It’s Iimi! So, What Are You Gonna Do About It?

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It’s Iimi! Just Who is Factionalized Here?

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It’s Iimi! On Life, Language, and Leanings

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It’s Iimi! The Ladaria Letter and Other Things

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Look to Your Own Beam First

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It’s Iimi! “Moral Monsters”

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What Are We to Do About This? (Hint: Not What They’re Doing on the Internet)

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Evading the Abortion Issue

The Church is very straightforward in her teachings. Yes, determining the level of culpability in an individual’s sins might be complex in discerning knowledge and freedom in the decision, But that never makes a morally bad act good, and we must oppose evil, even when we might otherwise benefit from a group that promotes it or fear consequences if that group does not gain power. The fact is, we must not choose to do evil so good may come of it, and we must make certain that any remote cooperation [i.e., not intended] with the evil is done for a reason proportionate to the evil.

Tragically, some Catholics have announced their intention to vote for pro-abortion candidates‡, arguing that the evil of the other side meets the “proportionate reason” requirement. That they reason this way is deeply troubling. In Gaudium et Spes #27, for example, the Church lists abortion next to murder, genocide, euthanasia, torture, and slavery in terms of abominable actions¥. Those Catholics who intend to vote for pro-abortion candidates announce themselves against these other evils as non-negotiable… and rightly so. But, while they would never dream of compromising and voting for a candidate who supported those evils, they are willing to vote for a candidate who supports abortion, claiming that such a candidate is “more pro-life” while condemning Catholics who won’t vote like them.

The problem is this. While the Church does indeed teach that the Right to Life is more than just opposing abortion, one cannot be pro-life without that crucial piece. So, when the Catholic who announces his or her intention to vote for a pro-abortion candidate while denouncing his fellow Catholic for neglecting other issues of Catholic Moral Teaching in the name of abortion§,  he or she needs to keep in mind Matthew 7:2. “For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.” 

This verse is important because calling out another on a moral wrong means you know that action is wrong. So, calling down judgment on Catholics for downplaying Teaching X in the name of opposing abortion, while downplaying of abortion in the name of Teaching X is also worthy of judgment†.

Don’t get into an argument over theological calculus here where you try to calculate what level of other evils is supposed to outweigh abortion (both sides do this, and calculate it in their favor). When the Church says “X is wrong,” don’t try to justify your support of the candidate who champions X by pointing to the other side’s failings. Each one of us will answer for the evils we ignore or try to explain away when the Church has called them “evil” by name.

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(‡) This has gotten so out of hand, that I have seen some Catholics attack Cardinal Paglia claiming he is out of touch with the Church for saying that Catholic politicians absolutely cannot support or defend abortion.

(¥) Yes, the Church lists more issues in that paragraph, and yes, I have cited them in previous articles. But it goes to show that those who invoke those issues cannot claim ignorance on how seriously the Church views abortion.

(§) A popular attack they use is “anti-abortion but not pro-life.”

(†) Again, before you plan to send an angry “what about…?” response, keep in mind, I have also written blogs warning against those opposing abortion being complacent or justifying their downplaying other issues.

Both Factions Are Wrong: Let’s Talk About Abortion as an Issue

Every fourth year, abortion becomes a very contentious issue in America. The remaining three years usually involves Catholics pointing fingers at each other for how they voted, saying things would be better/worse if the other guy got elected. Catholics from both of our major political parties tell us that their party is the only real pro-life choice and are swift to point out the evils of the other side.

And let’s face it. Both sides have caused major harm to the defense of life. The Democrats and Republicans alike are correct on pointing out the problems in the other side. But they are wrong to be silent about their own.

The first thing to remember is the Church absolutely calls for the end of abortion. We cannot draw a line where we will say “We’ll tolerate it this far, but no further.” We might have to settle for a lesser gain for now while fighting for a greater gain later. But a Catholic cannot say they will sacrifice the fight to end abortion while focusing on other means to end it. St. John Paul II was quite clear on this:

38. In effect the acknowledgment of the personal dignity of every human being demands the respect, the defence and the promotion of the rights of the human person. It is a question of inherent, universal and inviolable rights. No one, no individual, no group, no authority, no State, can change—let alone eliminate—them because such rights find their source in God himself.

