[Readers of this blog may be interested in the following item, which appeared in this morning's New York Times. Note the part about capital punishment, which is relevant to an earlier series of exchanges on this blog.]
October 24, 2004
Officially, at Least, Vatican Is Staying Above Election Fray
By IAN FISHER
ATICAN CITY, Oct. 22 - While many American Catholics oppose Senator John Kerry because he supports abortion rights, church officials and observers here say that if the people who run the Vatican could vote, they would be as divided as Americans are - and might even tilt toward Mr. Kerry.
Officially, the Vatican never takes positions on elections, and it has maintained a public silence about an issue deeply dividing American Catholics this year: the assertion by some American bishops that voting for Mr. Kerry amounts to a sin.
But interviews with Vatican officials, many who did not want to be named, and experts who watch the church closely turn up a bottom line in which many Vatican officials seem to differ with hard-line American Catholics: while opposition to abortion is nonnegotiable for the church, that does not necessarily translate into uniform hope here that President Bush wins re-election. There are other issues - especially the war in Iraq, which Pope John Paul II has spoken out against - that weigh heavily.
"At the end of the day the Vatican is a European institution," said John L. Allen Jr., an influential reporter for the National Catholic Reporter who recently wrote a column estimating that the Vatican would slightly favor Mr. Kerry. He noted that at least half the Vatican staff is European, "drawn from the same background as people working in foreign ministries of Germany or Italy.''
"In that circle Bush is overwhelmingly an unpopular figure," he added. "They start from a great deal of skepticism about Bush. You add to that a year and a half of the unrelenting criticism of Bush's war, and the sense among some of them that subsequent events have proven them right."
In interviews, Vatican officials and other experts noted that the Vatican was not monolithic, and that as a huge bureaucracy with competing interests there was no unified view other than a deep interest in how the most powerful nation in the world exercised its power.
Vatican departments dealing with theology and the family, several experts said, appear to favor Mr. Bush because of his opposition to abortion. Other departments, dealing with diplomacy and poverty, tend to lean toward Mr. Kerry because of the Iraq war and the view that Mr. Bush has generally sidelined diplomacy.
Several Vatican officials said, however, that any such talk has little meaning because the church does not take sides in elections. But the statements by several American bishops that Catholics who vote for Mr. Kerry would have to go to confession have raised the question in many corners about whether this is an official church position.
The church has not addressed this question publicly and, in fact, seems reluctant to be dragged into the fight: this week, one top Vatican official, Msgr. Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's undersecretary of state, reminded reporters here that the "concrete aspects" of the American election are "not our business."
At the same time, Monsignor Parolin and other officials noted that American Catholics should vote according to church doctrine - a statement that neither endorses nor rejects the conservative American bishops' position. While the church's social doctrine spells out opposition to abortion, it also discusses obligations like defending the poor.
One senior Vatican official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, "It is up to the American bishops to announce, or to provide, the moral and social doctrine of the church which offers the ethical principles to make a coherent choice."
In recent weeks several conservative bishops in the United States have done just that, particularly over the issues of abortion and the use of embryonic stem cells for research. In public statements and published articles they have told parishioners that no other issues are as important in the election and that they should support the candidate who opposes abortion and stem-cell research.
But other American bishops are less strident, urging parishioners simply to "vote your conscience.''
One Vatican official did offer theological guidance: that it is not necessarily a sin to vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights. The official said in an interview that it would be a sin to vote for such a candidate with the express intention of expanding abortion rights. But if the voter is acting on his conscience taking into consideration all moral questions, it would not be a sin, he said.
"It's not a question that we don't think abortion has the moral weight that is ascribed to it," the official said. "Absolutely, but it is difficult to say that a person commits a sin if they vote for a pro-choice politician.''
While Mr. Kerry's abortion stand puts him at odds with church doctrine, several Vatican officials said they were unclear whether Mr. Bush would be in strict accordance, despite his opposition to abortion. Experts with close ties to the Vatican cited not only the war in Iraq but Mr. Bush's strong support for capital punishment, also opposed by the church.
