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The "Catholic" Vote? by Francis X. Shannon
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We, as Catholics, have the Holy Eucharist as our greatest sacrament, in which we can take part every day of our lives in living our role as the Church Militant in the Communion of the Saints. The body of Christ, the paschal sacrifice, is broken for us daily.
There exists, however, in the darker shadows of the American political landscape, a secularist cult with its own sacrament. While there are those of us who proudly accept the political label of "the Religious Right," this cult can very accurately be referred to as "the Sacrilegious Left." Their official sacrament is abortion, with the Innocent Unborn serving as a literal blood sacrifice daily on the altar of the Sacrilegious Left in abortuaries across this country. Worse still, the shadows in which such diabolical secularism thrives have been allowed to engulf an increasingly wide swath of our political culture. Some of the Church Militant, sadly, have become less militant, or not militant at all. Too many have gone over to the Sacrilegious Left altogether.
With the November 4 election behind us and Barack Hussein Obama headed for the White House, one of the more troubling aspects of the current political landscape, beside the prospect of the kind of extremist liberal justices we can expect to see appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court and other levels of the federal judiciary, is the fact that 54 percent of "Catholic" voters cast their ballots in favor of a candidate with inarguably the most radically murderous legislative record on abortion in electoral history. Even more disquieting, of Catholic voters who regularly attend Mass, 49 percent voted in like fashion.
It's not like the Church's position on abortion has been a well-guarded secret hidden deep within the recesses of the Vatican. Leading up to the election, bishops across the United States echoed the words of Pope John Paul the Great when he asserted in Evangelium Vitae (#62), "No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church."? Abortion, in other words, is intrinsically evil, and to vote for pro-abortion candidates is tantamount to participating in the perpetration and perpetuation of that evil.
Obama, who Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver has described as one of the most committed abortion-rights presidential candidate of either major party since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973, hasn't kept his position on abortion a secret either. As an Illinois state legislator in 2002, he successfully blocked passage of the Induced Infant Liability Act, which would have protected babies that survived late-term abortions.
In the U.S. Senate, Obama was a co-sponsor of the Senate version of the Freedom of Choice Act in 2007. The legislation, according to the National Abortion Rights Action League website, would "codify Roe v. Wade's protections and guarantee the right to choose for future generations of women."
In a July speech to the contributors to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Obama was quite specific as to his disregard for the Unborn.
"The first thing I'd do as president," he said, "is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do."
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has expressed vehement opposition to the Freedom of Choice Act. According to the USCCB's Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, the act would indeed, if enacted, "codify the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade" and would go "far beyond even Roe." USCCB President Francis Cardinal George warned, in the week following the election, that the act would impose limits on the right of Catholic hospitals and doctors to not provide abortions.
"Those who support (the act) must realize," the cardinal added, " that if Catholic hospitals are ever required to perform abortions, the bishops will close every one of them. No one would be hurt more than the poor."
But such is the environment that millions of "Catholic" voters made possible in November. It's easy enough to condemn politicians for their pro-abortion positions, but who enables such office-holders to attain positions from which the ongoing attack on the right to life of the Innocent Unborn is intensified? The hands of such voters are just as slick with the blood of the Innocent Unborn as those who crafted Roe v. Wade and every piece of pro-abortion legislation and policy since. Ultimately, those voters will be answerable to God for disregarding the teachings of the Church and leaving their faith principles at the doors of their polling places.
"Conscience is not an excuse for doing something irrational," Cardinal George wrote a couple of weeks prior to the election. "We are to form our consciences according to the social teaching of the Church and use that formation to make political choices."
Conscience can be a gift from God, but without the exercise of the knowledge and discipline that is also a gift from God, there's the risk of being errantly led to a place in opposition to Gospel principles and Church teaching, especially for those not adequately possessed of the humility to properly subjugate one's political or social agenda to their obligations as a Catholic.
A number of bishops came out with strongly worded articulations on Church teaching prior to the election, in part due to an abusively misrepresented USCCB document titled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship that was released in November of 2007. Certain statements in the document, taken well out of context, showed up on websites such as "Roman Catholics for Obama" and "Catholics for Choice," a fringe advocacy group that opposes the Church on everything from abortion to artificial birth control to homosexuality, in an effort to convince Catholics they could vote for a pro-abortion candidate in "good conscience." Under this "primacy of conscience" mindset, two so-called "loopholes" in the document were misrepresented to mean that Catholics could vote for a pro-abortion candidate as long as they do not intend to support that particular position or there are offsetting "morally grave reasons."
