As far as I can tell, the Church has pretty much acted consistently with traditionalists as it has with Catholic politicians who tend to be pro choice, as their pro choice positions also support things that result in conditions that greatly reduce abortion.
A lot of the time you see voters guides in the U.S. that address these issues. However if one looks at voters guides for Catholics in several other Democratic countries where abortion is legally available, you see somewhat conflicting positions when compared to those in the U.S.
the 2008 Voters Guide For the Catholics of New Zealand was much more detailed.
Life itself
“The Church teaches that human life begins at conception and lasts until we draw our final breath… When society decides that certain types of killing are moral the door is opened to many others.” NZCBC, Consistent ethic of life, 1997
Every abortion involves taking one person’s life for another person’s reasons. But we need to do more than condemn. Our responsibility to protect unborn children includes considering the legal framework for abortions, and also supporting pregnant and single mothers, and ensuring all children are welcomed and supported.
What is the position of political candidates on the protection of unborn children?
What do they say about the social and economic circumstances which contribute to higher or lower rates of abortion?
What protection and support do political candidates offer for children likely to be born with disabilities?
catholic.org.nz/statements/0808_elections.php
This is an interesting distinction between the U.S. and New Zealand. Particularly when it comes to the social and economic circumstances. In the U.S. the issue of socioeconomic factors with regard to abortion is often denied, but when it is not, it tends to be ignored and pushed to the side.
Most Catholic Politicians also have a problem with having attention focused on them for the single issue of abortion, while much of the good that they do with regard to social justice is just something for which they are given absolutely no credit. A few years back a group of 48 Catholics elected to national office met with an archbishop and presented a letter stating something to that fact.
What these Catholics tend to object to is that while so much attention is focused on them, it is probably rare to see any focus on conservative or Republican politicians when they work to repeal or even eliminate these social programs. Its a valid point.
It seems that when you get down to the bottom of the differences between both the traditionalists and the liberal Catholics in the U.S. the bottom line both seems to have something to do with Vatican II.
Traditionalists reject a lot of it, some of it has to do with forms, but much has to do with a single issue. The place of personal conscience. Some of conservatives were the firmest opponents to both conscience and the place of dissent in the church. However many of the positions that are now doctrine in the church such as the Vatican II’s " Declaration on Human Freedom" as well as the “Declaration on Religious Freedom”
both based on and perhaps written by Father John Courtney Murray who faced fierce opposition from the most influential American Catholic theologians of their time, Fathers Joseph Fenton and Francis Connell, who called Father Murray’s arguments, “destructive, scandalous, and heretical”. But eventually the Vatican II council voted to approve Father Murray’s positions by a vote of 2,308 to 80.
That John Courtney Murray was a dissident is undeniable. That his prolonged dissent was vindicated by the church at its highest level is equally undeniable.
The same can be said of the traditionalists. They too have been dissenters for many, many years.
While traditionalists and liberals are both often considered to be “dissident” both base their dissent on both church doctrine as well as a long history of it being the case that a lot of what the Church now relies for many argument came out of a lot of dissent, with a lot of dissenters coming under much criticism and outright attack. St Thomas Aquinas had his books burned by the Church, Cardinal Newman was fervently opposed and attacked for his statements that his conscience came first, and Papal infallability came second and Father Murray, well he died of a series of heart attacks based on the the assaults on the positions he took, and fought to have recognized for almost two decades. In the end, these dissidents have been the foundation for much that the church now holds as doctrine.
There is much to be recommended for positions taken by the traditionalists.
I suppose that the difference between the way the Church handles the traditionalists and elected political officials is that most of the traditionalists are clerics. They hold a rather special position in that their knowledge of Church doctrine is by the nature of their work, supposedly better formed than that of lay Catholic politicians, no matter how highly they rank in the secular scheme of things.
The issue of conscience is one that has not been settled OR solved by the church so in the case of both liberals and traditionalists there is a Latin phrase I forget the exact wording of is “Where there is doubt, there is room for dissent” or something to that effect. Essentially the position that is taken that where there is a general principal, but no specific definitions, there is room for argument. Both liberal Catholics and Traditionalists base there dissent or their withholding of assent on this.
However it is important to note, that much that is now held as doctrine came out o both dissent as well as popular positions taken by the laity. Even things such as the Marian assumption did not come out of doctrine, but out of the fact that these ideas were held to be so by a large number of the laity.