The experts note that, in church doctrine, abortion is a particular sin: that because abortion robs the innocent of life, it differs from capital punishment or war. At the same time, several experts said, this does not imply endorsement by the Vatican of the American bishops' warnings against voting for Mr. Kerry.
"It's a myth that the Vatican is pushing this agenda on the U.S. bishops," said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest who edits the Catholic magazine America. Father Reese said, moreover, that the Vatican seemed worried about the divisions this bitter election has caused in the American church."When you have different bishops teaching different things, it confuses the faithful," he said. "And they don't like that.''
First, my thanks. I am very grateful, Greg, for your posting yesterday. I have great respect for your heartfelt decision--and the heartfelt decision of many other Catholics--to vote for President Bush. As I suggested in an earlier posting, it would be ridiculous to claim that a faithful Catholic could not in good conscience vote for Bush. Your impassioned plea makes it clear beyond any reasonable doubt that a faithful Catholic can indeed vote in good conscience for President Bush. (Not that there was any room for reasonable doubt!)
Now, my clarification. In your posting yesterday, in response to an earlier posting of mine, you wrote that you could not "judge a fellow Catholic who proclaims fealty to the cause of life and yet casts a vote for Kerry as, on the basis of that act alone, having committed grave sin or removed him or herself from communion with the Church. Would I see such a vote as imprudent and foolish? Yes. Mendacious? Presumably no (as only God can read the heart)." My fundamental point, however, had nothing to do with whether one was committing a grave sin. My point was not about sin, but about charity.
Assume that a Catholic, like Father Langan, or Dean Roche, or Ms. Steinfels, or Professor Kaveny, explains in some detail why, after deliberation, she has decided to vote for Senator Kerry. It is one thing to try to persuade her not to do so--to explain to her why, in one's judgment, neither she nor any other faithful Catholic should do so. But it is another thing altogether to insist to her that neither she nor any other faithful Catholic can in good conscience vote for Kerry, that her decision to do so is, for a faithful Catholic, beyond the pale of reason. As I read their National Review Online piece, this is the gravamen of what Gerry Bradley and Robbie George have argued. As I said in an earlier posting, I find this position breathtakingly arrogant.
So arrogant, in fact, that I am left to wonder: Are they who press such an argument unwittingly blinded by their passion into inculpable ignorance of the daunting complexity of the "for whom do I vote" question? Or have they permitted themselves to be goaded by their passion into forsaking the charity we owe one another in favor of rhetorical overkill--the kind of overkill that, as Cathy Kaveny has pointed out, can destroy relationships and alliances?
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Yesterday, I posed the pointed question: "Can a Catholic with a well-formed conscience and respect for innocent human life look into the sepulchre of John Kerry’s putrified record of accommodating death, all the while claiming communion with the Church, and then turn away to pull the lever next to his name in the polling booth?"
Today, Michael Perry responds: "Unless Greg claims that no Catholic who chooses to vote for Kerry has 'a well-formed conscience and respect for innocent human life,' Greg must answer his own question in the affirmative. If Greg does claim that no Catholic who votes for Kerry--not Mark Roche, not Cathy Kaveny, not Peggy Steinfels, and so on--has 'a well-formed conscience and respect for innocent human life,' . . . well, I'll leave that claim for others to judge."
As I had confessed at the end of yesterday’s posting, Michael could justifiably complain that by answering with a question of my own I thereby was evading the question Michael had asked in his earlier posting, which was whether anyone truly would claim that the argument against Kerry was so iron-clad, so irrefutable, so ineluctably connected to Church teaching, etc. that a Catholic casting a vote for Kerry would thereby either be behaving irrationally or engaging in serious sin.
All right, Michael, you have me. I find myself unable in light of my own fallible human reasoning, my incompetence as being a sinner myself, and my obvious lack of any ecclesial authority to judge a fellow Catholic who proclaims fealty to the cause of life and yet casts a vote for Kerry as, on the basis of that act alone, having committed grave sin or removed him or herself from communion with the Church. Would I see such a vote as imprudent and foolish? Yes. Mendacious? Presumably no (as only God can read the heart).