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, 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, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.

—John Paul II, Christifideles Laici (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1988).

Note that some of the issues some Catholics cite as being “more important” to defend life are listed and called “false and illusory” when the right to defend life is not defended. That is not because St. John Paul II doesn’t care about those issues. On the contrary, he wrote some very firm encyclicals on those topics. But he is removing the fig leaf from the argument some Catholics make. We can’t escape the obligation to fight to end legalized abortion (that is, you can’t claim that reducing the conditions where people consider it is enough). So, the criticism against those Catholics is quite valid because their argument is pharisaical at best.

That being said, the criticism against other Catholics is also a valid concern. Working to help pregnant women so they won’t think abortion is the only option is important as well. Yes, we can legitimately have different ideas on how best to do this so long as we don’t use these different ideas as an excuse to do nothing. The problem is, sometimes these different ideas amount to “let somebody else do it.” That doesn’t work as a Catholic solution. The Church does indeed favor subsidiarity for solutions over huge government bureaucracies because the bigger the body working on it, the more likely somebody will slip through the cracks. But, sometimes people’s “let somebody else do it” approach to subsidiarity results in overwhelmed charity groups working to help too many people with not enough resources.

So, we have on one side Catholics on one side is silent over their party championing an intrinsic evil to achieve an end. Catholics on the other side are silent when their party tolerates evil consequences to achieve theirs. So, this is why I say both sides mentioned are wrong, and reject “but what about...” arguments. On one side, turning one’s back on the issue of abolishing abortion is to effectively say that it doesn’t matter if some get aborted as long as it flies under the radar. No, abortion is not just going to vanish when conditions improve enough. Call it negligence, call it cowardice, call it indifference. Just don’t call it principled. It’s still complicity with evil. On the other side, by refusing to consider policies that go against one’s political philosophy on government size, they are leaving women without resources that might give them the courage to choose life. Oh, I’m sure that Catholics in this camp would want these women to get help. But we should keep in mind what the Epistle of James said: If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? (James 2:15–16). God will judge them just as surely as he will those who make excuses for pro-abortion politicians.

The danger is, Catholics have grown to think that Evil X is so bad that they can ignore Evil Y because of it. That’s not how Catholic moral obligation works. In our dualistic political system, we are all too often forced to choose between a party that calls abortion “good,” while trying to expand it, and a party that seems to say “tsk, too bad” when it comes to conditions that make the evil of abortion seem like it is an option.

So, while both factions of Catholics are correct in pointing out the hypocrisies of the other side, they are in dangerous—quite possibly damnable—error over their blindness about their own hypocrisies. So, here’s the thing. If you identify with the party that promotes abortion, you have an obligation to fight abortion tooth and nail in a pro-abortion party you plan to vote for. If you identify with the party that opposes abortion, you have an obligation to fight callous indifference over what those women considering abortion need.

If you don’t do that within your own party, you’re no better than those on the other side that you denounce. It really is that simple.

Thoughts on Gradualism, Defeatism, and Overcoming Intrinsic Evil

gradualism

■ noun a policy or theory of gradual rather than sudden change.

Introduction

I’ve encountered some pro-lifers who are objecting to the recent laws strictly restricting abortion. From my reading, they seem to make two arguments.

1. That many opponents of abortion are not willing to go so far as to give up exceptions for incest, rape, and “life of the mother.” If we alienate them, the fear is they will go to the pro-abortion camp.
2. That laws that strict are more likely to be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, thus locking in abortion as a right.

Therefore, they argue, we should start with a lower goal and work our way up. These people seem sincere about being pro-life but, in all honesty, I think they’re wrong in their reasoning that leads to their conclusion. St. John Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (#73), wrote about politicians trying to limit the effects of abortion laws:

In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.

