Bishop Finn on the Catholic Obama Voter

On my drive home tonight I was listening to Hugh Hewitt interview Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City.  Bishop Finn seems to be saying that a faithful Catholic cannot vote for Barack Obama.  An excerpt:

HH: I’m talking with Bishop Robert Finn of the Archdiocese of Kansas City. Bishop, I’ve had Archbishop Chaput on this program, I’ve read Cardinal Rigali’s letter as well. And still I have people come up to me in places like Ohio and Minnesota after I’ve done this last week when I was traveling around, tell me that their local priests are counseling them it’s okay to vote for Barack Obama, it’s okay to vote for a candidate who’s radically pro-choice because of other reasons. If such a priest if known to you in your diocese, do you discipline them.

RF: Well, we certainly have to talk in a very serious way. I think priests are subject to many of the same limitations as other people. They may have grown up in a particular partisan household that favors a candidate regardless of their moral stance. They’re among those people who want to look for a way to rationalize their conscience. But yes, as a bishop, I have to try to hold my priests accountable for misleading people. 

Now perhaps he's saying that, in his estimation, there are no sufficiently compelling moral reasons to justify a vote for Senator Obama.  But throughout the interview, he never acknowledges that the voting decision could encompass issues other than abortion.  In other interviews, he has labeled the Obama voter as a "participant in the act of abortion" without even mentioning the role that intent plays in the voter's culpability.  It is perfectly reasonable to take issue with my willingness to vote for Obama despite his horrendous views on abortion; that does not make me a participant in abortion.  I have no doubt that Bishop Finn is sincere and well-intentioned, but he is removing any nuance from the Catholic voter's analysis.  And he's invoking the specter of eternal damnation for those who continue to insist on a more nuanced approach.  Maybe Bishop Finn has given a more comprehensive account of Catholic teaching on conscientious voting in other media appearances; if so, it is a shame that this one-dimensional account is the one that is gaining the media traction.

UPDATE: Thanks to a reader in Kansas for forwarding Bishop Finn's letter setting forth the more familiar (and more nuanced, in my view) analysis of Forming Conscience for Faithful Citizenship, which acknowledges the moral relevance of a voter's intent and the possibility of proportionate reasons for favoring a pro-choice candidate.