So I was reading USCCB's article "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship."
I kind of understand that the basic premise
of forming a conscience on who to vote for is that pro-life
issues have to be preeminent, they have to be the number one; but
it says something about if there are "proportional
issues" that would counter that on somebody else's agenda. And I was
wondering, what is proportional? I don't know, what
are some concrete examples?
That's a great question, John. And that document, as you know, the USCCB's
document is good, and it maintains—it really toes the
line on magisterial teaching. Because John, as you have rightly stated,
the magisterium has been clear. What comes to mind immediately for
me is "Christifideles Laici,"
paragraph 38, from Pope St John Paul the Great, where he makes clear
as well that the life issues—and he says
"the right to life," he doesn't single out abortion, but he says "the right to life"—
after listing all these other rights that we have: a right to health,
a roof over our heads, education, and more—he says if the right to
life is not defended to the utmost, all other rights are merely "illusory." So
you are correct. The Church teaches that the right to life is the
preeminent issue. But now when it comes to the different
issues like abortion,
euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, physician-assisted suicide,
and more, all of these are life
issues. How do we prioritize? The Church gives us a principle, and that's what the
USCCB does, gives us that same principle that when
we're considering these different matters,
there can be, you know, proportionate reasons
to vote for someone who—and I like to use this as
an example: let's say you had a kind of Osama bin Laden-kind-of-
character running for president in the United States who
just happens to be pro-life when it comes to abortion, but he's in
favor of genocide when it comes to all Christians,
Jews, right, we could go down the list.
Well, we could certainly vote for a candidate who is actually pro-abortion
but is against things like genocide against, you know, 70 million Catholics,
100 million Christians, and so forth. That's what
we're talking about and the what the bishops are talking
about when we talk about proportionate reason. And so we really have to get down
to brass tacks. And of course the Church does not
micromanage. The Church gives us the principles, and
we gotta use (as we say in the Marine corps) our
"brain housing unit" in order to apply these principles. And
Catholics tend—you know, there can be good
Catholics who disagree on this point— but I argue there simply is
no proportionate reason. I know some argue that
climate control is proportionate reason because we're talking about the
destruction of the planet. I think that is really wrong-headed,
but the Church doesn't micromanage this. What we need to do as Catholics is take
these principles—look, and I think, from just common sense,
the life issue is the ultimate issue, abortion
is the ultimate issue among the life issues. Now the Magisterium
has not made that conclusion, that's Tim Staples, but I think it's grounded in
solid principles. We're talking about over 60 million
babies slaughtered in America alone, and the number is
growing. I simply cannot see a proportionate
reason, barring something like Osama bin Laden
for president. We have to consider the babies, my friends, and we have a real
possibility, if we vote for life in the coming elections, my
friends, we have the real possibility of actually overturning Roe v. Wade
and saving untold hundreds of thousands of babies lives.