Voting Democrat a mortal sin?

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Incorrect. Catholics CANNOT support a pro choice candidate. Abortion is an objective evil and to support a cannidate who will pass pro-choice laws/ down vote pro life legislation, will be guilty of supporting abortion by default.
 
I think the death count in our country from abortion has now passed the 60 million mark since Roe vs Wade. That’s 10 times as many who died in the holocaust.

There are Catholic voters guides available and there’s also an examination of conscience available (it has an imprimatur as well as nihil obstat) which states that voting for a pro-choice candidate with full-knowledge, will, and consent can well be a mortal sin.

I am very glad that this issue came to your attention. Perhaps God is trying to tell you something.
 
crenfro said:
voting for a pro-choice candidate with full-knowledge, will, and consent can well be a mortal sin.
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It can be, especially if you are voting for abortion and not in spite of it, like many others have pointed out on this thread.
 
It might help to review, or perhaps to read for the first time, the guidelines for voting provided by our U.S. bishops, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, especially since it is continually reviewed by the bishops’ conference and updated. I hadn’t read it recently, and I notice passages now from the writings of Pope Francis. I have read criticisms of this guide from single issue voters complaining that this document gives too much leeway in determining how we cast our vote, but like it or not, that is the very point of the teaching.

 
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DeniseNY said:
I’m actually a Republican and I agree with the advice that’s been given here. So let’s not toss everyone into the same bucket.
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It looks like he was a troll (not surprising, given his comment). His account is already gone, as are all of his posts. Only quotes remain; that’s one reason why not to bother replying to the most inflammatory post in a thread 🙂
 
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Londoner said:
Abortion is not the only moral issue to consider when you decide how to vote. You may also be concerned about education, healthcare, the distribution of wealth, the environment, foreign policy, investment in infrastructure, and so on. You may consider that on balance you are doing the better thing by voting for a pro-choice candidate whose views better align with yours on every other issue. Politics is never going to be simple.

I live in Great Britain (the situation is somewhat different in Northern Ireland), where all of the major parties take a more or less liberal stand on abortion.
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But it’s not true in the U.S., where one party endorses abortion in its platform and the other embraces prolife in its platform, and how you vote on the issue matters Also in the U.S. the National Abortion Rights League endorses almost every Democrat officeholder and almost no Repubs. The National Right to Life rates nearly every Repub as prolife and almost no Dems.

One thing that really isn’t very good about American politics is that when it comes to almost every other issue, there isn’t much difference between the parties. The Repubs talk the talk about fiscal restraint, but don’t vote it. The Dems talk about helping the less fortunate, but haven’t acted on it for decades.

So in the U.S. it really does come down to whether you support abortion or you oppose it. And when we saw the severe conflict over the Kavanaugh nomination, it could not have been made more plain.
 
Never does the USCCB publication equate any other issue as equal in gravity to the issue of abortion or euthanasia. Nor should it. As we know, Pope Benedict said one cannot vote for one who supports abortion unless for a proportionally grave reason. War and the death penalty, he specifically added, are not “proportionate” because, unlike abortion and euthanasia, they are not “intrinsically evil”; that is, evil every time. If war is not, then what is?

One of the reasons why one political party embraces abortion openly is because it thinks it can do so with impunity. And yet, if Catholics all voted against that party in even two national elections, it would have to change. So who is to blame?

I think the answer to that question fairly leaps to the tongue. It is us.
 
Yes, I can see that in the US the situation is more polarised. I can also see that neither of your main parties are particularly desirable parties of government. That said, we are experiencing much the same situation in the UK at the moment.
 
Michael16 said:
I heartily agree. It’s difficult to vote your conscience with the field limited as it is in the American system.
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The question is whether or not we exert pressure on our elected representatives, too, particularly if we voted for them.
 
Michael16 said:
It just hit me. I voted Democrat last Congressional elections. My vote wasn’t pro choice; it was an vote against Trump. What just hit me is that voting Democrat May be a mortal sin because the Dems are notoriously pro choice. Even though my vote was an anti Trump vote; could my vote be a mortal sin?
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It is kind of hard to tell without knowing who it was you voted for. Some candidates are running on strong material support for abortion. Others don’t. For instance, in Oregon both candidates for governor, but Democratic and Republican, espoused support for preserving access to abortion. Writing someone in is a possibility, but at some point other issues have to be taken into consideration.

There is also the problem of candidates whose actions suggest they cynically espouse opposition to abortion while campaigning primarily in order to gain support for an agenda that turns out to be far more about opposing protections for the poor. There is prudence involved in voting.
 
There is no viable third party. Historically speaking, third parties help either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.

If I could create a viable third party, my party, call it the American Labor Party would be against abortion, for a higher minimum wage, for a single payer health care program, more money for education and social security, cutting taxes for those who make $100,000 or less a year, but to raise taxes for everyone else.
 
I would raise your income threshold. In many parts of the country $100,000 just barely makes you unqualified for food stamps.
 
Ridgerunner said:
As we know, Pope Benedict said one cannot vote for one who supports abortion unless for a proportionally grave reason.
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That is not what then Cardinal Ratzinger said in his letter, which was a footnote in a longer letter to the USCCB:
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.
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Nowhere does the Cardinal Ratzinger spell out what “proportionate reasons” are. This means that the Church leaves it to the individual’s own prudential judgment. This statement nowhere says “vote Trump and the GOP or the baby gets it!”
 
🤔 I see. So, the Holy Father Emeritus would condone voting Dem as long as I’m not voting for abortion. That’s a mighty thin hair to split though.
 
I’m registered third party. But my party didn’t have a candidate on my state’s ballot. Clinton vs. Trump was a no brainer, for me.
 
As long as you’re not voting for the LGBT etc. ideology, either. Not as big an issue as abortion but still a Democratic Party favored cause.
 
Section 35 of the USCCB’s Faithful Citizenship document that I linked above explains:

“There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position even on policies promoting an intrinsically evil act may reasonably decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests of partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.”

It is up to you and your informed conscience to determine the morally grave reasons that might apply to the above situation, although plenty of people here will eagerly offer you their own opinions, often in a seemingly most compelling way.
 
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