Account: bishop says "You can't be an authentic Catholic and pro-abortion." --As pro-abortion "Catholic" in U.S. takes the public eye

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What is it with the reference to slavery all the time when there is a topic regarding abortion. I don’t get it. Is it simply that slavery was once legal and now it isn’t? There are lots of things that were once legal in this country and now they are not. Why pick slavery?

Slavery is illegal based on the 13th amendment to our Constitution. So asking if supporting a candidate that was in support of something that is clearly illegal is a non starter.

The correct analogy would be that since the courts have deemed abortion legal in some instances, then how could one support a candidate that was not for abortion. They are going against the current law. Of course this is based on legality, not necessarily moral argument.

Did the Church speak out when slavery was legal in this country and say that you can not vote for a candidate who supports slavery? Don’t know, there are folks here who probably do, please fill us in. If the Church did, was communion refused to those people who supported slavery and presented themselves to receive the Eucharist?

God, in the Bible certainly allowed for slavery. Was God wrong?
 
farronwolf said:
What is it with the reference to slavery all the time when there is a topic regarding abortion. I don’t get it. Is it simply that slavery was once legal and now it isn’t? There are lots of things that were once legal in this country and now they are not. Why pick slavery?
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They are using something that is gravely wrong to compare responses.
 
StudentMI said:
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farronwolf:
God, in the Bible certainly allowed for slavery. Was God wrong?
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If you read the book of Exodus and the book of Deuteronomy you see God didn’t approve slavery when it meant people were in ‘Exile’.
 
Miiiils said:
I have heard it all, friend.
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Then you must also heard why good Catholics can vote for him, and why they have made similar remarks about the incumbent. I do not expect this bishop to understand. He leaves half way around the world.
 
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VanitasVanitatum said:
They are using something that is gravely wrong to compare responses.
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So when did slavery become gravely wrong according to the Church? I am not arguing that it isn’t, just really curious as to when the Church decided it was.

There is a long history of slavery within communities of the Church, correct. Popes, Bishops, orders had slaves in the not too distant past of the Church.

So we are using something that is gravely wrong but overlooked, slavery, to compare to something that is gravely wrong, abortion, to determine if someone is an “authentic” whatever that means Catholic.
 
farronwolf said:
So we are using something that is gravely wrong but overlooked, slavery, to compare to something that is gravely wrong, abortion, to determine if someone is an “authentic” whatever that means Catholic.
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The poster was talking about priorities in voting not whether someone is Catholic.
 
Many Catholics, including some clerics and many Catholic politicians, have since 1973 subordinated opposition to abortion to a desire to support left wing social policies. The result is to make it easier to find excuses to support pro-abortion candidates.
 
SeekSalvation said:

And here’s what he said:​

“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 the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

Here’s what this means:
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According to whom?
Catholics must oppose abortion, not simply morally but also politically; but a Catholic may vote for a pro-abortion politician as long as
(1) the Catholic does not support the politician’s pro-abortion position , and

(2) the Catholic has “proportionate reasons” for supporting the politician despite his pro-abortion position .

In other words, a Catholic cannot be “personally opposed but support legal abortion,” and if a Catholic ever does vote for a pro-abortion politician, he better have reasons good enough to justify it.

The “proportionate reasons” is important, particularly since abortion is such a grave evil on such a wide scale, with millions of victims.
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In framing the choice that way you are presenting a false choice. Voting for an anti-abortion candidate may not have any effect on the number of abortions. A voter can certainly take that into account. Just looking at the statistics on abortions one cannot see any clear signal that voting for anti-abortion candidates ends this evil. To me it appears that many candidates adopt the anti-abortion stance mostly to appeal to a segment of the electorate, but whose real purpose is to push an agenda unrelated to abortion. That can be a reason too. Cardinal Ratzinger did not say what is proportional for the simple reason that such a decision is a matter of prudential judgement. Faithful Catholics can decide for themselves what strategy would best oppose abortion. For example, I think that much could be done right now, even with Roe v. Wade in place, to oppose abortion, but it is not being done. Namely, provide state-funded pre-natal care and delivery services for all pregnant women, regardless of ability to pay or delivery complications. Increasing tax deductions for child dependents would help too. Are you in favor of these policies? Or do they conflict with other ideological principles that you find, for proportionate reasons, to be more important than opposing abortion? Or is criminalizing abortion the only political remedy that you would support?
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LeafByNiggle said:
since we do not have any pro-slavery candidates or madmen running for office. (…or do we???)
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There is slavery in the US today, in your town likely. The face of slavery today is an undocument immigrant who is working to pay for the “expense” of coming here to a business that adds to their debt every day. They are sex workers, restaurant workers, nail salon workers, you would be astonished how many modern slaves we have in the US.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
To me it appears that many candidates adopt the anti-abortion stance mostly to appeal to a segment of the electorate, but whose real purpose is to push an agenda unrelated to abortion.
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YES. In fact, I’d say that the leadership of neither party wants an end to abortion, they do not want to give up such a cash cow power wedge issue.
 
VanitasVanitatum said:
The poster was talking about priorities in voting not whether someone is Catholic.
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The thread is about being and authentic Catholic, or not being an authentic Catholic and pro abortion. Some in the thread have the opinion that even voting for someone who is pro choice makes one not an authentic Catholic.

To the folks who want to compare abortion to slavery, my question remains, when did the Church decide slavery was a grave evil? Following the line of thinking, does that mean that previously Catholics who either accepted, or were indifferent to slavery weren’t authentic Catholics either. Did the Church or it’s leaders take that position? If not, why do they take it on the issue of abortion?
 
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Not being Catholic, I have no mandate from God regarding the abortion arguments, however, I am anti abortion. I am also tired of the Republican Party using the abortion issue to sway my vote on the one hand and literally doing nothing about the whole abortion problems on the other.

To me, a candidate being anti abortion is about as useful as being anti nuclear weapons. I don’t want either but nothing is going to be done about it…nothing at all. I’m not persuaded by the judicial appointments either as the justices selected for being anti abortion are also often such conservative constitutionalists that I fear all the other decisions they may make. To many, they’re happy with that. I’m not. I want a balanced judiciary that will uphold my rights as well as yours, not one that thinks we were founded on a religion and wants to promote business above personal rights.

So, their abortion stance is mostly meaningless. Neither party will change anything since each of them depend on those constituents that are passionate either for or against abortion. I’m not playing that game…what, besides abortion are you planning to do? That’s where my decisions come from.
 
Pattylt said:
Neither party will change anything since each of them depend on those constituents that are passionate either for or against abortion. I’m not playing that game…what, besides abortion are you planning to do? That’s where my decisions come from.
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If abortion were made illegal it still has to be kept illegal, plus succeding at that may gain the successful party some support.
 
vz71 said:
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Pattylt:
literally doing nothing about the whole abortion problems on the other.
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I was under the impression that installing two pro life supreme court justices was something of a victory for the pro life side.
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It certainly was a political victory. It remains to be seen if that political victory ever does anything that actually reduces abortions.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
You just distorted the claim to make it sound inaccurate.
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That’s a pretty serious accusation.

Let’s examine the facts.
On the one hand we have a claim that Republicans have done nothing for the pro life cause.
On the other, we have demonstrated results of two new supreme court justices that are pro life.

I fail to see any distortion on my part.
Your accusation is misguided.
 
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