But where does that lead us? How does that acknowledgment advance the discussion? To admit that a position may not be so utterly absurd as to be frivolous is not an affirmative argument in its favor. To say that someone who seriously undermines the cause of life by casting a misguided vote has not thereby sinned is no reason to fall in line behind that person.
Instead, what I’ve been trying to emphasize in my postings is that these side disputes about personalities and who is chief among sinners are distractions. The central point is that the culture of life remains under assault in this society and thus when we undertake the most fundamental act in a democracy of electing our leaders, we are called as Catholics to make very sure that we have done our homework and that we know exactly what we are doing. It is right and appropriate that we be challenged as to whether our political choices comport with Church teaching and flow from a well-formed conscience. Those who are tempted to vote for Kerry because of extreme antipathy toward Bush are obliged at least do the admittedly disturbing task of fully examining the evidence regarding Kerry's anti-life affiliations and actions. They should give solemn consideration to the potential harm, both to the political pro-life movement and to the Church’s continuing witness, that may attend the elevation of the hero of the abortion industry to the highest office held by any person, by any Catholic, in the nation.
In my experience in talking with many such persons and reading the words of more, those who say they are planning to vote for Kerry as the lesser of evils often seem ready to do so in almost willful ignorance of the full ugliness of his record, apparently because they don’t want to be troubled with stark facts that might dissuade them from that course. They want to pretend he is just another reluctantly pro-choice politician weakly unable to break from the Democratic Party line. The evidence is much more disturbing. The op-eds and essays making apologies for the reluctant Kerry supporter, to which we have been directed on this blog, are of the same nature, never forthrightly confronting full enormity of Kerry’s record.
Thus, I return to the tough and unpleasant question with which I ended my last posting and begin this one. If someone can honestly and in good conscience answer the question with a vote for Kerry, I can only shake my head and say I do not understand.
If the tragedy of a Kerry presidency does unfold, I also will have to accept my own responsibility in having failed to speak with sufficient intelligence and clarity, although I shouldn't flatter myself into thinking that my words could have made that much difference. Still, in my own small way, I will continue to work with others in bringing Kerry's record of enthusiastic accommodation of death and eager affiliation with the death-dealers out of the shadows. I hope that the truth will speak for itself and the more it is revealed the less likely that Kerry's coronation will proceed.
Greg Sisk
Thought this would be of interest to readers of this blog: In today's New York Times, in his "Beliefs" column, Catholic Peter Steinfels, a former editor of Commonweal, reports that according to the latest poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, "white Catholics, who three weeks ago favored President Bush by 49 percent to 33 percent[,] now favor Senator Kerry, 50 percent to 43 percent." I've excerpted most of the column below.
Greg Sisk asks, at the end of his posting yeterday: "[C]an a Catholic with a well-formed conscience and respect for innocent human life look into the sepulchre of John Kerry’s putrified record of accommodating death, all the while claiming communion with the Church, and then turn away to pull the lever next to his name in the polling booth?" Unless Greg claims that no Catholic who chooses to vote for Kerry has "a well-formed conscience and respect for innocent human life," Greg must answer his own question in the affirmative. If Greg does claim that no Catholic who votes for Kerry--not Mark Roche, not Cathy Kaveny, not Peggy Steinfels, and so on--has "a well-formed conscience and respect for innocent thuman life," . . . well, I'll leave that claim for others to judge.
Michael P.
An Undissolved Alliance
PETER STEINFELS
When the votes are counted on Nov. 2, will religion be the loser?
Some people clearly think so. They agree with Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis in his classic "Democracy in America." Already in the 1830's, Tocqueville had divined much of what has recently been rediscovered about the religious faith of Americans.
"From the beginning," he wrote, "politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved."
He believed that for Americans, religion offered crucial moral support for democracy; indeed, it was nothing less than "the first of their political institutions."
But Tocqueville attributed this power, as well as the very religious faith of the people, to the fact that "religion in America takes no direct part in the government." The clergy here, unlike that of Europe, did not normally seek office, and churches kept their distance from partisan politics.
