A gut check for American Catholicism

[Arandur]

Yes.

It has.

Veritatis Splendor

The Church has declared torture to be just as evil as abortion.

I cannot in good conscience support anyone who supports torture, and if you think you can, you are in error.

You place everything on that list as morally equivalent to each other, regardless of circumstance?

You have missed all the instruction of the bishops and the popes on the right to life being the first right, and the magnitude of the problem of abortion, both in terms of lives lost and harm done to society.

That you can respond with a straight face and sacrifice millions of innocent babies over an issue of stress positions is monstrously vile.

As I said, the matter is not choosing to support torture or abortion in isolation. You are given a choice between voting for politicians and parties that support the societal holocaust of abortion or the fierce but non-fatal or physically-crippling interrogation methods on a few men with the most extreme ill intent. You aren’t given another viable option when it comes down to election day. All voting choices are trade-offs.

Again I ask: you would trade off abortion of millions of innocents and the poison that is to all levels of our society for the temporary discomfort of a few people who want to kill us?

 

[CentralFLJames]

No, no, no! This is just what we are called upon to deny.

We are not just bundles of money for the consuming of goods, we are humans that God has created in His own image.

I don’t care what ever it takes to stop the murders of the innocent. If we can get them to equate moral injustice to a principal of personal dis-empowerment and self-interest and that saves millions of babies - so be it. Let’s just stop the killing first then go back and do the reverse social-enginnering and sensitivity training to get the right theological words and moral teaching behind it and ween them off the self-serving view of the world to one of serving. The babies just want to live and if we can make the politicians at least see them as political assets to save them - that’s a first and fledgling step toward recognition that they are human and worthy of protected status and that’s a good thing that can be expanded on.

We can beat the politicians at their own game using Machiavellian tactics (morally applied as a non-lethal weapon in a just war) that victimize their own debased proclivities for power and control of people. There is nothing wrong with turning evil on itself to fight fire with fire and then replant with fresh seed after we smoke out the rascals…

James

 

[andrewagill]

You place everything on that list as morally equivalent to each other, regardless of circumstance?

Well, let’s see what the Church says.

These are the acts which, in the Church’s moral tradition, have been termed “intrinsically evil” (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances

Sounds like I have to.

You have missed all the instruction of the bishops and the popes on the right to life being the first right, and the magnitude of the problem of abortion, both in terms of lives lost and harm done to society.

Which instruction did I miss? I know the document I went to that provided voting advice for Catholics, but I’d like to know if there’s one that I missed.

 

[Wesley7]

I did not know that government politics in America affected the Catholicism of the country.

 

[Arandur]

Well, let’s see what the Church says… Which instruction did I miss? I know the document I went to that provided voting advice for Catholics, but I’d like to know if there’s one that I missed.

One quick example:
usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/Williamspamphlet.pdf
“Abortion deals specifically with
the destruction of innocent life. This
differentiates discussion of abortion from
other related topics. This is why then-
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in June 2004
wrote: “There may be a legitimate
diversity of opinion even among
Catholics about waging war and
applying the death penalty, but not
however with regard to abortion and
euthanasia.” Though all life is precious,
moral theology has always differentiated
the destruction of “innocent life” as
particularly heinous and always and
everywhere worthy of condemnation.”

1. Another factor distinguishing
   abortion as a social phenomenon is the
   sheer magnitude of the problem: an
   estimated 46 million abortions performed
   worldwide each year, a figure that alone
   makes abortion a social problem of
   staggering proportions. The volume of
   abortions underscores the social nature
   of the problem, and makes abortion one
   of the most serious social justice issues of
   all time.
2. A third factor separating
   abortion from other justice issues is its
   legal status. Unlike other instances of
   massive killing of human life, like
   terrorism or serial killing, which stand
   clearly outside the law in advanced
   nations, abortion enjoys legal sanction.
   Pope John Paul wrote of the novelty of
   such “scientifically and systematically
   programmed threats” (Evangelium Vitae,
   no. 17).
3. A fourth distinguishing aspect
   of abortion is its arbitrary division of
   human beings into those worthy of life
   and those unworthy. Abortion deals not
   with the random killing of unrelated
   individuals, but with the circumscription
   of an entire class of human beings (the
   unborn) as non-persons, excluded from
   the basic rights and protections accorded
   to all other human beings.
   If human dignity depends on anything
   other than simple membership in the
   human race—be it intelligence, athletic
   ability, social status, race, age, or
   health—we immediately find ourselves
   having to distinguish between persons
   who count and those who don’t.
4. Abortion even distinguishes
   itself from related questions of medical
   ethics, such as euthanasia and assisted
   suicide, by the absence of any possibility
   of informed consent. The status of the
   unborn as voiceless and most vulnerable
   adds a further dimension to discussions
   of the morality and gravity of abortion.
   Here the bioethical category of
   “autonomy” cannot be applied, since
   unborn children have no way of speaking
   for themselves.