Note, this is not about reducing the effectiveness of a law to improve popularity among people. This is about “half a loaf is better than none” in cases where a pro-abortion law is inevitable. In such a case, putting whatever restrictions one can achieve into such a law is better than no restrictions at all. But that isn’t the case here. Here, we have legislators who believe we have the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade and other unjust abortion rulings.

Case #1: Alienating Supporters

With this in mind, how does the first argument fit in with Catholic teaching? Badly—it’s practically an inversion of Church teaching. In this case, it’s not about “limiting the harm done by such a law” because the law is passed and signed already. It’s about “limiting the law in the name of public opinion” by keeping people who have an imperfect understanding of the defense of life from jumping ship by creating exceptions. 

As I see it, if these people object to not allowing exceptions now, why should they accept eliminating these exceptions later? I think it’s more likely that when we move to eliminate those exceptions later, these people will think we’re guilty of “bait and switch” and resist our actions anyway. The difference is they’ll also think we’re liars.

One person who used the “alienating supporters” argument suggested to me that after doing the more limited law, we can work on education. To which I say we should have already been doing that and we should still do it for those who are sincerely pro-life but misled regardless of the status of laws.

Such people of misdirected good will need to understand that:

• “One may never do evil so that good may result from it.” (CCC #1789)
• Abortion—which is deliberate termination of pregnancy by killing the unborn child (Catechism, Glossary)—is an evil act 
• Therefore, one may never commit abortion so good may come of it.

This is not intended to be a logical form. Rather I’m showing that two of principles that one must hold to be pro-life lead to the third principle. This third principle excludes exceptions for rape, incest, and “life of the mother.” Rejecting these principles means one is mistaken about what being pro-life means.

Let’s apply the principle of St. John Paul to this: we can say that while abortion laws that only allow it for rape, incest, and life of the mother are less evil than laws allowing unrestricted abortion and can be tolerated if those are the only two options. But if the option exists to ban all abortion in a state legitimately exists, we cannot choose the exceptions option instead.

Think of it this way. Imagine a person who opposes slavery or segregation in most cases, but wants exceptions in case they need it. Such a person would not be pro-freedom, no matter how sincere they were about opposing 99% of the cases of slavery [#]. We would not include that 1% exception in our attempts to abolish slavery if the option to abolish it entirely existed. Abortion is the same case: something that is always evil and the exceptions are still evil acts.

Case #2: The “unconstitutional” fear

This leads us to the second objection: that a total abortion ban might get thrown out, enshrining abortion forever, while a law with some exceptions might be upheld. My response to that is: the Supreme Court judge who would vote to rule a total ban unconstitutional, would also rule the abortion ban with exceptions of rape, incest, and the life of the mother to be unconstitutional. As long as we have any Supreme Court judges who think abortion is a human right, instead of a human rights violation, there is a danger that any restrictions at all will be thrown out.

I find that there is a defeatist attitude about passing laws restricting abortion. I’ve seen some go as far as to say Roe v. Wade will never be overturned, so we should spend our time instead making abortion less “necessary” instead of opposing it. Some have also said that people will just seek illegal abortions, so even if we do overturn it, we’ll never end it [%]. That attitude betrays a false understanding of Christian obligation. St. John Paul II, in Evangelium Vitae #73, also reminds us:

Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.

Capitulation that accepts abortion as inevitable is incompatible with our call to change injustice. We cannot put our faith in a corner. We have obligations here. As the Vatican II document, Apostolicam actuositatem (#5), puts it:

Christ’s redemptive work, while essentially concerned with the salvation of men, includes also the renewal of the whole temporal order. Hence the mission of the Church is not only to bring the message and grace of Christ to men but also to penetrate and perfect the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel. In fulfilling this mission of the Church, the Christian laity exercise their apostolate both in the Church and in the world, in both the spiritual and the temporal orders.

Refusing to fight injustice is to fail in our obligation. Moreover, it is ironic that people who take this defeatist attitude don’t take it with other injustices. They’re quick to invoke the Seamless Garment on other issues. But they forget another teaching of St. John Paul II in Christifideles Laici, #38:

“Above all, 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, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.”

