biomedical research.
Thus for a Catholic citizen to vote for a candidate who supports abortion and embryo-destructive research, one of the following circumstances would have to obtain: either (a) both candidates would have to be in favor of embryo killing on roughly an equal scale or (b) the candidate with the superior position on abortion and embryo-destructive research would have to be a supporter of objective evils of a gravity and magnitude beyond that of 1.3 million yearly abortions plus the killing that would take place if public funds were made available for embryo-destructive research.
Frankly, it is hard to imagine circumstance (b) in a society such as ours. No candidate advocating the removal of legal protection against killing for any vulnerable group of innocent people other than unborn children would have a chance of winning a major office in our country. Even those who support the death penalty for first-degree murderers are not advocating policies that result in more than a million killings annually.
As Mother Teresa reminded us on all of her visits to the U.S., abortion tears at our national soul. It is a betrayal of our nation’s founding principle that recognizes all human beings as “created equal” and “endowed with unalienable rights.” What evil could be so grave and widespread as to constitute a “proportionate reason” to support candidates who would preserve and protect the abortion license and even extend it to publicly funded embryo-killing in our nation’s labs?
Certainly policies on welfare, national security, the war in Iraq, Social Security or taxes, taken singly or in any combination, do not provide a proportionate reason to vote for a pro-abortion candidate.
Consider, for example, the war in Iraq. Although Pope John Paul II pleaded for an alternative to the use of military force to meet the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, he did not bind the conscience of Catholics to agree with his judgment on the matter, nor did he say that it would be morally wrong for Catholic soldiers to participate in the war. In line with the teaching of the catechism on “just war,” he recognized that a final judgment of prudence as to the necessity of military force rests with statesmen, not with ecclesiastical leaders. Catholics may, in good conscience, support the use of force in Iraq or oppose it.
Abortion and embryo-destructive research are different.
They are intrinsic and grave evils; no Catholic may legitimately support them. In the context of contemporary American social life, abortion and embryo-destructive research are disproportionate evils. They are the gravest human rights abuses of our domestic politics and what slavery was to the time of Lincoln. Catholics are called by the Gospel of Life to protect the victims of these human rights abuses. They may not legitimately abandon the victims by supporting those who would further their victimization.
Archbishop Myers heads the archdiocese of Newark.
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