There are literally hundreds of other places where the Church makes clear why it is that abortion takes precedence over any other moral issue in the political realm. That you have CHOSEN to ignore that to me says you care much more about your own political sensibilities than about God, morality, and the Church.

Do some research and you will find plenty of these statements from the Church about priorities.

Sounds like I have to.

Take another look at your own quote. Look at it in context. All it is doing is identifying intrinsic evils. It is not comparing them against each other. It is not placing them in the context of circumstance–though it even notes that circumstance matters!

Now, please have the courage to answer the questions I put to you directly in my last two posts. Tell me how you can possibly justify that balancing act.

 

[mark_a]

Do not hope for Republicans to overturn abortion. It is merely a platform they use to woo votes.

I agree with you 1000%. Its like your read my mind.

Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party hit the nail on the head concerning the Republican Party.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

Sadly, I agree. **And given the disarray in which we find the political arena, I think the pro-life movement needs to reassess at what level of society the best results can be achieved. ** As Catholics, I believe we need a two-pronged focus - spiritual combat and public education/conversion of hearts. The spiritual end of it is easy: Rosaries, fasting, almsgiving. The public portion will require better pastoral care (instructing the flock on the intrinsic evil of abortion, the gravity of the Natural Law, and the need to educate our children not only in Catholic schools but in Catholic homes. We need to literally re-program our children to reject what the secular culture tells them is “true” if future generations are going to pick up the torch for Life. My honest assessment is that this is the biggest task at hand - perhaps bigger than overturning Roe v. Wade. Religious practice will continue to decline in this country - especially Catholicism - as even “cultural Catholics” begin to disappear and the younger generations grow up with almost no exposure whatsoever to the sacraments. We will more resemble the secular atheist society of Scandinavia than the country that once had a Catholic church on every few city blocks in major American cities.

Important point. Sotomayor is pro-abortion, I have no doubt. The degree to which she is, however, is debatable, and our best hope in this situation.

I think you make an excellent point. For nearly 30 years Catholics have tied themselves to the GOP in hope of a political solution to abortion.

Faithful Catholics need to divorce themselves from their marriage to the GOP and channel their energies against abortion in other ways. You’ve provided some excellent suggestions.

 

[andrewagill]

One quick example:
usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/Williamspamphlet.pdf

This is a synopsis of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

Abortion is mentioned three times in the Compendium:

…the condition for the exercise of all other rights and, in particular, implies the illicitness of every form of procured abortion and of euthanasia.
(…)
Concerning the “methods” for practising responsible procreation, the first to be rejected as morally illicit are sterilization and abortion. The latter in particular is a horrendous crime and constitutes a particularly serious moral disorder; far from being a right, it is a sad phenomenon that contributes seriously to spreading a mentality against life, representing a dangerous threat to a just and democratic social coexistence.
(…)
“a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political programme or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals”. In cases where it is not possible to avoid the implementation of such political programmes or to block or abrogate such laws, the Magisterium teaches that a parliamentary representative, whose personal absolute opposition to these programmes or laws is clear and known to all, may legitimately support proposals aimed at limiting the damage caused by such programmes or laws and at diminishing their negative effects on the level of culture and public morality. In this regard, a typical example of such a case would be a law permitting abortion.

It also speaks about torture:

The juridical principle by which punishment cannot be inflicted if a crime has not first been proven must be borne in mind.

In carrying out investigations, the regulation against the use of torture, even in the case of serious crimes, must be strictly observed: “Christ’s disciple refuses every recourse to such methods, which nothing could justify and in which the dignity of man is as much debased in his torturer as in the torturer’s victim”. International juridical instruments concerning human rights correctly indicate a prohibition against torture as a principle which cannot be contravened under any circumstances.

Let’s look at some of those citations (I had to remove them to get under the character limit. They include Evangelium Vitae, Gaudium et Spes, Veritatis Splendor, Humanae Vitae, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Gratissimam Sane, Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life, Address to the International Committee of the Red Cross). Veritatis Splendor we have already cited. Both Veritatis Splendor and the Compendium cite Gaudium et Spes:

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.

