It is a Sin to Vote for Pro-Abortion Candidates

[elts1956]

elts, thank you for your respectful tone. I’m not trying to be difficult or evasive. I was on a road trip at the time, listening on the radio, trying to keep my attention on the road, and obviously not taking notes. Truth be told, I was suprised and pleased that my local EWTN feed carried that far! Iin fact, I was shocked.

A caller called in and asked about the hypothetical of one candidate being slightly, or even greatly, more pro-life than another, or two others, but having virtually no chance of winning. Donovan went into an explanation of how weighing practical results can legitimately influence one’s voting decisions, so that then you have to look at less harm, or less evil, or however he put it, given extremely likely outcomes in a political contest. I hesitate to quote because I was unable to write things down without endangering self and other drivers, even though I had a notepad handy. That’s why I say, if I were curious about the literal content, I would call EWTN and ask for the podcast (which might already be available oline), or ask if they have printed transcripts available by mail for a fee, for example.

I wish I could be more specific. Donovan likes to reference the theoretical, as that is his expertise, so that’s why I said earlier: he usually first gets the important details or context of the question from the caller, then gives the appropriate Catholic answer, then expounds further on the Catholic reasoning behind that – often comparing and contrasting different hypotheticals, which does help to frame it for the listener, making the specific question and answer more concrete. I’ve never heard a listener say that Donovan’s explanations are confusing or hard to understand; they almost always say that providing such contexts helps to understand the answer better. He gives examples, then explains why Example A is a good or bad choice (moral or immoral), Example B is the opposite (and why, in the dynamic of moral theology & philosophy), etc.

Thanks Elizabeth. I will contact EWTN. Did you understand him to say when voting one should logically choose a viable candidate in order to lessen the evil of abortion? ie. bo is 100/% pro abortion, McCain was more pro life in that he advocated abortion only in case of rape, incest, or the danger of the mother dying? Am I understanding this correctly? I know some on CAF advocated voting for a pro life candidate who had no chance of winning the POTUS election. To me that was a waste of a vote. Thanks.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I don’t remember him getting into the specifics of particular candidates in the real election. This was a hypothetical.

 

[CPA2]

CPA, you state the Catholic Church’s views and definitions and interpretations and interpretation of Herself and your views regarding abortion and politics very well. I don’t follow the Church as well as you when it comes to what She emphasizes today in politics. My emphasis is elsewhere in what Christ spoke more directly to us on. And it are those things in which I most carry to my politics. We will have to agree to disagree. God bless you and peace.

Let me repeat: Abortion is not about beliefs and passing judgment. Abortion is about violence and bloodshed. Abortion is about victims. Those victims need to be defended! Abortion is not a subject where we can be “broad-minded” and agree to disagree. Just because some people do not recognize the victim as a person does not eliminate our responsibility to defend that victim. Abortion is injustice at its worse. We have to put an end to that injustice.

If the baby in the womb is not a baby, then you can just as well tell me that the moon is made of cheese. Is the moon made of cheese just because you believe it is made of cheese? Should we all decide for ourselves if the moon is made of cheese? Abortion is OK, if I say it is? If that is true, then the moon is made of cheese if I say it is.

We know when human life begins and we know that the moon is not made up of cheese. Don’t we live in the days of modern medicine, fetoscopy and fetal surgery?

Your decisions do not determine reality. No one chooses this crazy weather we are having. It should be equally clear that no one can determine the moral value of a life. The weak should be defended from the strong.

 

[estesbob]

I would really really appreciate seeing the full context of Colin Donovan’s statement so I can know what you are saying. I have looked through your posts, but have found only bits and pieces.

Well we know what Donvan thinks about voting for Obama:

*The difficulty with his argument is that Barack Obama has done absolutely nothing to lessen abortions. On the contrary, in both Illinois and the US Senate he has used his legislative authority to ensure that the decision for death may not be countermanded for any reason WHATSOEVER, not even the existence outside of the womb of the child. Such a position is not pro-choice, it is not even tolerance of an evil to avoid a greater evil. It is pro-enforcing the decision (choice, if you prefer) for death. At the level of moral judgment and motive what can this be but moral cooperation in the greatest evil since the Holocaust, and an evil that has taken almost as many lives as Stalin, and almost half as many as Mao, the greatest butchers of history. *

Furthermore, there is an even greater evil here. The deliberate deprivation of baptism. As Catholics we should see this as even worse than murder, as it has eternal and not just temporal consequences. While we do not know with certainty the fate of unbaptized infants, as Christians we have an obligation to bring every human person to Christ. The pro-enforcing choice position says, I am not only prepared to end the life of a human being to enforce “choice”, I am prepared to see that human being deprived of God for eternity. It doesn’t matter what God actually does about such babies, only that we don’t care!!! This is abortion, and the so-called sophistry of pro-choice, corrupting the very roots of moral reasoning on the two greatest gifts and values we have, natural human life and supernatural eternal life.

