Response to Richard Myers

Richard, I disagree. What you describe as "Archbishop Burke's fine pastoral letter" is, in my judgment, so one-dimensional as to be little more, alas, than a polemic. Mark Roche's Op-Ed, by contrast, is appropriately sensitive to the complexity of the issue Catholic voters face. I need not develop the point myself, because Jesuit theologian John Langan, of Georgetown University, has already developed it, in a talk he gave a few weeks back to a gathering sponsored by your own law school, Ave Maria. Let me quote a brief passage from John Langan's presentation, the full text of which is available on the Ave Maria web site:

"[S]ingle issue voting may well be an admirable expression of conscientious conviction about an important matter; but it should not be imposed on voters as a requirement of conscience. Both voters and politicians have to make up their own minds about what issues are opportune, what fights can be won, what results can be achieved. . . . If a person, whether a political candidate or a citizen, judges that an objective such as the prohibition of abortion is simply not attainable in the present state of American public and legal opinion, then he or she cannot be required to make the prohibition of abortion the decisive consideration in voting or to demand it as an essential plank in the political platform. If I vote for a candidate who professes to be strongly pro-life but is unable or unwilling to reduce or eliminate abortions, then I have not succeeded in achieiving my pro-life objective. . . . Politics is not merely the expression of values; it is social action shaped by many discordant forces over time. Moral principles are profoundly important in political life, but they are developed within a larger and less well ordered and unprincipled reality."

At another point in his presentation, Langan says something that is relevant to Archbishop's Burke's letter: "The function of bishops and more generally of the churches is to bear witness to the moral truth which is at stake, not to determine what is the best legal and political resolution of the problem. . . . It would be a brave bishop who would claim to know on theological grounds just when such compromises are acceptable or justifiable, and it would be a naive voter who would follow his opinion on such a question."

Michael P.