Evangelium Vitae says,

In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to “take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it”

We have seen a list of intrinsically evil acts, and any law upholding them must be intrinsically unjust.

Humanae Vitae and the others refer specifically to abortion and do not address torture or other intrinsic evils, but we can find some other sources for that:

The Holy Father’s Addresses to the Members of the Pontifical Council for Culture

1. The lack of understanding among men makes them run a fatal risk. But man is also threatened in his biological being by the irreparable deterioration of the environment, by the risk of genetic manipulations, attacks against unborn life and by torture, which is currently still seriously widespread. Our love for man must give us the courage to denounce ideas which reduce the human being to a thing that one can manipulate, humiliate, or arbitrarily eliminate.

Ecclesia in America:

The Church looks sympathetically upon this evolution insofar as it favors an ever more marked respect for the rights of each individual, including those accused and condemned, against whom it is never legitimate to resort to modes of detention and investigation — one thinks especially of torture — which are offensive to human dignity.

though it even notes that circumstance matters!

the Church teaches that “there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object”.

You might want to reread that.

Now, please have the courage to answer the questions I put to you directly in my last two posts. Tell me how you can possibly justify that balancing act.

I would like to reach some sort of conclusion on this issue first, since I think it is of some importance and debating two issues simultaneously would allow one of the issues to be given short shrift. You will find that the answer to that question will of necessity be answered as we explore this first question.

But I shall give you a brief preview–we must not commit or condone grave sin, even to end grave sin.

 

[traillius]

This is a synopsis of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

Abortion is mentioned three times in the Compendium:

It also speaks about torture:

Let’s look at some of those citations (I had to remove them to get under the character limit. They include Evangelium Vitae, Gaudium et Spes, Veritatis Splendor, Humanae Vitae, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Gratissimam Sane, Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life, Address to the International Committee of the Red Cross). Veritatis Splendor we have already cited. Both Veritatis Splendor and the Compendium cite Gaudium et Spes:

Evangelium Vitae says,

We have seen a list of intrinsically evil acts, and any law upholding them must be intrinsically unjust.

Humanae Vitae and the others refer specifically to abortion and do not address torture or other intrinsic evils, but we can find some other sources for that:

The Holy Father’s Addresses to the Members of the Pontifical Council for Culture

Ecclesia in America:

the Church teaches that "there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object".

You might want to reread that.

I would like to reach some sort of conclusion on this issue first, since I think it is of some importance and debating two issues simultaneously would allow one of the issues to be given short shrift. You will find that the answer to that question will of necessity be answered as we explore this first question.

But I shall give you a brief preview–we must not commit or condone grave sin, even to end grave sin.

No one suggested that. I hope that we can agree that even though human rights violations are a grave sin, abortion is much graver than human rights violations.
two reasons

1. Unborn and new babies are much more innocent than criminals, terrorists, and enemy combatants.
2. Over 50 million babies have been slaughtered in the US alone by abortion. I extremely doubt that 50 million people have experienced notable human rights violations under US law. The world number of abortions is over 1.5 billion since 1970 or so. Have 1.5 billion people in the entire world in the last 30 years experienced human rights violations by the US government alone?

 

[Arandur]

…
We have seen a list of intrinsically evil acts, and any law upholding them must be intrinsically unjust.

Humanae Vitae and the others refer specifically to abortion and do not address torture or other intrinsic evils, but we can find some other sources for that:
…

What’s your point?
Are you trying to prove that torture is morally wrong, intrinsically evil? I never disagreed with that. I was speaking of how we are to act as responsible citizens when we are often faced with a choice that MUST be made where BOTH groups or candidates support or condone some law or action that is at least possibly intrinsically evil. Do we just stay home ALL THE TIME, then, being good men who choose to do nothing?

Or do we choose to oppose the greatest evils and support good to the best of our ability?

Remember, there are politicians in both parties who supported the interrogation methods in Guantanamo, and politicians (including both presidential candidates) in both parties who opposed those interrogation methods.

Remember also that the degree of harshness in those interrogation methods is of quite debatable extent and frequency. This is why I make the very important distinction that we are not talking about extreme physical torture on a mass scale against people who are likely innocent. We are instead talking about far less extreme and injurious methods used on a very limited basis. Still not acceptable, but almost INFINITELY less serious in magnitude than abortion. There’s not even a risk of violation of the first right to life there!

the Church teaches that "there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object".