Remember, Gaudium et Spes #51 [§] equated abortion with murder, genocide, torture and other evils these people normally oppose. If we think that a person is wrong to oppose subhuman living conditions while saying we’ll never get rid of genocide, we should think the person who opposes subhuman living conditions while saying we’ll never get rid of abortion is equally wrong [~].

Since we recognize these other things are evil, we must treat abortion with the same gravity.

Conclusion 

An intrinsic evil is something which is always wrong by nature and can never be turned into a good act by circumstances or intention. Saying we should create unnecessary exceptions to banning the evil, or refusing to fight it are incompatible with our Catholic calling. Abortion is one of these intrinsic evils, and the proposed “necessary” exceptions and “focusing on other areas” is therefore also incompatible with our Catholic calling. We need to be on our guard not to allow these attitudes to enter our thinking. Otherwise, regardless of our intentions, we are not really pro-life.

True, there are different ideas on how best to fight the evil of abortion. But not fighting it is not an option.

__________________

[#] Remember, the three exceptions demanded for abortion are less than 1% of all abortions.

[%] This is the “argument from consequences” fallacy, trying to argue that banning abortion is wrong because of negative consequences. But replace “abortion” with “murder” or “rape.” Is the argument reasonable? No, and using it for abortion is equally unsound.

[§] The relevant text of Gaudium et Spes #51 is:

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.

[~] While I support the Seamless Garment as properly understood, the problem I have with the late Cardinal Bernadin’s speech on the seamless garment is it can be misunderstood as saying X+Y+Z > abortion. I don’t believe the Cardinal meant that, but people have twisted it to argue exactly that.

Thoughts on America’s Vile Institution

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Ending the Standoff

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Fundamentally Missing the Point

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Thoughts on the Defense of Life and Repugnant Elections

In 2016, the choices for president are so bad that many Catholics are struggling over how to vote in a way compatible with our faith. I’ve seen many abandoning their traditional party loyalties who never would have thought it possible before. Some even go so far as to consider voting for a candidate they would have firmly opposed four years ago. Now the Church does not tell us which candidate we must vote for, and neither will I. But Church teaching does oblige us to do what is right even at the cost of our personal preferences. The fact that this obligation may block us from voting for a candidate or party we normally favor does not mean the Church teaching is politically biased. Her teaching is true in the 1st century and the 21st.

This year, the major parties nominated two candidates for President who would ordinarily be unfit for our consideration. Both advocate positions incompatible with the Catholic faith to the point that one could only justify a vote for one of them by intending to block what they see as a greater evil. Some Catholics respond to this problem by looking to the minor parties so they won’t have to vote for a candidate who will support evil—their consciences forbidding a vote for either Trump or Clinton. However, barring some sort of fluke, one of them will be elected President. So even this option requires us to investigate if one of the two will do less evil than the other before choosing “none of the above."

As Catholics, we must use Church teaching to guide our vote. The Kingdom of God is not a political kingdom, but our votes enable people who receive authority and use it to do good or evil. So we have an obligation to vote in a way that promotes the good and limits evil to the best of our knowledge and ability. We look to the Church for guidance, even when doing the right thing means suffering or putting aside personal preferences.

The Church has been clear that the right to life is the fundamental right from which all other rights come. She calls abortion and euthanasia “unspeakable crimes” (Gaudium et spes #51) and says that working for social justice without this defense of life is “false and illusory” (Christifideles Laici #38). Voting for a candidate because he or she supports abortion is gravely sinful. Voting for such a candidate for other reasons is remote cooperation—an evil not directly willed but the action makes the evil possible nevertheless—and can only be justified by a “proportionate reason” (Ratzinger Memorandum). That’s a term which is widely misunderstood. It means we have to answer the question, “What evil are we striving to block which is so bad that it makes abortion seem like a lesser evil?”

