There have been several posts here at MOJ on the 2008 presidential election, some concluding that the only reasonable choice for a faithful Catholic to make is to vote Republican. But many faithful Catholics disagree with that conclusion.
Consider, for example, this editorial from The Tablet, 9/6/08:
Pro-Life Is Not A Single Issue
It may not decide who is to become the next President of the United
States, but abortion is once again a hot issue as the 2008 election
campaign is launched at the conclusion of the two party conventions. As
during the campaign between John Kerry and George W. Bush four years
ago, so attention has again focused on the Catholic vote -
approximately a quarter of the whole - and how it will be affected by
the strongly expressed opinions of some leading members of the Catholic
hierarchy. Joe Biden, the man chosen to be vice-presidential running
mate for the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, is, like Mr Kerry, an
Irish-American Catholic who supports - in a qualified way - the
pro-choice position.
The stance taken by socially conservative
prelates such as Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver is that Senator
Biden should not present himself for Holy Communion when he attends
Mass, as he does every week. Indeed, he should be refused Communion if
he insists on doing so. The fact that Senator Biden has opposed the
legalisation of partial-birth abortion and is also against government
funds being made available for abortion has not won him a reprieve from
Archbishop Chaput's censure. But it may help him with Catholic voters
in general, who by no means always do what their bishops tell them to.
A significant number of them were persuaded to swing towards Mr Bush in
2004, but many have since noticed that America's pro-abortion laws are
no nearer repeal as a result.
No doubt one of the reasons why
the Republican candidate, John McCain, has chosen Governor Sarah Palin
of Alaska is because she is strongly anti-abortion and therefore
thought to be a magnet for conservative Catholic and Evangelical
voters. But this is an area where the Catholic position itself is more
nuanced. Whether or not a particular Catholic politician does or does
not receive Communion is an issue that can cause hurt and
embarrassment. But it does not stop Catholics from voting for him or
her, even on a strict interpretation of moral theology and canon law.
As Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict gave a ruling in 2004 that
generally supported the case for adamantly pro-abortion Catholic
politicians being denied Communion, but he added: "When a Catholic does
not share a candidate's stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia,
but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote
material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of
proportionate reasons." This deserves to be more widely known, and is
equivalent to the repeatedly stated view of the English and Welsh
bishops that "a general election is not a single-issue referendum".
Senator Biden has certainly been pro-life in urging outside
intervention to stop genocide in Bosnia and Darfur, issues on which
conservatives tended to be more restrained. He supports such pro-life
causes - although not usually seen as such - as universal health care
and measures to improve the lot of the American poor, among whom infant
mortality runs at rates more usually seen in the developing world.
The
demand that the Church should stay out of politics is transparently
unreasonable. But if Catholic bishops are to exert political influence
they must do so with a sophisticated appreciation of complex issues. If
they are not careful, church leaders can find themselves being
cynically manipulated by those whose real interest is not morality but
power.
And consider this editorial from the National Catholic Reporter, 9/5/08:
Ways past the culture wars
The
choice of Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware as the Democratic vice
presidential candidate brought an immediate and predictable reaction
from those intent on using this election cycle to revive the Catholic
culture wars.
Suddenly pundits knew “what kind of Catholic” Biden is and they were
eager to frame his deepest motivations on the basis of a vote here and
there on “life issues,” which in the world of the culture warrior
translates as only one issue -- abortion. And they picked up immediate
encouragement from on high when Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput issued
the pastoral wisdom that Biden should refrain from receiving Communion.
To take that last matter first, Chaput’s pronouncement momentarily
grabbed a portion of the national news cycle, but Catholics shouldn’t
overreact. They would do better to read his book, Render Unto Caesar:
Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, a
far more nuanced and challenging presentation of his view of Catholic
responsibilities.
They’d do better, too, by reading the U.S. bishops’ valuable and
thorough reflection on political responsibility, “Faithful
Citizenship,” which, while placing the protection of innocent life as
the central consideration in pursuing the common good, also
acknowledges the complexities of political life and the ambiguities
that can sometimes confound even the most purposeful legislator.
Mr. Biden is, we suspect, closer to the people most priests face in
the pews every week than the culture warriors would have us believe:
devout, faithful, prayerful and questioning. The problem for him, of
course, is that he plays out his life in public. Most Catholics don’t
have to contend with a chorus demanding absolutes where sometimes only
compromise and negotiation can serve the common good.
