This
is interesting. It seems to me that, with the exception of Kmeic, what
the “Obamacons” all have in common is that they are not members of the
Religious Right. It suggests the collapse of the Republican
Coalition. In light of this exodus, it’s interesting that many in the
Church’s leadership have decided to double down on the Republican
nominee. If Obama hangs on and wins, exactly how much influence do the
Catholic Bishops expect to have in an Obama administration? HT Cass Sunstein:
Charles Fried, a professor at
Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important
conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he
served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United
States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several
Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom
he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.
This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by
absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to
the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the
several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter,
he said that chief among the reasons for his decision “is the choice of
Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis.”
Memphis Bishop calls upon Catholics to avoid 'one issue' votes By THOMAS C. FOX
TENNESSEE BISHOP RECEIVES AWARD AT NCEA CONVENTION IN ATLANTA: Bishop
J. Terry Steib of Memphis, Tenn., receives award at the National
Catholic Educational Association convention. The award is presented to
someone who has supported Catholic education on a national level. Memphis
Bishop J. Terry Steib this week called upon Catholics to avoid being
one issue voters. He asked them to follow their consciences and weigh
all the moral issues they face before casting their ballots.
“We must recognize,” he wrote, “that God through the Church, is
calling us to be prophetic in our own day. If our conscience is well
formed, then we will make the right choices about candidates who may
not support the Church's position in every case.”
Citing words from a statement, “Forming Consciences for Faithful
Citizenship,” a voting guide issued last November by the Bishops of the
United States, Steib wrote that "there may be times when a Catholic who
rejects a candidate's unacceptable position may decide to vote for that
candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be
permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow
interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral
evil."
“A person might choose not to vote, but voting is a necessary part
of our witness to Jesus Christ and a witness to our Baptism. So,
sometimes hard choices will have to be made.”
Steib wrote that within the past few weeks some denominations have
taken on the task of challenging the policy of the IRS concerning the
Church and politics and that they were deliberately endorsing
candidates and urging people in their congregations to vote for those
persons in order to force the IRS to determine if the current policy of
forbidding such endorsements is proper.
He said he disagreed with the approach because of his “deep respect”
to the non-establishment clause in the First Amendment to the
Constitution.
He wrote that some Catholics have been asking their bishops to endorse candidates.
Continuing he wrote that he has been among those bishops who have
received letters from “well-meaning people” telling me for whom I
should vote and how I should inform parishioners regarding the
candidates for whom they should or should not cast their ballot.”
He wrote “it is not my duty nor is it my role to tell the members of
the community of faith in the Diocese of Memphis how to vote.”
Rather he felt the need, he wrote, to proclaim the truth of Jesus
Christ as announced in Scripture and articulated by the Church.”
“Politics,” Steib wrote, “is not just a game; it is instead a part
of the commonwealth of our lives. Just as we cannot avoid drinking
water in order to live, so also, as faithful Christians we cannot avoid
being involved in the political process and remain good Christians. But
if we are to be involved in the political process by voting, then we
must have formed our consciences well.”
He called upon Catholics to be prudent when they form their
consciences. “Prudence is not easy to define, but according to the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, prudence helps us to ‘discern our
true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of
achieving it.’"
He posed the question facing many Catholics, asking what is a voter
to do when presented with candidates whose views do not reflect the
full teachings of the Church.
To help answer the question he quoted the spiritual writer, Father Ronald Rolheiser who wrote the following in his book Secularity and the Gospel:
“In an age of increasing violence, fundamentalism, and the myth that
God wishes to cleanse the planet of its sin and immorality by force,
perhaps the first witness we must give to our world is a witness to
God's non-violence, a witness to the God revealed by Jesus Christ who
opposes violence of all kinds, from war, to revenge, to capital
punishment, to abortion, to euthanasia, to the attempt to use force to
bring about justice and God's will in any way."
Steib wrote that he understood Rolheiser to be saying Catholics cannot be one issue people.
In a similar light, in an interview this week, Gabino Zavala, an
auxiliary bishop in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, said his fellow
bishops have long insisted that "we're not a one-issue church," a view
reflected in their 2007 document "Forming Consciences for Faithful
Citizenship."
"But that's not always what comes out," said Zavala in the Los Angeles Times,
who is also bishop-president of the Catholic peace group Pax Christi
USA. "What I believe, and what the church teaches, is that one abortion
is too many. That's why I believe abortion is so important. But in
light of this, there are many other issues we need to bring up, other
issues we should consider, other issues that touch the reality of our
lives."
Steib and Zavala’s remarks come in the wake of a number of U.S.
Catholic bishops who in one manner or another have called upon
Catholics to vote to oppose any candidate that does not support an
effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion in the United States.
