Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics

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SoCalRC said:
As numerous others have noted, it seems very odd to me that you are not only willing to apply proportionate reasons, but even grant yourself extra elbow room - THEN argue that other Catholics engaging in proportionate reasons type voting are inarguable complicent in evil.
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I know the feeling well. One poster in particular (not fix) on a parallel thread has said that since I don’t support either of the major party candidates and vote strictly pro-life, that I am sleeping in the same bed as the pro-choice folks.
estesbob said:
Have you noticed that your demand for the perfect canidate has put you in bed with those who claim its ok to vote for canidates who favor abortion on demand.?
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Not only is it uncharitable, as anyone who follows my posts knows well my position on abortion and the plight of the unborn, but it is hurtful as well as wrong.
 
estesbob said:
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A peron who supports unlimited abortion on demand is morally unfit to hold office.
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You need to tells us how many abortions one may support and still be deemed “morally fit” (by you) to hold office. Clearly, you don’t feel that way about those candidates who support abortion in the case of rape and incest. They are apparently more than “morally fit” to hold office, which is why you keep saying that Catholics are obligated to vote for those candidates.
 
Lampo said:
Here again is what the Church you belong to says about abortion:

Please show me somewhere either in the Catechism, Encyclical or some other official Church document that justifies voting for someone that directly opposes this teaching.
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usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship/FCStatement.pdf
  1. When all candidates hold a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate or, after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods.
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The theological basis for this is a concept called “proportionate reasons”. All the choices are evil, so a Catholic may choose to limit evil and promote other good. Since the evil is not directly supported, complicency may be “remote”.

However, notice that not voting is also noted as an option.

Many people here are arguing that “all candidates” can be altered to ‘all viable candidates’. That is, you can bypass a candidate who does not support intrinsic evil in favor of one who does, but who has a better chance of ‘winning’.

But I cannot find this concept anywhere in Church documents or statements from the USCCB.
 
SoCalRC said:
usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship/FCStatement.pdf

The theological basis for this is a concept called “proportionate reasons”. All the choices are evil, so a Catholic may choose to limit evil and promote other good. Since the evil is not directly supported, complicency may be “remote”.

However, notice that not voting is also noted as an option.

Many people here are arguing that “all candidates” can be altered to ‘all viable candidates’. That is, you can bypass a candidate who does not support intrinsic evil in favor of one who does, but who has a better chance of ‘winning’.

But I cannot find this concept anywhere in Church documents or statements from the USCCB.
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Thank you. I sincerely do appreciate the link and quote.
 
Lampo said:
But you don’t know for certain that the results will be no different.
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and you don’t know that they won’t either.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I’ve been voting for Pro Life Republicans since I was 18 yrs old-a LONG time ago. My 21 year old niece can get an abortion just as easily today as I could have gotten one those many years ago. She could have gotten one at 16 just as easily. Thankfully, she was raised as a good Catholic and she would never consider such a thing-we’ve even discussed what would happen should she ever “fall” and become pregnant. From what she tells me, many of her college friends feel the same way-but they don’t vote that way. They look at abortion as something they wouldn’t do anyway, so they put their energy in keeping their friends out of combat.
 
Fitswimmer said:
and you don’t know that they won’t either.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I’ve been voting for Pro Life Republicans since I was 18 yrs old-a LONG time ago. My 21 year old niece can get an abortion just as easily today as I could have gotten one those many years ago. She could have gotten one at 16 just as easily. Thankfully, she was raised as a good Catholic and she would never consider such a thing-we’ve even discussed what would happen should she ever “fall” and become pregnant. From what she tells me, many of her college friends feel the same way-but they don’t vote that way. They look at abortion as something they wouldn’t do anyway, so they put their energy in keeping their friends out of combat.
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I concur. I don’t think the solution is to vote for a pro-abortion candidate though.
 
SoCalRC said:
Many people here are arguing that “all candidates” can be altered to ‘all viable candidates’. That is, you can bypass a candidate who does not support intrinsic evil in favor of one who does, but who has a better chance of ‘winning’.

But I cannot find this concept anywhere in Church documents or statements from the USCCB.
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It is in the document you quoted; you choose to ignore the plain sense of its contents. What, exactly, do you think they mean by this statement except … precisely what they say?

*35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. *

The easiest way to understand that the bishops are not telling us not to cast our votes for a less than perfect candidate is … they never make that statement. They explicitly say that (for a sufficiently grave reason) one may vote for someone who supports an issue of intrinsic evil; how can you read this and then conclude that they are telling us to support a non-viable write-in or third party candidate? Viability is a grave reason.

Ender
 
Ender said:
It is in the document you quoted; you choose to ignore the plain sense of its contents. What, exactly, do you think they mean by this statement except … precisely what they say?

*35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. *
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Notice, #36 comes after #35. The Bishops note that intrinsic evil presents a special moral dilemna. This is in keeping with Rome’s Doctrinal Note on the matter, which the Bishops quote in their document:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html

That document also introduces a concept of “limiting the harm”, but then puts serious constraints on it (see #4). It goes so far as to declare some principles non negotiable, a position reitered by Pope Benedict in the Post-synodal apostolic exhortation on Holy Communion.
 
Ender said:
It is in the document you quoted; you choose to ignore the plain sense of its contents. What, exactly, do you think they mean by this statement except … precisely what they say?

*35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. *

The easiest way to understand that the bishops are not telling us not to cast our votes for a less than perfect candidate is … they never make that statement. They explicitly say that (for a sufficiently grave reason) one may vote for someone who supports an issue of intrinsic evil; how can you read this and then conclude that they are telling us to support a non-viable write-in or third party candidate? Viability is a grave reason.

Ender
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It’s really not nice of you to use socal’s document against him. I must insist that you interpret it EXACTLY as he does because he’s way smarter than anyone at the Vatican.:rolleyes:
 
SoCalRC said:
Notice, #36 comes after #35.
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Notice also that #34 comes before #35 and in #34 the bishops specifically address the issue of voting for someone who supports an issue of intrinsic evil:
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A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. *

The “unacceptable position” in #35 pointedly refers to the “position in favor of an intrinsic evil” in #34.
It goes so far as to declare some principles non negotiable, a position reitered by Pope Benedict in the Post-synodal apostolic exhortation on Holy Communion.
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You misinterpret the meaning of “non-negotiable”. It means that one may never support such principles and that, as not all moral issues are of such a nature, this group may never be sacrificed to achieve valid, but lesser, goals. The bishops expressly stated that there are situations where one can vote for candidates who hold “unacceptable positions”. Your interpretation is directly counter to what they have clearly said.

Ender
 
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