This is an objective question, not a morally relativistic one. We can’t say that issues A+B+C (issues we favor) outweigh abortion. We have to be able to point to a real evil, not a speculation on “what might happen” and be able to honestly tell God at the final judgment, “I sincerely believed this evil was so serious that opposing it took priority over defending the right to life in being faithful to You.” God will not be deceived, so we had better be convicted in conscience as formed by the Church and not feign moral conviction if it is a political preference. Vincible ignorance—not knowing but being at fault for not even bothering to learn what is right—is not a valid defense before God.

Here’s the thing to keep in mind. The Church is not speaking out against an evil worse than abortion where we have to pull together to stop it first. Historically speaking, a Third Reich or a Stalinist regime would qualify here, but we do not have such threats present here outside the tired epithets of “communist” and “fascist” hurled around at every election. The Pope and bishops consistently speak against abortion and other attacks on the right to life as the worst evils of our time. This doesn’t mean that other issues are not important. We will have to oppose all evil policies our next president tries to implement. What it means is we can’t downplay or ignore the defense of life in favor of these other issues.

That makes 2016 hard. Of the candidates running in the two major and two largest minor parties, three openly support abortion as a “right” and one claims to oppose abortion but whose moral behavior leads some to reasonably doubt his sincerity. That means that Church teaching gets targeted as partisan (in 2008 and 2012, critics slandered the USCCB as being “the Republican Party at prayer”) when she defends right and denounces wrong when people find it inconvenient. The result of this is some Catholics think this means they’re being forced to vote for a candidate they don’t want to. This is never the case.

We need to avoid the “either-or” fallacy where we assume that we can only choose between X or Y. But if there is a legitimate option Z, or an option to refuse both X and Y, we can take it without sinning against the Church. It’s not an easy choice to make of course. America is polarized into Democrat and Republican. One of them will be president in January 2017, and we do have to consider whether we have a valid moral concern in refusing to elect one of them, or whether it is a matter of personal dislike. If it’s a matter of personal dislike, then we may have to do right against that personal preference. But if it is a valid moral concern, and our conscience is not against Church teaching, then we cannot violate Church teaching.

I would describe the issue this way. If Church teaching disqualifies the pro-abortion candidate from receiving our support, and our conscience prohibits us from voting for the other candidate, then we can choose another option—even if that option has no chance of winning. However, we must be very certain that our conscience was properly formed in the teachings of the Church to prevent the triumph of evil.

I would like to end this article with a reflection Archbishop Chaput wrote in 2008:

Finally, here’s the third question. What if Catholics face an election where both major candidates are “pro-choice”? What should they do then? Here’s the answer: They should remember that the “perfect” can easily become the enemy of the “good.”

The fact that no ideal or even normally acceptable candidate exists in an election does not absolve us from taking part in it. As Catholic citizens, we need to work for the greatest good. The purpose of cultivating a life of prayer, a relationship with Jesus Christ, and a love for the church is to grow as a Christian disciple— to become the kind of Catholic adult who can properly exercise conscience and good sense in exactly such circumstances. There isn’t one “right” answer here. Committed Catholics can make very different but equally valid choices: to vote for the major candidate who most closely fits the moral ideal, to vote for an acceptable third-party candidate who is unlikely to win, or to not vote at all. All of these choices can be legitimate. This is a matter for personal decision, not church policy.

The point we must never forget is this: We need to keep fighting for the sanctity of the human person, starting with the unborn child and extending throughout life. We abandon our vocation as Catholics if we give up; if we either drop out of political issues altogether or knuckle under to America’s growing callousness toward human dignity.

We need to keep fighting. Otherwise we become what the Word of God has such disgust for: salt that has lost its flavor.

Chaput, Charles J. (2008-08-12). Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (pp. 230-231). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Each one of us will have to answer to God for how we vote. I believe each one of us needs to approach this election with prayer and study so that we can honestly (He will not be fooled by any deception) say to Him. “Lord, I did my best to seek Your will and form my conscience according to the teaching of Your Church. I voted this way because I could see no other way to vote without being unfaithful to You and Your Church.”

Let us remember as we discuss (or even debate) the right course for voting that our Kingdom is Heaven, and we must not lose that kingdom in exchange for a temporary country. Nor must we refuse to bring our nation towards Christ.