In 2004, Tocqueville would almost certainly feel that by widespread entanglement in the presidential election, religion has inflicted on itself wounds that will not heal quickly.
The handful of vocal Roman Catholic bishops who suggest that voting for Senator John Kerry would be a deed gravely wrong in the church's eyes, a sin akin to actually performing abortions, have certainly swollen the ranks of Catholics deeply alienated from their church. No such obvious price is being paid by politically militant evangelicals, but some thoughtful evangelical leaders have begun to warn of the long-run cost of identifying their faith with one political party.
Of course, the opposite case can be argued. Not long ago, political scientists were not even interested in gathering data about how different religious groups voted. Well-educated Americans had absorbed the idea that religion was something to be kept private. Talking about your faith was like leaving the bedroom curtains open, and thinking about your neighbors' faith was like peering into their windows.
By demonstrating political relevance, religion has finally gained a little respect. "Thus may some good come out of this often rancid campaign," the inveterately optimistic E. J. Dionne Jr. wrote this week in his syndicated Washington Post column. Noting the bumper sticker announcing that "God is NOT a Republican ... or a Democrat," Mr. Dionne welcomed the recognition that "religious people are not monolithic in their views." Likewise, "the myth that religion lives only on the political right is being exploded."
The upshot, he concluded, is that "honest debate among believers will again be a normal part of the nation's public life," a development that would be "a benefit to democracy and to faith communities, too."
John Carr, director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Department of Social Development and World Peace, entertains a similar hope. After two months of traveling around the country, Mr. Carr finds that Catholics are "really wrestling" with the moral issues posed by the election: abortion, yes, but also the war in Iraq and other issues.
The depth of moral pondering is far beyond what he encountered four years ago, he said; and the abbreviated lists of what some conservative Catholics term "non-negotiable" issues have not eclipsed the broader range of "moral priorities'' outlined in "Faithful Citizenship," the brochure that the bishops issued on the eve of the election year. The first of those priorities was indeed "protecting human life," but the brochure went on to list other concerns like "protecting family life," "pursuing social justice" and "practicing global solidarity."
In fact, the lingering notion that there is a lockstep Catholic vote represented by a minority of outspoken bishops is challenged by the latest poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. It reports a sharp swing among white Catholics, who three weeks ago favored President Bush by 49 percent to 33 percent but now favor Senator Kerry, 50 percent to 43 percent.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Michael Perry refers us to two essays by Father John Langan and Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, which he describes as making the case that a conscientious Catholic legitimately could vote for John Kerry for President, despite his record on abortion. He then asks whether anyone still would still insist that a Catholic cannot vote for Senator Kerry, and, if so, asks that interlocutor to clearly explain how and why the positions taken in the two essays “are not merely arguments that you reject, but unreasonable arguments that any faithful Catholic must, in good conscience, reject.”
I don’t read either Father Langan or Ms. Steinfels as actually making the case that a conscientious Catholic could vote for John Kerry. So it is difficult to rebut that which is never quite said.
Father Langan’s essay never mentions John Kerry, much less suggests how a good Catholic should or may vote in a particular election. Instead, he offers strategic thoughts about how best to advance a culture of life and also questions whether completely outlawing abortion is a necessary and appropriate means to that end. While I find much to praise, much to dispute, and much to think about in Father Langan’s essay, it sheds little light ultimately on the peculiar John Kerry problem. Father Langan never suggests that a politician who loyally has carried water for the abortion industry is worthy of support by any Catholic. In fact, his rebuke of “Catholic politicians [who are] the more or less willing subjects of an unholy orthodoxy imposed by pro-choice pressure groups” left me thinking that he might draw the line against a professing Catholic political figure who has assiduously courted and ingratiated himself directly with the abortion industry.
