Conscience and Disagreements on Social Teachings
Fr. Mark A. Pilon
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2017
There is much confusion today about the obligations of Catholics towards positions on political matters taken by individual bishops or conference of bishops or even the pope himself.
Such positions are often referred to as part of the Church’s social teaching, which can be very misleading. Some confessors, myself included, increasingly encounter devout Catholics who ask if they are guilty of sin because they disagree with bishops or the pope on issues such as U.S. immigration policy, Obamacare, the death penalty, etc. My response is to assure them that they are not guilty of sin for such disagreements. But they have a duty to be informed on such issues and to respect the opinions and persons of those with whom they disagree, including Church leaders.
In Catholic social teaching, fundamental moral and social principles are binding. They then have to be applied to complex practical problems. In concrete cases, the principles are more remote than the first principles of the natural law. And when it comes to their application, we are generally not dealing with the same kind of certitude that we find when primary moral principles are applied to personal moral acts.
thecatholicthing.org/2017/02/08/conscience-and-disagreements-on-social-teachings/To suggest that political positions taken by a bishops’ conference – based upon their reading of practical situations related to economic policies, the environment, immigration policies and such things – are equivalent to doctrinal pronouncements binding on Catholic conscience is quite misleading. . . . .
The problem with proclaiming every social issue a moral issue is that it poisons the debate. When the bishops take sides on political issues they essentially assert that theirs is the moral position, and those who oppose them are not merely mistaken but immoral. The debate ceases to be about why proposal A is better than proposal B, and becomes a personal condemnation of those who oppose whatever position the bishops have taken.We have some Bishops putting immigration on the same level as abortion. We can say immigration is important yes, but the seamless garment theory where every issue is a pro-life issue and where abortion is on the same level as immigration is false.
I think it’s a false dichotomy to even begin to compare the two and diminish the one in light of the other. Is ending the acceptance and exercise of abortion the bigger fight in terms of verticality? It most certainly is. That doesn’t mean that on the other extreme, however, we shouldn’t be fighting for the God-given rights and lives of immigrants also (We are all children of God in a strange land), no matter which country they’re entering or which country they’re leaving or fleeing.So True and so well needed today. We have some Bishops putting immigration on the same level as abortion. We can say immigration is important yes, but the seamless garment theory where every issue is a pro-life issue and where abortion is on the same level as immigration is false.
I strongly disagree with this. Issues like abortion and euthanasia differ not just in degree but in kind from issues like immigration. The former deal with direct attacks on life itself; these are quite literally life and death choices.In an all-encompassing definition of the term pro-life—that is, in favor of all who live—yes, the livelihood and survival of people who are immigrating or seeking refuge is a pro-life issue.
This tends to suggest every issue concerning the human condition is reasonably categorised as “pro-life”. What purpose is served by that?…In an all-encompassing definition of the term pro-life—that is, in favor of all who live—yes, the livelihood and survival of people who are immigrating or seeking refuge is a pro-life issue.