You might want to reread that.

What a snakelike tactic! Read the very next sentence from your quote my friend:
“Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions,”

Here is an explicit recognition that morality is affected by circumstances and intentions!

Your source was concerned with explaining what an intrinsic evil is and what sorts of actions they are. It was not about weighing the severity of those evils against each other or morality in context of circumstances. An intrinsically evil act is one that cannot be made good, but that, as the sentence you deceptively choose to ignore clearly states, individual culpability and the degree of evil is affected by circumstance and intention.

I would like to reach some sort of conclusion on this issue first, since I think it is of some importance and debating two issues simultaneously would allow one of the issues to be given short shrift. You will find that the answer to that question will of necessity be answered as we explore this first question.

But I shall give you a brief preview–we must not commit or condone grave sin, even to end grave sin.

What issue? Whether torture is wrong? I always agreed with that. I also agree that some of the interrogation methods constitute mental torture. You made a statement earlier that seems to suggest that basically any form of interrogation is torture, and that I disagree with, and am quite free to within the Church.

So if that was the “issue,” it was never really an issue, and no, it doesn’t address my question.

If you are given a choice between one monstrous evil on a vast scale poisoning all levels of society and one that is far less in degree and magnitude, which MUST you choose to oppose?

I submit that you will murder your own soul if you choose to support the killing of millions of innocent babies so that you can more strenuously oppose inflicting physical distress on a few men of murderous intent to try to save more lives. That choice is not justice. That choice is EVIL.

 

[Janet_S]

Originally Posted by Janet S
If you can’t defend the Democrats’ firm resolution to make abortion on demand the law of the land–here and all around the world-- without changing the subject to torture, war, and the death penalty, that’s pretty convincing to me that there is no defense for them.

The subject is ``A gut check for American Catholicism,’’ an article about political ramifications for Caritas in Veritate.

Were the subject abortion, I would agree that this is changing the subject.

I wasn’t talking about changing the topic of this thread. What I meant is that pro-Democrat, pro-choice Catholics cannot defend the Democrat’s uncompromising intolerance of the pro-life position on its own merit, since there is no rational defense for it, so they always change the topic to something they think is comparably as bad with the Republicans–such as torture, war, or the death penalty.

But there is no comparison. For one thing, the Democrats are not the peace party, are not against the death penalty, and were not opposed to waterboarding until it became evident that they could score political points by using this issue against the Bush administration. Also, no Republican is promoting torture, especially in a way that is anything like the way Democrats promote abortion–increasing funding for it and enshrining it as a fundamental human right.

And how you could read *Evangelium Vitae *or *Veritatis Splendor *and somehow twist that to justify your support of Obama or any other pro-abortion politician is amazing to me.

 

[traillius]

I suspect this person is a liberal catholic. It is possible that he equates 1 post born human of any age with a great number of unborn babies, say several hundred. As twisted as this thinking is, it would explain his zeal against human rights violations, and his claim of the moral equivalence of abortion and torture. Maybe he thinks like other liberals, " what about who is already here. " as if the unborn babies are on another plane of existence. * shrug * I suppose he learned that from parents, teachers, professors, etc…

 

[andrewagill]

And how you could read *Evangelium Vitae *or *Veritatis Splendor *and somehow twist that to justify your support of Obama or any other pro-abortion politician is amazing to me.

Very well.

I would encourage you to find the places where I have suggested that we should support pro-choice candidates.

Perhaps it was here?

Surely, we cannot vote for a pro-choice candidate, but why do I never see any condemnation of the Republicans for their support of intrinsic evil?

Or maybe here?

No one is saying that. What I am saying is that we cannot vote for a pro-choice candidate, but we cannot simply start campaigning for the pro-torture candidate, either.

I will get back to the argument shortly, but I have slandered no one, and I would encourage you not to slander me.

 

[Ridgerunner]

George Bush told people that they could keep molesting the unborn for stem cell research, but if they wanted federal money, they could only keep molesting the ones they had molested before.

This is totally false.

What Bush did was limit federal funds to research on those fetal cell lines that were already in labs at the time he took office. In other words, the embryonic killing had already taken place, and all they were then dealing with were the cells only.

You might know that the Church approves of the use of certain vaccines that utilize cell lines that were taken from aborted children long ago, but who were not aborted for that reason. Those children were already dead, and their cell lines have been kept going in vitro. Just cells.

