More on Thompson

Regarding my post on Fred Thompson, MoJ reader Casey Khan comments:

Thompson's action of lobbying for lifting restraints on abortion counseling is an act of formal cooperation with evil.  Thompson essentially made the the act of pro-abortion counseling his own.  Thompson is in a state of manifest grave sin (add Romney and Giuliani to the list for similar reasons).

The question for the voter is would a vote for Thompson constitute cooperation with evil.  If one votes for Thompson based on his pro-abortion views or actions would engage in formal cooperation with evil which is never justified.  However, one can materially cooperate with evil if there is some other proportionate reason justifying it. . . . The difficulty here is what constitutes a proportionate reason. . . .

The bigger problem with Thompson is we don't know what, if anything Thompson really stands for.  So I can't figure out what proportionate reason a Catholic should be voting for Thompson, especially during the primary elections.  There may be a proportionate reason in picking the lesser of two evils in the national election against Hillary Clinton, but at this early stage, that argument doesn't fly.

I think Catholics have a number of other options which I think present potential proportionate reasons if the candidate is a pro-abort.  These would fall on the Democratic side with the anti-war candidates of Kuchinick and Gravel.  If the Catholic views the Iraq war as unjustified and destructive of the common good in the Middle East at our own government's hands, voting for a politician which the voter thinks will bring about a just resolution to this pressing matter may present a proportionate reason.  Of course, on the Republican side there are choices that one could pick which does not in anyway cooperate with the evil of abortion.  These candidates are naturally in the lower tier (big media is a part of the culture of death).  Huckabee, Brownback, and Paul are three notable second tier candidates which Catholics could get behind. I think the Catholic who thinks that both abortion (per se) and the Iraq war (in this particular situation) are unjustified, does not have to materially cooperate with evil in either instance and strain to find proportionate justifications in voting for a presidential candidate.  As such, I'm backing Ron Paul.  The primary stage is the time for idealism, particularly for the Catholic who wants to see an end to the culture of death.