‘Faithful Citizenship’ needs radical revision. It is not specific enough. It is not in keeping with comments made by Pope Benedict on the issue of abortion and voting. People are using selected quotes from
Faithful Citizenship to rationalize their voting for a pro abortion candidate.
Apparently dozens of individual Bishops have issued clarifications on the confusion of the document.
Archbishop Raymond Burke believes that Faithful Citizenship helped ensure the election of Obama.
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Archbishop Raymond Burke, the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, named a document on the election produced by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops that he said “led to confusion” among the faithful and led ultimately to massive support among Catholics for Barack Obama.
The US bishops’ document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” stated that, under certain circumstances, a Catholic could in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports abortion because of “other grave reasons,” as long as they do not intend to support that pro-abortion position.
Archbishop Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis Mo. and recently appointed head of the highest ecclesiastical court in the Catholic Church, told
LifeSiteNews.com that although “there were a greater number of bishops who spoke up very clearly and firmly … there was also a number who did not.”
But most damaging, he said, was the document “Faithful Citizenship” that “led to confusion” among the voting Catholic population.
“While it stated that the issue of life was the first and most important issue, it went on in some specific areas to say ‘but there are other issues’ that are of comparable importance without making necessary distinctions.”
Archbishop Burke, citing an article by a priest and ethics expert of St. Louis archdiocese, Msgr. Kevin McMahon, who analysed how the bishops’ document actually contributed to the election of Obama, called its proposal “a kind of false thinking, that says, ‘there’s the evil of taking an innocent and defenceless human life but there are other evils and they’re worthy of equal consideration.’
“But they’re not. The economic situation, or opposition to the war in Iraq, or whatever it may be, those things don’t rise to the same level as something that is always and everywhere evil, namely the killing of innocent and defenceless human life.”
Archbishop Burke also cited the work of the official news service of the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference, that many pro-life observers complained soft-pedalled the newly elected president’s opposition to traditional morality.
“The bishops need to look also at our Catholic News Service, CNS, they need to review their coverage of the whole thing and give some new direction, in my judgement,” he said.
lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2009/jan/09012805
When you have a leading Vatican prelate speak out on the problems of USSCB document, something is wrong.
Bishop Vasa who contributed to the ‘Faithful Citizenship’ document has rejected the spin that the document excuses people to vote for a pro abortion candidate:
“When we were working on the document ‘Faithful Citizenship’, and the issue of whether or not a person’s adamant pro-abortion position was a disqualifying condition, the general sense was ‘yes that is a disqualifying condition’.”
lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/1980/91/8091203
Bishops Kevin Vann and Kevin Farrell have said there are no “‘truly grave moral’ or ‘proportionate’ reasons, singularly or combined, that could outweigh the millions of innocent human lives that are directly killed by legal abortion each year.”
prolifedallas.org/pages/Joint_Statement
Bishop Joseph Martino has gone as far as to say:
‘‘No USCCB document is relevant in this diocese. The USCCB doesn’t speak for me.’’
The diocese released in statement which said Bishop Martino was
“concerned because of the confusion and public misrepresentations about Catholic teaching on the life issues.”
“Certain groups and individuals have used their own erroneous interpretations of Church documents, particularly the U.S. Bishops’ statement on Faithful Citizenship, to justify their political positions and to contradict the Church’s actual teaching on the centrality of abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research,” the statement said.
lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2008/oct/08102212
I believe there are two situations where a Catholic could vote for a pro abortion candidate:
- When there is there is no pro life candidate, and you vote for a candidate who is the lesser of two evils, who is electable but may lessen the number of abortions than another would e.g. Candidate A, a candidate who is in favor of laws protecting abortions rights only in the case of rape and incest. Candidate B, who is in favor of unrestricted abortion rights. You could vote for candidate A.
You would vote for the lesser of two evils, to save some lives.
- There may be a case that you could vote for a pro choice alternative if there is a pro life candidate who was say, a pro life Islamic terrorist. The pro lifer would have to advocate unspeakable crime.
Introductory note added to Faithful Citizenship says:
“It [Faithful Citizenship]* does not offer a quantitative listing of issues for equal consideration*, but outlines and makes important distinctions among moral issues acknowledging that some involve the clear obligation to oppose intrinsic evils which can never be justified and that others require action to pursue justice and promote the common good.” (Emphasis added)
It also says
“Although it has at times been misused to present an incomplete or distorted view of the demands of faith in politics…’’
