Question about mortal sin and voting

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DanteAlighieri

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I decided not to post this in the Hilary Clinton thread, because I see it as its own discussion.

Someone here recently linked to a site (which I can’t remember) that gave examples of how certain sins would fall under each of the Ten Commandments.

One of the examples was knowingly voting for a pro-choice candidate, which was classified as a mortal sin.

Is this, in fact, the case? I can’t seem to find anything else to support it, but I can certainly see the rationale behind it.

And what is one to do if there are no pro-life candidates with a realistic chance of winning the election? The CCC states that we have a moral obligation to exercise our right to vote. I take that to mean we must vote in good faith, and therefore should not abstain nor write in ridiculous votes (i.e., Walt Disney, my dad, etc.) as a protest.

So…is it mortally sinful to vote for such a candidate?

Peace,
Dante
 
From Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion. General Principles by Cardinal Ratzinger:
[N.B. 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.]
Click to expand...
 
Let’s face it, there will never be a truly Pro-Life candidate that will win a US or UK election.

At best, you might get someone like Bush whose private conscience is Pro-Life, and who will support moves to reduce the prevalence of abortions and oppose moves to extend abortion rights. But that has to be weighed up with everything else the candidate’s going to do. Life doesn’t end at birth.

No presidential candidate will ever run on a ticket of reversing Rowe v. Wade, because it would be political suicide.

The way I see it, our first responsibility is to spread the faith through evangelism, and then once people begin to understand why abortion is such an issue, democratically elected politicians will have to sit up and take notice.

For a good discussion of the issues, I’d suggest Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics: Why the American Right gets it wrong and the Left doesn’t get it
 
In the case where both candidates support abortion, you may vote for ther “lesser of two evils” candidate-- maybe one supports more restrictions than the other for example.

Catholic Answers has a Voter’s Guide, I suggest you obtain a copy.
 
Thanks for the referral, ke! It was very enlightening.

Peace,
Dante
 
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