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0104
Guest
Was wondering if we are Catholic Christians if a political candidate is pro-abortion should we still vote for that person no matter how many good ideas he or she has.
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dmar198
Guest
Or something even worse than abortion.
Suppose Candidate 1 lines up with Catholicism on all issues except one: he wants to allow abortion in certain cases. Candidate 2 follows Catholicism on one issue only: he wants abortion to be banned in all cases. Meanwhile, he has this problem, among others: he wants to immediately fire all the nukes in the country at major cities, whichever ones have the most people in them. And he can follow through with this plan if he gets elected – the congress can’t stop him for some reason. In that case, it would be okay to vote for Candidate 1. Even though Candidate 1 has the wrong position on abortion, Candidate 2 is still worse.
BTW I’m not providing this example in order to imply there are any realistic situations where voting for a pro-abort is okay. Rather, I’m trying to show that there is almost never any circumstance where you can vote for a pro-abortion candidate, because the circumstances where you could do that are incredibly far-fetched.
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on_the_hill
Guest
Vote for whomever you feel is the best candidate. People who stick to one issue end up with Trump.
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dmar198
Guest
Still better than Hillary.
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SuscipeMeDomine
Guest
There’s no black and white answer to this. Back when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then Cardinal Ratzinger said:
I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to discern what the proportionate reasons are. In any case, there’s a difference between voting for a candidate because of the politician’s stance on abortion and despite the politician’s stance on abortion.
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on_the_hill
Guest
I’m beginning to think we’d be better off with her. In either case, I voted for neither one.on_the_hill:
Still better than Hillary.
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dmar198
Guest
So did I, but now that I’ve seen him in office I wish I had voted for Trump. He’s much better than I thought he would be. He has surprised me since day one with more and more Christlike decisions that seem to mark him as continually improving and getting better. “Winning,” as he puts it.
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anikins
Guest
Interesting. Trump is probably one of the least Christ-like people I can think of.
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Lea101
Guest
If you vote for a pro abortion candidate, but the person is not necessarily trying to increase it (eg allow late term abortions on demand) but rather keep it in place, would it be OK to vote then? If the other candidate is awful, of course?
Tis_Bearself
Patron
There are many people who voted for Trump because they legitimately considered him the best candidate, including many, many people who don’t care all that much about abortion and weren’t particularly motivated by that.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
He gets crucified daily in the press
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ProVobis
Guest
Two Corinthians?
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chieft
Guest
I’ve never understood how supposed “Catholic” politicians in office can be “pro choice”. They justify their position by claiming they personally do not endorse abortion, but don’t want to interfere with others decision. How is that much different than Pontius Pilates decision to let the masses decide Christ’s fate ?
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on_the_hill
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chieft
Guest
If ALL Christians took a stand united. NEVER voting for pro abortion candidates. We would have NO pro abortion leaders. The numbers are in our favor.
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on_the_hill
Guest
Good point.on_the_hill:
There are many people who voted for Trump because they legitimately considered him the best candidate, including many, many people who don’t care all that much about abortion and weren’t particularly motivated by that.
I’m feeling salty about his supporters lately. My devoutly Catholic mother-in-law called my wife last night to boast about how happy she is that Trump is sending “those foreigners” back to their own countries because they’re taking jobs away from Americans. She means the Salvadorans. Very Christlike, ain’t it?
Ironically, the economy is doing well and unemployment is low. You can’t have it both ways: you can’t be upset that “foreigners” are taking jobs from Americans if Trump’s economy boasts low unemployment, which means “Americans” are working.
I’ll tell her that if I am ever in a lawsuit I’ll pray to not get a German-American judge because he might be biased against Polish-Americans.
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fredystairs
Guest
This is in part because of the tenets of Secular Humanism which is pervasive in our culture. They are taught that it is not permissible to state your views. The following is part of an essay that I wrote for one of my classes that I think is germane to the discussion:
From the emphasis in Humanism that only “the scientific spirit and method” is acceptable it follows that there can be no absolute values, there can be no right or wrong. Everything is relative and thus everything needs to be accommodated and allowed for. Anyone who speaks out for an absolute “my way is right and your way is wrong” is pilloried. Thus, Allen Bloom, in his book The Closing of the American Mind, can relate that there was an uproar when then President Ronald Reagan stated that the Soviet Union was an “evil empire” but that there was no such uproar when Reagan stated that the Soviet Union had “different values” than the United States. The conclusion reached is that the values inherent in United States’ representative democracy are no better than those found in the Soviet Union’s communism even though, in many aspects, the values are diametrically opposed.
But what then about traditional religious principles, the ones that state that there is a right and a wrong? Under Humanism, those principles need to remain personal and private. Not only can one not impose one’s religious views on another, apparently, one is not even supposed to talk about them in an open forum. Therefore, during the 2012 vice-presidential debate between Vice President Joseph Biden and the Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, when asked about his stance on abortion, Biden stated,
With regard to — with regard to abortion, I accept my church’s position on abortion as a — what we call de fide (doctrine ?). Life begins at conception. That’s the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life. But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews and — I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike my friend here, the congressman.
One of the problems with the subjectivism that results from the humanist philosophy is that if there is no objective right or wrong, if there are no absolutes, then chaos will prevail. If I have my subjectivity and you have yours, we can both claim to be right or the very least neither of us can be called wrong. If that is the case then everyone can claim that they have the right to do whatever it is that their subjectivism says is acceptable. No one can say that anyone else is wrong and no one can object to another’s conduct.
I hope that this background will help you understand the position.
Blessings
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chieft
Guest
Thanks for the thoughtful explanation. I do understand their position. Unfortunately, many Catholic politicians try to mealy mouth and word smith their “pro choice positions”. May work on the general public, but not too sure on judgement day. When placed in a position of power, Biden and others have turned a blind eye and proactively institutionalized grave sin.
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stupidisasstupiddoes
Guest
Yes. That is basically the siuation in Britain. There’s a practising Catholic called Jacob Rees-Mogg that will hopefully be the next prime minister. Check out his childrens names on Wikipedia if you want to know how Catholic he is! But he realises it would be futile to try and make abortion illegal. The best we can hope for is to reduce it from 24 to 20 weeks. The alternative to him is a frothing mouth marxist who hates religion and would ban it if he could. Jeremy Corbyn makes Bernie Sanders look like a center ground politician!
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Lea101
Guest
But what if the pro abortion candidate is more of the liberal out of the 2?
E.g a liberal who isn’t changing current abortion policies vs an awful conservative.
Just curious bc I wonder how a practicing Catholic would vote in situations like this. It seems that elections are only going to get hella confusing
E.g a liberal who isn’t changing current abortion policies vs an awful conservative.
Just curious bc I wonder how a practicing Catholic would vote in situations like this. It seems that elections are only going to get hella confusing
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