The most recent in a string of such bishops are Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput and Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn.
Chaput recently labeled Barack Obama as “the most committed”
abortion-rights candidate from a major party in 35 years. Emphasizing
he was speaking as a private citizen and not as a representative of the
Denver archdiocese, Chaput made the case it is immoral to vote for
Obama.
Chaput had already said that Obama running mate Joe Biden, a
Catholic, should not present himself for Communion because of his
abortion rights position.
Similarly, Finn wrote last week in his diocesan paper that
'pro-choice' candidates are "inviting Catholics to put aside their
conscience on this life and death issue." He added: “They want us to
deny our conscience and ignore their callous disregard for the most
vulnerable human life."
And earlier this month, Bishop Joseph Martino of the Scranton (Pa.)
Diocese issued a letter warning that "being 'right' on taxes,
education, health care, immigration, and the economy fails to make up
for the error of disregarding the value of a human life." He added: "It
is a tragic irony that 'pro-choice' candidates have come to support
homicide — the gravest injustice a society can tolerate — in the name
of 'social justice.' "
Why the faithful can in good conscience back the Democrat
By Nicholas P. Cafardi, M. Cathleen Kaveny and Douglas W. Kmiec
This article is a rebuttal to a previously published essay by George Weigel arguing that Barack Obama's views on abortion are fundamentally at odds with Catholic doctrine. To read the original article, click here.
George
Weigel and his fellow McCain advisers are growing frustrated at the
state of the campaign, and they should be. This election rightly
continues to focus on the millions of Americans at risk of losing their
jobs and their homes. The issue of abortion, of course, is tied to the
nation's economic fortunes. In part, we endorsed Senator Obama because
his tax-reduction plan focuses on the betterment of average families
and those living at the margins. Center for Disease Control statistics
reveal that prosperity directly affects the abortion rate far more
significantly than Republican rhetoric pledging to outlaw abortion—a
feat John McCain has failed to accomplish with nearly three decades in
Congress.
Mr. Weigel predicts that the emergence of
serious pro-life Catholics supporting Obama in this election portends
"a new hardening of the battle lines. Not on our part. To us, endorsing
Barack Obama was not only about who would make the best president, but
also about erasing many of these old battle lines, which, frankly, have
been drawn on the wrong battlefield and have served no one
well—especially women and the unborn, to say nothing of our political
discourse.
In the closing weeks of this election,
abortion is among the crucial issues for Catholic voters, but promoting
a culture of life is necessarily interconnected with a family wage,
universal health care and, yes, better parenting and education of our
youth. This greater appreciation for the totality of Catholic teaching
is at the very heart of the Obama campaign; it is scarcely a McCain
footnote.
In a perfect world, the pro-life
argumentation of George Weigel is unassailable. He counsels having
constitutional law align absolutely with the defense of innocent human
life; to which we say, "Amen." The problem for Weigel is that even our
collective "Amen" will not make it so. In the meantime, millions of
children are being aborted.
Mr. Weigel is an
intellectual and for him it's a simple matter of accessing the
objective truth of the human person as explicated in Catholic natural
law and saying, "Follow me." For 35 years, however, pro-lifers have
followed that intellectual siren call, asking the Supreme Court on
multiple occasions to reverse Roe v. Wade. We have no
objection to pursuing this legal avenue, which does not depend on who
occupies the White House—though we have no illusions about it, either.
The legal path has not worked to date, and it may never work.
The
church asks its faithful to find meaningful—not hypothetical—ways to
promote human life. While getting the law and philosophy right might
eventually do that, it does bring up the question: What are you doing
for the cause of life now? The McCain answer: not much.
Besides
being prepared to nominate justices like Samuel Alito and John Roberts,
who in keeping with their judicial oath are certainly not on record as
having a predetermined view on the reversal of Roe, McCain's
planning has all the narrow, in-built affluent bias of the
near-identical Bush ideas. In terms of health care, McCain makes no
provision for the uninsured and proposes that the insured pay more, in
all likelihood dumping people into a private insurance market that is
more expensive and less responsive to those with pre-existing
conditions.
By contrast, Obama does make provision for
universal health care and recognizes abortion for what it is: a tragic
moral choice often confronted by a woman in adverse economic and social
circumstances (without spouse, without steady income, without
employment prospects, and a particularly stigmatic and cumbersome
adoption procedure). Obama proposes to reduce the incidence of abortion
by helping pregnant women overcome the ill effects of poverty that
block a choice of life. A range of new studies–using U.S. rather than
Swedish data–affirm this approach.
