September 22, 2009 11:05 AM

Vatican Advice For Conservatives

By
Jennifer Hoar
(National Review Online)  This column was written by Colleen Carroll Campbell.


The coming campaign season is shaping up to be as rough-and-tumble any in recent memory, and religious voters are once again at the center of the action. With Election Day less than three months away, Catholics of all political persuasions are working overtime to turn out the faith-based vote.

On the Right, groups such as Priests for Life and Catholic Answers are distributing voters' guides that urge Catholics to support candidates who stand with the Church in its opposition to abortion, euthanasia, embryonic-stem-cell research, human cloning, and same-sex marriage — five moral issues that are, according to official Church teaching, non-negotiable and always wrong. The voter's guides make no recommendations on specific candidates or political parties, but the Priests for Life guide urges voters to consider the principles of the parties as well as the principles of particular candidates. "A pro-abortion party will not normally allow pro-life legislation to come forward, no matter how pro-life the individual lawmakers may be," the guide says. "Do not just look at whether the candidate is pro-life. Consider whether or not, if he or she wins, the pro-abortion party will come into power."

On the Left, Catholic leaders are urging religious voters to concentrate on other issues, namely the Iraq War. By focusing their public criticism on the President, they are hoping to make the congressional elections a referendum on Bush that energizes voters hungry for change. A group of Catholic sisters meeting in Milwaukee last month made headlines by publicly rebuking the president for policies "that continue the war in Iraq, that violate human rights along our borders, that intensify poverty, that pollute our earth, and that deny our interdependence with all peoples." On Aug. 3, the name of death-penalty opponent Sr. Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking appeared on a considerably more pointed statement in the New York Times that called for Bush's ouster on account of his support for "a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism," torture, "a murderous" war, "a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance," and attempts to curb abortion. Prejean later distanced herself from that last criticism —which directly contradicts the teachings of her Church — but she made no apologies for the ad's vitriolic tone and comparison of Bush to Hitler. "I signed the ad because as a follower of the way of Jesus and a U.S. citizen, I cannot stand by passively and silently as I witness my government wage such grievous oppression and violence," Prejean said in a statement published on her website.

So what does the leader of the Catholic Church think about all of this faith-based political activism? Pope Benedict XVI, like Pope John Paul II before him, has publicly criticized the Bush administration's decision to wage war in Iraq. But both also have condemned abortion, euthanasia, embryonic-stem-cell research, cloning, and same-sex marriage. And both clearly distinguished between acts that are considered intrinsically evil (such as abortion) and those which must be judged according to circumstances (such as individual military conflicts). As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) wrote to Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2004: "Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. …While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

A war may meet the Church's just-war criteria or it may not, but much to the chagrin of Catholic pacifists, the act of taking up arms has never been denounced by the Catholic Church as always and everywhere wrong. The same applies to a politician's refusal to raise the minimum wage, allow unlimited immigration, or repudiate the death penalty in the case of a dangerous criminal who poses a danger to society. Policies and decisions must be evaluated in light of Christian principles, but the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not give the same unqualified answers to such questions as it does to questions about abortion or euthanasia. As Pope John Paul explained in his 1988 encyclical, The Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People, "Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is 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."



National Review Online
Add a Comment
by omded September 1, 2006 7:11 PM EDT
Whoever this "Jesus Christ" guy was, I'm sure of one thing. If he could, he'd destroy the name he left behind. How sad it is that evil people have invented his legacy and message to serve their own interests, and do such terrible things. I'm sure he'd be no more pleased with today's "Holy Men" than he was with the scribes and Pharisees of his time.
Reply to this comment
by stammred September 1, 2006 6:26 PM EDT
Looking at life through the lense of Christian faith absolutely requires an integrated view of the human person - body, soul, and spirit. Therefore, in Catholic teaching, it DOES matter what you do in the bedroom in the eyes of God and it DOES matter that you thoughtfully think of how to morally justify your voting choices. Everythine matters. It is the Church's-therefore the Vatican's-responsibility to communicate its position on any topic du jour.

The Vatican issued a guide for Catholic voters and if you are not a Catholic, well, unfortunately for you, I guess it doesn't apply. There is a lot of anger directed towards the Pope, accusing him of really saying "your all going to burn in hell if you don't think this," so I'd recommend picking up a Catechism to actually understand the Church's position, which stems from a lot more compassion than Americans want to admit.

As for those "Catholics" that, for some reason, are upset over the Vatican's guide, you may want to pick up a Catechism and learning what--AND WHY--the Church believes before you start bashing fellow followers.

Reply to this comment
by grumpas September 1, 2006 2:26 PM EDT
The Catholic Church has become so obsessed with foisting their agenda on the American public (abortion, no birth control, and etc). They have lost sight of the big picture. They have chosen to ignore one of the most corrupt administrations merely because they agree with the Churches agenda! But, this is not improving their image in the slightest! In fact, it is starting to look to a lot of us Catholic's like the Church is just as corrupt as the administration they support! They need to get out of the business of politic's before they wind up with more egg on their face! What ever happened to the day when JFK had to promise the Pope would not be running the country! We need to go back to those days!
Reply to this comment
by holidayflguy September 1, 2006 11:32 AM EDT
As a practicing Catholic, I think the church leaders needs to stay out of politics. Frankly, they have no business distributing "Voter Guides" with our church bulletins. These guides are very much slanted to the Republican Party, and would make one think that abortion was about the only issue Catholics cared about. I don't think most Catholics are that shallow in their voting habits, but the church leadership sure seems to be. I think Christ is very sad about how the church leadership has conducted itself lately.

Many fundamentalist/evangelical churches are guilty of the same. I for one support withdrawing the tax exempt status on all churches for this reason. Let them pay their fair share of income and property taxes in the communities that they live like the rest of us. Then they can squack about politics all they want.
Reply to this comment
by cbs_oliver September 1, 2006 3:29 AM EDT
The Catholic church (my church) has always been tolerant of Fascists and critical of Socialists. It has frequently been active in supporting Fascist goals. Today is no different.

As well, Pope Benedict was a member of the Hitler Youth - not enough in conflict with what the Nazis were doing at that time to risk being killed for it although he disavows active agreement.

People do change.

I'm glad to see that he opposes at least some killing these days.
Reply to this comment
by ronniehm August 31, 2006 8:35 PM EDT
When are we going to start reviewing the tax-exempt status of some of these faith-based groups (both left and right)? I mean go ahead and speak your mind, but don't send me the bill. And since I'm certainly not exempt from taxes, I'll just add that I completely disagree with the activists on the right, and I completely disagree with the activists on the left.
Reply to this comment
.
Scroll Left
Scroll Right More »
CBS News on Facebook