NYTimes piece on Catholics, abortion and the campaign, the current and former chairs of the US bishops’ domestic policy shop sent the following letter (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/opinion/l24bishops.html) published this morning (9-24-08):
To the Editor:
“Abortion Issue Again Dividing Catholic Votes” (front page, Sept. 17) says the bishops’ statement “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” would “explicitly allow Catholics to vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights if they do so for other reasons.”Actually, the bishops said candidates who promote fundamental moral evils such as abortion are cooperating in a grave evil, and Catholics may never vote for them to advance those evils.
A Catholic voter’s decision to support a candidate despite that gravely immoral position “would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.”
This standard of “grave moral reasons” is a very high standard to meet. The bishops added that “a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.” This is timely in light of offensive comments on race quoted in the article.
What the article calls the “running debate between Catholics” — with some saying “abortion is the only issue” and others saying “you have to look at the whole teaching of the church” — is not a dilemma for the bishops. One must look at the whole teaching of the church on justice and peace, serving the poor and advancing the common good — beginning with a fundamental priority on protecting innocent human life from direct attack as in abortion.
(Bishop) William Murphy
(Bishop) Nicholas DiMarzio
Brooklyn, Sept. 19, 2008
Filed under: Social Doctrine
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