According to a recent Associated Press story, Biden has said in the
past that he is “prepared to accept” church teaching on when life
begins, but at the same time he believes that Roe v. Wade “is as close
as we’re going to be able to get as a society” to a consensus among
differing religious and other views on the subject. We suspect that
view is held by a lot of ordinary Catholics and more than a few
bishops, albeit privately. So the dispute becomes more over political
strategy than church teaching. How to attack the abortion problem from
the political stump in the political arena -- where compromise is the
coin of the realm -- is far different from pronouncing from the pulpit.
The
reality, as shown in poll after poll, is that Catholics, like most
others in the culture, are looking for a politics on the abortion issue
that is far removed from either extreme, a politics that can begin to
effectively reduce the number of abortions. Catholics in Alliance for
the Common Good released a study Aug. 27 that shows a strikingly direct
correlation between the availability of social services and a drop in
the number of abortions.
There is more involved in creating a culture of life than simply
seeking the elusive ban on abortion. The culture wars have cost the
church dearly in terms of political capital and credibility, and in the
election of legislators who promise lots on abortion, deliver little
and frequently ignore most of the rest of the bishops’ social agenda.
No political party holds the complete Catholic vision of society.
Seeking a significant reduction in abortion will require more from
us than protest and vilifying politicians. It will require an approach
to the common good that places high value on programs supporting women
and children, on assuring access to jobs and education and on dealing
with the causes and effects of poverty.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Speaking of the New Urbanism, the column by Canadian David Warren that Michael Scaperlanda quoted the other day with respect to the presidential election also includes some critical comments about what the author sees as the dangerous propensity to conformity fostered by urban living circumstances:
To be fair to many who hold all the conventional "Canadian consensus" views, there is seldom much malice in them. As products of our ideologized schools and universities, living all their lives deep within urban conurbations, in spiritually "gated" communities where they mix only with their own kind, they have never been exposed to contrary ideas. And they are sincerely aghast when anything that challenges their profoundly settled views is set before them. The notion that deviation must be suppressed comes as naturally to them, as the notion that anything unIslamic must be suppressed, to a Wahabi fundamentalist in Arabia.
The idea that, for instance, a man could own a gun for any other purpose than to commit violent crimes, is not easily communicated to a person who has no ability whatever to visualize life outside the confines of an urban neighbourhood.
More subtly, the dweller in an urban apartment complex cannot imagine a life in which everything he does is not bound by fussy rules and regulations, and in which any act of non-conformity (lighting a cigarette, for instance) must be greeted with hysterical alarm. In this sense, our vast modern cities, not only in Canada but everywhere, breed Pavlovian conformity to their own physical requirements, and systematically replace moral imperatives with bureaucratic ones.
Is there something to this expression of concern? Does the urban setting "breed Pavlovian conformity" to bureaucratic rules? And is the opposite true? Is there something about non-urban settings that lead people to place a greater value on freedom and being left alone to make their own choice? Might this explain in part why city dwellers tend to vote for politicians who promise more government and more regulation, while rural and, to some extent, suburban dwellers tend to vote for politicians who promise less government and less regulation? Or, less polemically (as Mr. Warren's comments do seem a little over-the-top), are there moral consequences for urban versus non-urban living, not only in the social justice sense of proper use of resources, public care for the disadvantaged, etc., but also in the development of moral sensibilities and a resistance to government-centric concepts of public interest?
Greg Sisk
Here is the prayer offered by Pope Benedict during his visit last Spring to Ground Zero:
O God of love, compassion, and healing,
look on us, people of many different faiths and traditions,
who gather today at this site,
the scene of incredible violence and pain.
We ask you in your goodness
to give eternal light and peace
to all who died here --
the heroic first-responders:
our fire fighters, police officers,
emergency service workers, and Port Authority personnel,
along with all the innocent men and women
who were victims of this tragedy
simply because their work or service
brought them here on September 11, 2001.
We ask you, in your compassion
to bring healing to those
who, because of their presence here that day,
suffer from injuries and illness.
Heal, too, the pain of still-grieving families
and all who lost loved ones in this tragedy.
Give them strength to continue their lives with courage and hope.
We are mindful as well
of those who suffered death, injury, and loss
on the same day at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Our hearts are one with theirs
as our prayer embraces their pain and suffering.
God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world:
peace in the hearts of all men and women
and peace among the nations of the earth.
Turn to your way of love
those whose hearts and minds
are consumed with hatred.
God of understanding,
overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy,
we seek your light and guidance
as we confront such terrible events.
Grant that those whose lives were spared
may live so that the lives lost here
may not have been lost in vain.
Comfort and console us,
strengthen us in hope,
and give us the wisdom and courage
to work tirelessly for a world
where true peace and love reign
among nations and in the hearts of all.