Many bishops charged that the USCCB document was being abused, including Bishop Robert Vasa of the Diocese of Baker in eastern Oregon, who explained that voting for a pro-abortion candidate over a pro-life candidate is never justified when the opponent is pro-life. Bishop Kevin Vann of the Diocese of Ft. Worth and Bishop Ke vin Farrell of the Diocese of Dallas stated that 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."
"One cannot compromise between the fire and the fire department, the fly and the fly swatter," said Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska. "There are things that don't admit of compromise - and vile . . . intrinsic evil such as abortion do not admit us any such compromise."
"The first and most essential principle of Catholic social teaching," Cardinal George made unambiguously clear, "is the dignity of every human person and ones basic right to life from conception to natural death. Respect for human dignity is the basis for the fundamental right to life. This is a non-negotiable principle."
Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, PA, hometown of Vice President-elect Joe Biden, a Catholic, has been particularly outspoken on the issue of pro-abortion Catholic office-holders.
"I cannot have the vice president coming to Scranton and saying he learned his values there, when those values are utterly against those of the Catholic Church," Martino said while in Baltimore for a bishops' conference in the wake of the election. Martino favors a harder line against Catholic politicians who fail to reflect the principles of Catholicism in their elected capacity.
"We are going to have to speak as firmly as possible to Catholic politicians who are not merely reluctant to vote pro-life, but are stridently anti-life," he said, adding that "canonical measures," excommunication, for example, may be in order. "We have to have something like that."
A Catholic politician," according to Cardinal George, "who excuses his or her decision to allow the killing of the unborn and of others who can't protect themselves because he or she doesn't want to ?impose Catholic doctrine on others seems to me to be intellectually dishonest.
"[W]e're dealing with a moral absolute," said Bishop Robert Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio, home of Franciscan University. "There's nothing here that allows for common ground. We're talking about a human being whose life cannot be compromised."
Among Church leaders more than willing to uphold faith principles is Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, who engaged in a very public feud with Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic, over her long history of advocating for abortion. The archbishop characterized her positions as "scandalous" and having "grave spiritual and moral consequences." Naumann publicly requested that she no longer receive Communion.
The prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, Archbishop Raymond Burke, formerly of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said as the election approached that Catholics, especially po liticians, who publicly defend abortion should refrain from receiving Communion, until they have reformed their lives, and has urged Catholics ?to bear witness to our faith not only in private in our homes but also in our public lives with others in order to bear strong witness to Christ.
So the next time an election rolls around, Catholic voters, office-holders, and office-seekers alike should keep in mind certain facts. No politician ever suffered on a cross and died for our sins. Neither did Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider and advocacy organization. Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Lord and Savior, did suffer and die on the Cross for the sake of our overcoming death and for our salvation. The time is long overdue that some gratitude be shown for His sacrifice that we may have eternal life. The time is long overdue that we cultivate a culture of life rather than succumbing to the culture of death.
Francis X. Shannon is a Tampa Tribune columnist and a writer on Catholic and political issues. He can be contacted at (813)546-2282 or FXShannon@aol.com.
In a July speech to the contributors to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Obama was quite specific as to his disregard for the Unborn.
"The first thing I'd do as president," he said, "is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do."
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has expressed vehement opposition to the Freedom of Choice Act. According to the USCCB's Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, the act would indeed, if enacted, "codify the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade" and would go "far beyond even Roe." USCCB President Francis Cardinal George warned, in the week following the election, that the act would impose limits on the right of Catholic hospitals and doctors to not provide abortions.
"Those who support (the act) must realize," the cardinal added, " that if Catholic hospitals are ever required to perform abortions, the bishops will close every one of them. No one would be hurt more than the poor."
But such is the environment that millions of "Catholic" voters made possible in November. It's easy enough to condemn politicians for their pro-abortion positions, but who enables such office-holders to attain positions from which the ongoing attack on the right to life of the Innocent Unborn is intensified? The hands of such voters are just as slick with the blood of the Innocent Unborn as those who crafted Roe v. Wade and every piece of pro-abortion legislation and policy since. Ultimately, those voters will be answerable to God for disregarding the teachings of the Church and leaving their faith principles at the doors of their polling places.
