Archbishop John Myers (Newark, NJ) has an article in the Wall Street Journal on what Ratzinger said regarding proportionate reasons for voting for a pro-abort candidate. Excerpts:
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.
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.
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.
Well, now . . . that just sounds awfully . . . familiar.
GO, ARCHBISH!
Archbishop Myers’ explanation makes a lot of sense. That being the case, why in the world did Cardinal Ratzinger issue the statement in the first place?!!
If, as Archbishop Myers stated, voting for a pro-abortion candidate like Kerry doesn’ apply to Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement, why issue such a confusing statement months before the election in the first place? All it does is confuse people! Just go to Envoy Encore’s blog or Mark Shea’s blog and see all the hardcore faithful Catholics who hate Bush and are just looking for a reason to vote for Kerry! All Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement did was give them the reason they were looking for. I have to admit, when Rome issues these kinds of statements, I have to wonder if they have taken leave of their senses.
See the permapost What Ratzinger Said for info.
Best example of an explanation why John Kerry’s argument is invalid can be found at
http://WWW.HEDLIT.COM/BLOGS/BLOG_1/000211.HTML
entitled: PERSONALLY OPPOSED. It states:
I think some politicians have no idea what kind of nonsense they are speaking when they suggest that they are personally opposed to something that is gravely evil, but that they believe it to be a matter of personal conscience. They even believe their Church backs them up on this, and not without cause, since sometimes the same nonsense can be heard spewing from the lips of a priest.
One way to determine whether a difficult moral position is consistent and permissible is to compare it to another, similar moral problem, one in which there is no question about what is right or wrong, and see what we can learn from the comparison.
Consider the case of the hypothetical, fictional German citizen in the 1930’s and 1940’s…let’s call him Johannes Kerrymeister, to make up a name completely at random. Being a faithful Catholic, Herr Kerrymeister is personally opposed to the wholesale slaughter of innocent Jews and others whom society deems to be non-persons. He knows in his heart, as a matter of faith and a matter of personal conscience, that Jew-killing is a sin, and he has sworn never to kill and innocent Jew. However, just because the Church teaches that killing Jews is morally wrong, that doesn’t necessarily mean, he reasons, that the Church teaches that governments must make laws that criminalize matters of personal conscience. That would be an unlawful intrusion of government into religious matters, and an unlawful intrusion of religion into matters of state. After all, this isn’t the Dark Ages, and governments must reflect the views of the societies they govern. And Herr Kerrymeister believes that it is up to the experts of statecraft, the politicians, to decide when the time is right to change things, if at all, while he himself will follow his own conscience and let others do the same. He is happy to march in the parades with the other heroes of conscience who wave the flag and protect freedom for all (except Jews and other non-persons).
Am I saying Herr Kerrymeister hates Jews? No, that would be sick and disgusting. In real life, in 21st century America, where 4000 a day die from acts of abortion, the real Johannes Kerrymeister doesn’t hate all the Jews. He just hates the unborn ones.
Brilliant Logic. After reading this can anyone support Kerry’s position?
I think it was former governor of New York Cuomo who started the “personally opposed” nonsense. Science has come a long way since then. The same people who used science to bolster their claims the the unborn are unhuman now turn their heads at the scientific fact that a unique human being is created at the moment of conception. Back when Cuomo coined the “personally opposed” mantra he could be forgiven for being mislead. What is the excuse now? What does it have to do with religious affiliation? This particular scientific fact is only believed by Catholics and fundamentalists? What about moral absolutes? Many in this country would have us believe that there are none……but wait….what about slavery, bigamy,kiddie porn….. How can laws against such actions be enacted and enforced without imposing someone else’s morality on others? Abortion ALWAYS hurts another human being so the old saw about “anything goes as long as no one gets hurt” doesn’t work either.