Ms. Steinfels certainly does use the name “John Kerry” in her essay, but not often and not with any attention to detail or affirmative endorsement. Instead, the essence of her essay is an argument why a Catholic ought not vote for President Bush (as she devotes the lion’s share of discussion to the President’s purported flaws, with precious few words left for Senator Kerry). She concludes the essay by casting her lot with John Kerry, but she seems to do so only by default (thereby forgetting that there are more than two choices in any election). In sum, Ms. Steinfels at most makes the case for reluctantly supporting a generic candidate with vaguely pro-choice views (and wrongly assumes that John Kerry fits this bill), when the alternative choice is unpalatable.
Ms. Steinfels, like so many who insist they genuinely are pro-life but that John Kerry nonetheless is the lesser of two evils, assiduously avoids more than a glance at Senator Kerry’s complete record in all its ugliness. These reluctant Kerry supporters direct all their fire at President Bush, while giving Senator Kerry a pass by characterizing him somewhat innocuously as pro-choice or somewhat less than perfect on abortion. How can one reach the conclusion that one politician is a lesser evil than another if the respective evils are never fully explored? Why are so many ready and eager to catalog in fine detail the asserted misadventures and failings of the Bush Administration, while unwilling to scrutinize the publicly-available record of legislative votes, speeches, political rallies, endorsements, and campaign contributions made or received by Senator Kerry over the course of decades. Like so many others, Ms. Steinfels in her essay never forthrightly examines John Kerry’s depressingly miserable record on issues of life.
Indeed, Ms. Steinfels largely avoids the abortion issue as practically unimportant in this election, saying that the climate for legal abortion is unlikely to be much affected in the next four years, in either direction, regardless of the outcome of the presidential election. But consider John Kerry’s support for public funding of abortions, his promise that his first act as President will be to restore abortion funding to international organizations, his litmus test of support for Roe v. Wade for Supreme Court nominees (thereby limiting his choice to those who are publicly identified as pro-choice and thus probably strongly so), his promises to veto legislation placing any limitations on the abortion-license, etc., etc. Making the assumption that a President Kerry would not make any difference for the worse is a most dangerous gamble and a gamble with the lives of unborn thousands.
Ms. Steinfels argues that “[t]he law will only change when the culture changes and women change their minds about abortion.” If by “change,” she means a complete and final end to the tragedy of abortion (ignoring the constructive interim steps of limitations, notifications, waiting-periods, counseling, non-funding, etc.) , surely she is correct. But electing a pro-abortion Catholic who for decades has exhibited public contempt for the Church’s consistent witness to life seems an odd way to move the culture. Indeed, those of us troubled by the prospect of a President Kerry fear most greatly the potential impact upon the fragile but meaningful maturing in public understanding and respect for life that have occurred over the last several years. The scandal of the most prominent Catholic in the nation standing four-square against his own Church on the pre-eminent issue of our times, without repercussion and while holding up the cover of support by other prominent Catholics, could be devastating. The damage to the Church’s witness for life could take decades to reverse.
It is for these reasons that I simply would ask all of us to take a hard look at John Kerry’s record as a sycophantic acolyte of the abortion industry, happily accepting the donations of abortionists, eagerly joining rallies organized by those who not only advocate for abortion rights but perform the deadly deed. To be sure, during these latter days of the campaign, John Kerry has hinted that he may be personally opposed to abortion, although he cannot bring himself even to say that directly, instead engaging in such circumlocutions as saying he has respect for those who have another view or that his views on abortion are an “article of faith,” by which he means something to be utterly ignored in his public life. Even now, he has never spoken words of unequivocal condemnation of abortion, he has never agreed that abortion is an intrinsic evil (and that those performing abortions thereby are directly complicit in evil), he has never disassociated himself from his abortion industry allies and financial backers. When it comes to abortion, the words of Kate Michelman, president of the NARAL Pro-Choice America (which I’ve quoted before) linger: “Even on the most difficult issues, we’ve never had to worry about John Kerry’s position.”
In the end, can a Catholic with a well-formed conscience and respect for innocent human life look into the sepulchre of John Kerry’s putrified record of accommodating death, all the while claiming communion with the Church, and then turn away to pull the lever next to his name in the polling booth?
By leaving the question dangling, have I dodged Michael Perry's question? Well, so be it. I'm answering a question with a question.
Greg Sisk