ncronline.org/node/2058?page=1

 

[CMatt25]

Well if you are a dyed in the wool Dem, or Pub. and not looking at the moral issues I suppose you could say the Bishops are sticking their noses into the confessional, BUT NOT INTO THE VOTING BOOTH. AGAIN, the directions WERE that we needed to vote for the candidate least likely to promote abortion. You can’t have it both ways. You can either have the leadership of the Magisterium, or you can fumble around with your conscience. Luckily for me, my conscience coincided with what the Magisterium directs. So far I haven’t gotten way laid by relativism, proportionalism, or minimalism.

Forget Bush, bo, Clinton, Carter ad naseum. Check out what the Church really says.

Actually I’m fed up with both the Dems and the Pubs and Tea Partiers. Pubs and Teas more so than Dems. And I’m not so keen on what the Church says either. I’m looking more at what Christ says about the issues He emphasized. That’s where my conscience lies. God bless and peace.

 

[CWBetts]

Actually I’m fed up with both the Dems and the Pubs and Tea Partiers. Pubs and Teas more so than Dems. And I’m not so keen on what the Church says either. I’m looking more at what Christ says about the issues He emphasized. That’s where my conscience lies. God bless and peace.

Now we are geeting to the root of the matter. What we have here is a self-proclaimed pope.

 

[estesbob]

Now we are geeting to the root of the matter. What we have here is a self-proclaimed pope.

That has been his stance all along. Jesus told him the Church is wrong. I am not exagerating-go look at his earlier posts to this thread.

 

[CMatt25]

Now we are geeting to the root of the matter. What we have here is a self-proclaimed pope.

No you are not getting at the root of the matter.

Our beliefs about the definitions of kill and murder as it relates to this, of a baby, when human life begins, the soul entering the body at the moment of conception, are not shared by all people of faith. That’s a fact. Reality. That is the root of the matter. Not that I self proclaim myself Pope. We are not talking about what the moon is made of as CPA tried to suggest. Man has been to the moon and we know it is not cheese.

We Catholics believe we know human life begins with a soul at the moment of conception. But if you would actually take the time to study the views of some other Christians on this besides Catholic, you might understand why our beliefs do not determine all reality on this. And you might have a better understanding of why they have arrived at their views.

Then again perhaps not. Because I do understand you believe your mind must adapt to everything you are told by the Catholic Church and you believe we must force our beliefs on the abortion issue onto others. And it is simply there where you and I differ. I simply do not equate the abortion issue which I can understand to be more of a gray area for many than it is for you or I or the Pope, with the consistency of the moon or with allowing human beings born to be bound into slavery as someone else tried to argue with me. But it’s ok we disagree on where abortion stands in politics. This is still America. The Pope has not taken over our democracy yet.

The Catholic Church however begins with an extreme unrealistic position. A 9 yr old raped in Brazil? What do we do? Oh well lets at first excommunicate her mother for not forcing her 9 yr old child to carry twins. As if the leaders of the Catholic Church had walked in their shoes. While it’s been a reality some in the hierarchy covered up rape, I sincerely doubt any leader of the Catholic Church has been raped and impregnated. Now if I’m not mistaken, I thought I saw where the excommunication was eventually lifted. And if so thank God the Church came to its senses. But see the initial reaction showed the problem with the Catholic Church to begin with. Right away only black and white. No gray. And that is what is not reality.

My position is not that I am Pope. My position is I have not walked in the shoes of a woman who has made the difficult decision to abort. And unlike apparently the Pope, I don’t presume to know her conscience as it is with God.

Anyway you have my position and I have yours. Again God bless and forever may He grant you peace.

 

[CWBetts]

No you are not getting at the root of the matter.

Our beliefs about the definitions of kill and murder as it relates to this, of a baby, when human life begins, the soul entering the body at the moment of conception, are not shared by all people of faith. That’s a fact. Reality. That is the root of the matter. Not that I self proclaim myself Pope. We are not talking about what the moon is made of as CPA tried to suggest. Man has been to the moon and we know it is not cheese.

We Catholics believe we know human life begins with a soul at the moment of conception. But if you would actually take the time to study the views of some other Christians on this besides Catholic, you might understand why our beliefs do not determine all reality on this. And you might have a better understanding of why they have arrived at their views.

