more on the Times editorial

A few more comments on this issue. I don't think Archbishop Burke's pastoral letter is a polemic, but I suppose others disagree. I'd encourage people to take a look at the letter. Rob Vischer provided a link to the pastoral in his post of October 7. Much of the pastoral is devoted to summarizing the Church's teaching on the moral evil of abortion and the destruction of human embryos and the teaching on the good of marriage and the family. He also explains that attacks on human life and the family erode the very foundation of the common good, and that for that reason are on a different plane than issues where Catholic politicians and voters make prudential judgments about the best way to achieve certain objectives without necessarily becoming complicit in evil.

What is sometimes missing in pieces such as Roche's brief in support of the Kerry/Edwards ticket is the point that John Langan made towards the end of the talk to which Michael referred--"The essential Catholic affirmation is that abortion is an evil." Roche does say this although it seems obscured by the body of his essay. And politicians who claim to be "personally opposed" do the same. It is hard to look at the parties and conclude that they are divided simply by disagreement over the proper prudential strategy for ending what they agree is an "unspeakable crime." Politicians such as Kerry and Jennifer Granholm (here in my home state of Michigan) who claim to be faithful Catholics and also claim to be "100% pro-choice" really do seem to lack "the essential Catholic affirmation" that John Langan mentioned. Voters who vote for such politicians are, at least, materially cooperating in the pro-abortion policies of these politicians. Would they really justify such votes if they really thought that abortion and the destruction of human embryos for research purposes were evil. Would they really justify such votes if the issue were slavery or torture, the issues to which Roche compared abortion in his Times essay.

Robbie George and Gerry Bradley were two of the other speakers at the Ave Maria conference that Michael mentioned. Readers of this blog might be interested in their papers from that conference. The papers are available on the Events section of the Ave Maria School of Law website. See . George and Bradley also published a piece in today's issue of National Review Online that discusses the Roche essay. See .

Richard