But if the bishops meant to say that when there are two candidates, one pro-life and the other pro-abortion, you must vote for the pro-life candidate, they would have simply said that. They didn’t.
How explicit do they need to be? Did this document recieve the 2/3rd vote?
Burke, who is the prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s “Supreme Court” gave an interview to Thomas McKenna, President of Catholic Action for Faith and Family.
“As a bishop it’s my obligation in fact, to urge the faithful to carry out their civic duty in accord with their Catholic faith,” Burke said.
“You can
never vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb or the right to a procured abortion,” he added plainly.
He said his words are not meant as a criticism of how people vote, but they are “simply announcing the
truth, helping people to discriminate right from wrong in terms of their own activities.”
In the 25-minute interview, Burke reminded Catholics they are **bound in conscience **to vote for political candidates who oppose aborting babies, embryonic stem cell experiments, and euthanasia.
“Millions of Catholics have no idea it’s **a sin to vote for candidates **who favor these grave evils, which attack the very foundations of society,” he told
LifeNews.com. “This matter-of-fact, pointed interview granted to me by Archbishop Raymond Burke in Rome last week makes it very clear what the responsibility of every American Catholic will be next Tuesday.”
lifenews.com/2010/10/27/nat-6799/
What are other grave moral concerns? “Racism and other unjust discrimination, the use of the death penalty, resorting to unjust war, the use of torture, war crimes, the failure to respond to those who are suffering from hunger or a lack of health care, or an unjust immigration policy are all serious moral issues that challenge our consciences and require us to act. These are not optional concerns which can be dismissed.” (FCFC, sec. 29.)
Which US politician/party supports racism?
Pope JPII notes that all these things are false and illusory if the “right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.”
If these bishops are directing the Catholics in their dioceses to vote in this manner, then that is exactly what those Catholics should do. I would never suggest to any Catholic that he disobey the directive of his own bishop.
Would these Bishops then be contradicting Faithful Citizenship?
A pro-abortion candidate, on the other hand, may actually be able to get certain things done,
Like less pro life people on the supreme court?
****such as ending our involvement with torture, or getting health coverage for those unable to access it.
Abortion tortures a baby
Abortion doesn’t give babies health care, it kills them.
"It must be noted also that a well-formed Christian does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals.
And the most basic of all human rights, all others illusionary without it, is the right to life. Vatican II said abortion was an abominable crime and Pope John Paul II spoke inffalibly on abortion. Divine Law, no less, says “thou shalt not kill.”
and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine.
1.5 million Americans are aborted each year. Maybe once we stop the holacaust, then we can look at other issues. When Hitler was gasing people did anyone say “we’ll yes that’s bad but what about health care, and poverty and…”?
Bishop Vasa: “Abortion needs to be in our country a defining issue and we ought not be afraid to make it a defining issue because when we do that we will have an end of abortion in this country.”