Then again perhaps not. Because I do understand you believe your mind must adapt to everything you are told by the Catholic Church and you believe we must force our beliefs on the abortion issue onto others. And it is simply there where you and I differ. I simply do not equate the abortion issue which I can understand to be more of a gray area for many than it is for you or I or the Pope, with the consistency of the moon or with allowing human beings born to be bound into slavery as someone else tried to argue with me. But it’s ok we disagree on where abortion stands in politics. This is still America. The Pope has not taken over our democracy yet.

The Catholic Church however begins with an extreme unrealistic position. A 9 yr old raped in Brazil? What do we do? Oh well lets at first excommunicate her mother for not forcing her 9 yr old child to carry twins. As if the leaders of the Catholic Church had walked in their shoes. While it’s been a reality some in the hierarchy covered up rape, I sincerely doubt any leader of the Catholic Church has been raped and impregnated. Now if I’m not mistaken, I thought I saw where the excommunication was eventually lifted. And if so thank God the Church came to its senses. But see the initial reaction showed the problem with the Catholic Church to begin with. Right away only black and white. No gray. And that is what is not reality.

My position is not that I am Pope. My position is I have not walked in the shoes of a woman who has made the difficult decision to abort. And unlike apparently the Pope, I don’t presume to know her conscience as it is with God.

Anyway you have my position and I have yours. Again God bless and forever may He grant you peace.

And your position is evil. Support of abortion is moral coperation in the sin.

 

[CMatt25]

And your position is evil. Support of abortion is moral coperation in the sin.

CBetts, believe and judge as you choose. Since I follow Jesus here’s my other “evil” cheek for you to slap. God bless.

 

[CWBetts]

CBetts, believe and judge as you choose. Since I follow Jesus here’s my other “evil” cheek for you to slap. God bless.

Anyone who supporst abortion does not follow Jesus

 

[elts1956]

Actually I’m fed up with both the Dems and the Pubs and Tea Partiers. Pubs and Teas more so than Dems. And I’m not so keen on what the Church says either. I’m looking more at what Christ says about the issues He emphasized. That’s where my conscience lies. God bless and peace.

So you are now interpreting what Christ said for yourself rather than follow what the Church has taught and intrpreted for over 2000 years? Christ told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That includes the unborn, the disabled, the ill and infirm, but the protection and the love of the unborn come first.

Statements from Church History

The Fathers Speak for Life
Quotations from the early Church Fathers on the Sanctity of Human Life

The Didache – ca 120 A.D.
“Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion.” - 2.2

The Way of Death is filled with people who are…murderers of children and abortionists of God’s creatures.” -5.1-2

The Epistle of Barnabas – ca 125 A.D.
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor more than thy own life. Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion.” - 19:5

The Apocalypse of Peter – ca 135
“I saw a gorge in which the discharge and excrement of the tortured ran down and became like a lake. There sat women, and the discharge came up to their throats; and opposite them sat many children, who were born prematurely, weeping. And from them went forth rays of fire and smote the women on the eyes. These were those who produced children outside of marriage and who procured abortions” - 26

“those who slew the unborn children will be tortured forever, for God wills it to be so.” - 2:264

Clement of Alexandria – ca 150-180
“Our whole life can go on in observation of the laws of nature, if we gain dominion over our desires from the beginning and if we do not kill, by various means of a perverse art, the human offspring, born according to the designs of divine providence; for these women who, in order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the child completely dead, abort at the same time their own human feelings.” - Paedagogus 2

 

[elts1956]

Actually I’m fed up with both the Dems and the Pubs and Tea Partiers. Pubs and Teas more so than Dems. And I’m not so keen on what the Church says either. I’m looking more at what Christ says about the issues He emphasized. That’s where my conscience lies. God bless and peace.

No you are not getting at the root of the matter.

Our beliefs about the definitions of kill and murder as it relates to this, of a baby, when human life begins, the soul entering the body at the moment of conception, are not shared by all people of faith. That’s a fact. Reality. That is the root of the matter. Not that I self proclaim myself Pope. We are not talking about what the moon is made of as CPA tried to suggest. Man has been to the moon and we know it is not cheese.

We Catholics believe we know human life begins with a soul at the moment of conception. But if you would actually take the time to study the views of some other Christians on this besides Catholic, you might understand why our beliefs do not determine all reality on this. And you might have a better understanding of why they have arrived at their views. Yes, we believe ensoulment takes place at conception, but whether on not everyone agrees with that, abortion remains the crime of killing a human being. What excuse can you give for that?

Then again perhaps not. Because I do understand you believe your mind must adapt to everything you are told by the Catholic Church and you believe we must force our beliefs on the abortion issue onto others. And it is simply there where you and I differ. I simply do not equate the abortion issue which I can understand to be more of a gray area for many than it is for you or I or the Pope, with the consistency of the moon or with allowing human beings born to be bound into slavery as someone else tried to argue with me. But it’s ok we disagree on where abortion stands in politics. This is still America. The Pope has not taken over our democracy yet. So you are more political than Catholic. Too bad for you and our nation.