That, and Bush’s approach was much like the (quite moral) decision of those people who crash landed in the Andes years ago and, while they killed no one, they nevertheless ate the bodies of the dead in order to let the living keep living. A grim choice, but not an immoral one to make.

It’s like using cadaver tissue for burns. The cadaver was not killed to harvest his skin. He died for other reasons and his skin was harvested after his death to keep another person alive.

Totally different things from what the Obama administration has approved, which is the direct killing of living human embryos in order to harvest their cells. Indeed, it includes the creation of human beings in order to kill them and harvest their tissues.

Bush’s approval was like those Andean crash survivors, the vaccine and the cadaver tissue. The Obama approval was more like Dracula.

 

[traillius]

We must support the candidate who most opposes the gravest intrinsic evils before all other considerations, if any such candidate exists. Practically speaking, voting against abortion always trumps any other concern, or at least it should for all catholics. When you say we should not vote pro-choice, but we must not vote ‘pro-torture’ you leave no choices. What do you expect us to do, not vote? then we allow an intrinsic evil either way.
I would vote proportional to the evil. I have no other way of choosing. In my opinion as well as in catholic teaching no evils are proportional to abortion.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

We must support the candidate who most opposes the gravest intrinsic evils before all other considerations, if any such candidate exists. Practically speaking, voting against abortion always trumps any other concern, or at least it should for all catholics. When you say we should not vote pro-choice, but we must not vote ‘pro-torture’ you leave no choices. What do you expect us to do, not vote? then we allow an intrinsic evil either way.
I would vote proportional to the evil. I have no other way of choosing. In my opinion as well as in catholic teaching no evils are proportional to abortion.

but shouldn’t we also take into account the likelihood of candidate X actually doing anything about abortion?

IMHO, the GOP has done no more than lip service to pro-life voters, while taking for granted that they will keep voting them into office and keep donating $$ to them.

There are too many Americans who believe that abortion should remain legal to expect that ANY politician is going to make a serious effort to make it illegal. Change the mindset of the American PEOPLE and we will see a change in the attitude of the politicians.

 

[Janet_S]

Very well.

I would encourage you to find the places where I have suggested that we should support pro-choice candidates.

Perhaps it was here?

Or maybe here?

I will get back to the argument shortly, but I have slandered no one, and I would encourage you not to slander me.

Sorry, I was under the impression that you voted for Obama and are trying to justify why you did it. Are you saying that you didn’t vote for him? Because if he isn’t pro-choice, I don’t know who is.

 

[Janet_S]

but shouldn’t we also take into account the likelihood of candidate X actually doing anything about abortion?

IMHO, the GOP has done no more than lip service to pro-life voters, while taking for granted that they will keep voting them into office and keep donating $$ to them.

There are too many Americans who believe that abortion should remain legal to expect that ANY politician is going to make a serious effort to make it illegal. Change the mindset of the American PEOPLE and we will see a change in the attitude of the politicians.

But, as a few of us said before, the Democrats want to increase funding for abortion and aim to revoke any existing laws we have that in any way restrict or regulate abortion.

So, even if the Republicans do nothing, which some of them do, but not all of them, it is still a better alternative than the Democrats who actually want to use tax dollars to fund abortions and who want to ensure that abortion is a fundamental human right in our country and throughout the world.

Any party that takes this stand does not value the intrinsic value of human life and cannot be trusted.

 

[andrewagill]

Sorry, I was under the impression that you voted for Obama and are trying to justify why you did it. Are you saying that you didn’t vote for him? Because if he isn’t pro-choice, I don’t know who is.

I did not vote for Obama.

I had considered that since McCain was pro-abortion in the cases of rape and incest (at least) that his Supreme Court nominees might make precedent that truly pro-life justices might have a difficult time overturning since these would be so similar to their own decisions, but in the end, I could not under any circumstance vote for a pro-choice candidate.

 

[Janet_S]

I did not vote for Obama.

I had considered that since McCain was pro-abortion in the cases of rape and incest (at least) that his Supreme Court nominees might make precedent that truly pro-life justices might have a difficult time overturning since these would be so similar to their own decisions, but in the end, I could not under any circumstance vote for a pro-choice candidate.

My apologies then.

It’s not that I’m a hard-core Republican, actually I was a Democrat for most of my life, but I came to the realization that Democrats are so wrong on the life issues that it has poisoned all their other policies. They don’t value human life and it shows in a myriad ways.