"Conscience is not an excuse for doing something irrational," Cardinal George wrote a couple of weeks prior to the election. "We are to form our consciences according to the social teaching of the Church and use that formation to make political choices."
Conscience can be a gift from God, but without the exercise of the knowledge and discipline that is also a gift from God, there's the risk of being errantly led to a place in opposition to Gospel principles and Church teaching, especially for those not adequately possessed of the humility to properly subjugate one's political or social agenda to their obligations as a Catholic.
A number of bishops came out with strongly worded articulations on Church teaching prior to the election, in part due to an abusively misrepresented USCCB document titled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship that was released in November of 2007. Certain statements in the document, taken well out of context, showed up on websites such as "Roman Catholics for Obama" and "Catholics for Choice," a fringe advocacy group that opposes the Church on everything from abortion to artificial birth control to homosexuality, in an effort to convince Catholics they could vote for a pro-abortion candidate in "good conscience." Under this "primacy of conscience" mindset, two so-called "loopholes" in the document were misrepresented to mean that Catholics could vote for a pro-abortion candidate as long as they do not intend to support that particular position or there are offsetting "morally grave reasons."
Many bishops charged that the USCCB document was being abused, including Bishop Robert Vasa of the Diocese of Baker in eastern Oregon, who explained that voting for a pro-abortion candidate over a pro-life candidate is never justified when the opponent is pro-life. Bishop Kevin Vann of the Diocese of Ft. Worth and Bishop Ke vin Farrell of the Diocese of Dallas stated that 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."
"One cannot compromise between the fire and the fire department, the fly and the fly swatter," said Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska. "There are things that don't admit of compromise - and vile . . . intrinsic evil such as abortion do not admit us any such compromise."
"The first and most essential principle of Catholic social teaching," Cardinal George made unambiguously clear, "is the dignity of every human person and ones basic right to life from conception to natural death. Respect for human dignity is the basis for the fundamental right to life. This is a non-negotiable principle."
Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, PA, hometown of Vice President-elect Joe Biden, a Catholic, has been particularly outspoken on the issue of pro-abortion Catholic office-holders.
"I cannot have the vice president coming to Scranton and saying he learned his values there, when those values are utterly against those of the Catholic Church," Martino said while in Baltimore for a bishops' conference in the wake of the election. Martino favors a harder line against Catholic politicians who fail to reflect the principles of Catholicism in their elected capacity.
"We are going to have to speak as firmly as possible to Catholic politicians who are not merely reluctant to vote pro-life, but are stridently anti-life," he said, adding that "canonical measures," excommunication, for example, may be in order. "We have to have something like that."
A Catholic politician," according to Cardinal George, "who excuses his or her decision to allow the killing of the unborn and of others who can't protect themselves because he or she doesn't want to ?impose Catholic doctrine on others seems to me to be intellectually dishonest.
"[W]e're dealing with a moral absolute," said Bishop Robert Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio, home of Franciscan University. "There's nothing here that allows for common ground. We're talking about a human being whose life cannot be compromised."
Among Church leaders more than willing to uphold faith principles is Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, who engaged in a very public feud with Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic, over her long history of advocating for abortion. The archbishop characterized her positions as "scandalous" and having "grave spiritual and moral consequences." Naumann publicly requested that she no longer receive Communion.
The prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, Archbishop Raymond Burke, formerly of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said as the election approached that Catholics, especially po liticians, who publicly defend abortion should refrain from receiving Communion, until they have reformed their lives, and has urged Catholics ?to bear witness to our faith not only in private in our homes but also in our public lives with others in order to bear strong witness to Christ.
So the next time an election rolls around, Catholic voters, office-holders, and office-seekers alike should keep in mind certain facts. No politician ever suffered on a cross and died for our sins. Neither did Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider and advocacy organization. Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Lord and Savior, did suffer and die on the Cross for the sake of our overcoming death and for our salvation. The time is long overdue that some gratitude be shown for His sacrifice that we may have eternal life. The time is long overdue that we cultivate a culture of life rather than succumbing to the culture of death.
Francis X. Shannon is a Tampa Tribune columnist and a writer on Catholic and political issues. He can be contacted at (813)546-2282 or FXShannon@aol.com.
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