The Catholic Church however begins with an extreme unrealistic position. A 9 yr old raped in Brazil? What do we do? Oh well lets at first excommunicate her mother for not forcing her 9 yr old child to carry twins. As if the leaders of the Catholic Church had walked in their shoes. While it’s been a reality some in the hierarchy covered up rape, I sincerely doubt any leader of the Catholic Church has been raped and impregnated. Now if I’m not mistaken, I thought I saw where the excommunication was eventually lifted. And if so thank God the Church came to its senses. But see the initial reaction showed the problem with the Catholic Church to begin with. Right away only black and white. No gray. And that is what is not reality. What is your reality, my reality, anyone elses reality. All are differenct. The only law we can depend on is the law of the Church which remains constant otherwise we have utter chaos. And so you do not believe in absolute truth nor intrinsic evil. Abortion is an intrinsic evil which may never never be done nor condoned. The case in Brazil was a hard pill to swallow. If you have Faith in God, however, I am sure the little girl was under His protection. The mother, the doctors committed a grivious sin by supporting this decision. They made a choice. It carried consequences, unlike many choices made with lack of responsibility.

My position is not that I am Pope. My position is I have not walked in the shoes of a woman who has made the difficult decision to abort. And unlike apparently the Pope, I don’t presume to know her conscience as it is with God.

Anyway you have my position and I have yours. Again God bless and forever may He grant you peace.

 

[CMatt25]

Anyone who supporst abortion does not follow Jesus

Jesus didn’t even mention the word abortion directly. But CBetts have it your way and put words into His mouth if you want. God bless.

 

[CMatt25]

Elts, I hardly conclude you need me nor the ECFs to interpret Christ for you. CWBetts is actually putting a word into Christ’s mouth which He never once spoke in Scripture. But still maybe you’d like to check out more Church history before you conclude anything about the past 2000 yrs.

St. Augustine in the Enchiridion said “But who is not rather disposed to think that unformed fetuses perish like seeds which have not fructified”. Unformed fetuses? Fetuses might actually need to fructify or grow from their embryonic state before we can call it murder?

St Thomas Aquinas maintained that the sin in abortion was not homicide unless the fetus was ensouled, and thus, a human being. Aquinas had said the fetus is first endowed with a vegetative soul, then an animal soul, and then — when its body is developed — a rational soul.

Pope Gregory XIV issued his Sedes Apostolica, in which he advised church officials, "where no homicide or no animated fetus is involved, not to punish more strictly than the sacred canons or civil legislation does.

God bless and peace.

faculty.cua.edu/pennington/Law111/CatholicHistory.htm

 

[diggerdomer]

But then I woke up and looked at the hierarchy of good and evil and decided the unborn need more protection than a likely criminal on death row.

So there are some human lives that are more objectively valuable to God than others?

 

[diggerdomer]

Of course it’s straightforward in their lingo. Nothing definite. No hierarchy of evil emphasized. First they mention abortion and then in the next para. they say something like “Of course other issues (of social justice) should not be ignored.” Now how does that clear one’s mind? If one decided to vote in the past election because of economic, or other Prudential issues one had the clear go ahead from these guys. As I said ,a convoluted mess in which they say nothing.

People needed clear concise guidance in this past election. Most parishes didn’t get it, because most of the Bishops were sitting on their hands trying to molify the pols.

Of course they teach a hierarchy. They clearly identify intrinsic evils as distinct from those that aren’t. Did you read it, really? Carefully, prayerfully, and again, with (name removed by moderator)ut from others? Did you talk about this teaching with your parish priest, or others on parish staff?

 

[diggerdomer]

I would really really appreciate seeing the full context of Colin Donovan’s statement so I can know what you are saying. I have looked through your posts, but have found only bits and pieces.

Who is Colin Donovan?

 

[Elizabeth502]

^ You missed all the excitement, dd.

(Think: kpeople

Colin Donovan is the VP of Moral Theology for CA. He has a Friday afternoon EWTN radio show, but he was also a guest last Thursday on CAL on Patrick Coffin’s show.

 

[diggerdomer]

^ You missed all the excitement, dd.

(Think: kpeople

Colin Donovan is the VP of Moral Theology for CA. He has a Friday afternoon EWTN radio show, but he was also a guest last Thursday on CAL on Patrick Coffin’s show.

Thanks. I still don’t know who he is, and why someone quoted a response of mine on this thread and referred to him.