Cardinal: It's not automatic sin to vote for pro-abortion candidate

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  1. cardinal, not pope…
  2. nope, not automatically a sin, but you had better have one heck of a mitiating circumstance (like the other guy was pro abort and a euthanasia supporter)
 
Last year Ratzinger/Benedict said that a Catholic could vote for a pro-choice politician under certain conditions. In particular, he wrote:
When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor 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.
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Linky
 
A mere act of voting of a pro-abortion canidate cannot be a moral sin (no action is).

Sin requires
  1. Grave Matter (which this certainly is)
  2. Postive choice (the agent freely chooses this)
  3. Knowlege of it’s sinful nature (which every Catholic should know)
A case would be: If BOTH politicos were pro-choice, then a Catholic could choose a canidate based on other factors. If voting for a pro-choice canidate was, by a mere act, mortally sinful, then a Catholic here could not vote at all.

There is also the case of “proportional reasons”. This is a VERY high bar.

If one canidate was pro-choice, and the other was against abortion, but declared his first offical act would be to nuke New Zeeland, then a case might be made, otherwise…
 
Peace be with you!

I hope I wasn’t the only one deeply upset by this comment:

“Murder refers to man, while here the reference is to the embryo. Law and morality have always distinguished between murder, infanticide and abortion. Should we suddenly erase this distinction?” he said.

In Christ,
Rand
 
Cardinal Pompedda said the church was right to condemn all forms of abortion, but he said he would not call abortion “murder,” because of respect for language.
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“Murder refers to man, while here the reference is to the embryo. Law and morality have always distinguished between murder, infanticide and abortion. Should we suddenly erase this distinction?” he said.
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He said he thought the church could fully defend the human embryo’s right to life without artificially dramatizing the differences with those who think differently.
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“I’ve also heard the killing of embryos compared with the Shoah. But I would invite people to use more moderate language. Isn’t it enough to say ‘abortion’?” he said.
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No wonder we have so much confusion among the laity as to what is true and how we ought to act.

This same cardinal approved of this:
In an interview published a day earlier, Cardinal Mario Francesco Pompedda had indicated that he was open to the recognition of civil unions. Although he made it clear that the measure should not be a step toward recognition for same-sex marriage, Cardinal Pompedda observed the proposal would offer some legal protection for the rights of unmarried coupleshttp://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=60532
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I have always agreed with that - it’s not necessarily a mortal sin to vote for a pro-choice candidate.

If you vote BECAUSE they’re pro-abortion, then, yeah, it’s a sin.

If you vote because you don’t think that voting for someone else is the best thing, overall, then that’s not a sin.

Somebody could think “Well, under this president, we’d have better health care and education and therefor less people wanting abortions. Meanwhile, this president wouldn’t reduce the number of abortions in any real way and he’d also do a lot of things I think are very bad.”

Now, somebody could be WRONG in their reasoning, but they’re not obligated to be omniscient. They’re only obligated to vote in good conscience for candidates that will govern in a way as to do more good than evil.

You can try to make arguments to convince someone that Candidate A will be better than Candidate B, but someone can still see things differently than you, in good conscience.
 
How will we end the evil of abortion if we don’t support the candidates and party is against it? Are there worse evils that abortion?
 
It can be a tough call. I also consider what the position in question is; a tax assessor election is different than a senate seat election. Each case is different.
 
Rand Al'Thor:
Peace be with you!

I hope I wasn’t the only one deeply upset by this comment:

“Murder refers to man, while here the reference is to the embryo. Law and morality have always distinguished between murder, infanticide and abortion. Should we suddenly erase this distinction?” he said.

In Christ,
Rand
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There is no moral distinction between murder, infanticide, abortion, etc. Murder is a moral category taking different forms (i.e., abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, genocide, etc.). But he’s correct that legal distinctions have been made…some forms of murder are tolerated by some regimes (i.e., abortion, Jews during the holocaust) and other forms are not.
 
It would be interesting to hear what the cardinal would have to say regarding voting for a candidate who favored killing abortionists.
 
Smoke of Satan.

"The cardinal said a Catholic voter might choose such a pro-abortion candidate as a “lesser evil, when there are no candidates who respond more fully to his scale of values. He might choose him, let’s say, for other aspects of his (political) program that the voter supports.”

Catholics who do vote for such a politician might carry out their own pro-life responsibilities in other ways, for example, by working against abortion through political or cultural initiatives, he said."

The Cardinal is plain wrong here because by the second paragraph quoted, he is assuming the person knows about the candidate’s pro-abortion stance and it’s gravity but votes for the candidate anyhow. That is not acceptable unless there are “proportionate reasons”.

What “proportionate reasons” could the candidate support that would outweigh free murder at will? What “proportionate reasons” could the opposing candidate support that would be more grave than free murder at will? It would have to be at least a genocide proposal.

This obfuscation is the smoke of Satan. It saddens me to see this in the Church.
 
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Brad:
Smoke of Satan.

"The cardinal said a Catholic voter might choose such a pro-abortion candidate as a “lesser evil, when there are no candidates who respond more fully to his scale of values. He might choose him, let’s say, for other aspects of his (political) program that the voter supports.”

Catholics who do vote for such a politician might carry out their own pro-life responsibilities in other ways, for example, by working against abortion through political or cultural initiatives, he said."

The Cardinal is plain wrong here because by the second paragraph quoted, he is assuming the person knows about the candidate’s pro-abortion stance and it’s gravity but votes for the candidate anyhow. That is not acceptable unless there are “proportionate reasons”.

What “proportionate reasons” could the candidate support that would outweigh free murder at will? What “proportionate reasons” could the opposing candidate support that would be more grave than free murder at will? It would have to be at least a genocide proposal.

This obfuscation is the smoke of Satan. It saddens me to see this in the Church.
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Thank you for making this basic observation. The man should not be a cardinal.

:mad:
 
Hey, Brad, I love the phrase, “Smoke of Satan.” Can I borrow it?

Back to the subject - I actually can think of a proportionate reason to vote for a candidate who supports abortion.

The other candidate supports abortion and euthanasia, but the first is against euthanasia. Thus, he/she would indeed be the lesser of two evils.

We should keep the Terri Schiavo case in our minds, when next we vote…
 
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Ruthie:
Hey, Brad, I love the phrase, “Smoke of Satan.” Can I borrow it?

Back to the subject - I actually can think of a proportionate reason to vote for a candidate who supports abortion.

The other candidate supports abortion and euthanasia, but the first is against euthanasia. Thus, he/she would indeed be the lesser of two evils.

We should keep the Terri Schiavo case in our minds, when next we vote…
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That would be a very bad choice indeed. I think I would vote for someone who was not running in that case.

You can certainly borrow the phrase. I borrowed it (but I’m drawing a blank from whom - someone(a priest and/or saint) had said that the smoke of Satan had entered the Church and they were right).
 
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Brad:
That would be a very bad choice indeed. I think I would vote for someone who was not running in that case.

You can certainly borrow the phrase. I borrowed it (but I’m drawing a blank from whom - someone(a priest and/or saint) had said that the smoke of Satan had entered the Church and they were right).
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Pope Paul VI
 
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