We're happy to
continue to debate abortion, but the well-worn battlefield Mr. Weigel
occupies should not distract voters from tangible policies that would
actually reduce abortions. Before unwarranted Republican indenture,
Catholic thinking gave proportionate consideration to how well a
candidate addressed such important matters as a just economy, a living
or family wage, access to health care, stewardship of the environment,
fair treatment of immigrants and, not to be overlooked, the just or
unjust conduct of a war. This is basic Catholic social teaching. It
also just happens to be Barack Obama's policy agenda.
Is
Obama the perfect pro-life candidate? No. Is he preferable to the
self-proclaimed "pro-lifer" McCain? Yes, because promoting life in
actuality beats McCain's label and all of Weigel's elegant theorizing
and hand-wringing. The Republican alternative familiar to Weigel is
simultaneously self-righteous, easy and ineffective. The Democratic
path is practical, anything but easy—as no act of bona fide love of
neighbor ever is—but inviting of a life-affirming outcome.
Weigel
may also wish to stay tied up in knots over the fitness of Catholic
politicians to receive holy communion, rather than practically asking
how to be of help to a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy. But as we
read the American bishops, they have invited Catholic officeholders to
promote life as much as is politically possible (never conceding any
life as expendable). The notion of using the sacrament as a political
tool we find divisive, deeply offensive and contrary to the Gospel.
Weigel
may also wish to engage in a theoretical debate about hypothetical
public support for the funding of abortion, and whether that results in
improper moral complicity with an evil act. That is a worthy seminar
topic, but we recommend he start by asking the same question of himself
in terms of coerced taxpayer support for an unjust and unjustifiable
war in Iraq costing over $10 billion a month and thousands of Iraqi and
American lives, which Weigel aided and abetted with his vocal support,
contrary to the express prayers of the Holy Father he called "a witness
to hope."
There is no more audacious embrace of hope than faith-based action that honors all of life.
In the new issue of America: The National Catholic Weekly, there is an article by Rick's colleague, Cathy Kaveny, who is John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Here's how the article begins:
Intrinsic Evil and Political Responsibility
Is the concept of intrinsic evil helpful to the Catholic voter?
As the November national elections approach, we need not delve too
deeply into Catholic political discussions to realize the importance of
the term “intrinsic evil.” The term is used not only in such documents
as Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the 2008 Voting Guide for Catholics issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
but also in political skirmishes among American Catholics. But what,
exactly, is an “intrinsic evil”? Why should voters give special
attention to intrinsic evils in considering the candidates? Almost no
Catholic opinion-maker who invokes the term goes on to ask these
questions, let alone to answer them.
Perhaps this is because the answers seem obvious. After all, the
term “intrinsic evil” seems to connote great and contaminating
evil—evil that we take inside ourselves simply by associating with it.
The term itself suggests that “intrinsic evil” involves wrongdoing of
an entirely different magnitude than ordinary, run-of-the-mill
wrongdoing. Consequently, intrinsic evils must pose great moral dangers
to both individuals and society at large, and these dangers ought to
dwarf all other considerations in casting one’s vote.
Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship
tells us that intrinsically evil actions “must always be rejected and
opposed and must never be supported or condoned,” because “they are
always opposed to the authentic good of persons.” At the same time, in
national debates during the current election season, some Catholic
political commentators have complained about Catholics who support
candidates who do not, in the commentator’s judgment, adequately oppose
such intrinsic evils as abortion, euthanasia and homosexual acts, the
last of which are implied by gay marriage.
The foregoing is meant to illustrate how the term “intrinsic evil”
is used in the passionate give and take that characterizes many
Catholic discussions about voting for a pro-choice politician. It is,
however, in significant tension with the great weight of the church’s
long moral tradition. The term “intrinsic evil” does not have its roots
in the expansive imagery of the church’s prophetic witness, but rather
in the tightly focused analysis of its moral casuistry. It is not a
rhetorical flourish, but rather a technical term of Catholic moral
theology. Ultimately, as Pope John Paul II reminds us in his encyclical
The Splendor of Truth (Veritatis Splendor), it is rooted in the action theory of St. Thomas Aquinas.
The Meaning of ‘Intrinsically Evil’
In a nutshell, the fact that an act is called an intrinsic evil tells us two and only two things.
First, it tells us why
an action is wrong—because of the “object” of the acting agent’s will.
To identify the object of an action, one has to put oneself in the
shoes of the one acting, and to describe the action from her
perspective. The object is the immediate goal for which that person is
acting; it is “the proximate end of a deliberate decision” (VS, No. 78).
Second, the fact that an act is intrinsically evil tells us that it is always
wrong to perform that type of act, no matter what the other
circumstances are. A good motive cannot make an act with a bad object
morally permissible. In other words, we may never do evil so that good
may come of it. To echo an example used by both Pope John Paul II and
St. Thomas, a modern-day Robin Hood should not hold up a convenience
store at gunpoint in order to give the money to a nearby homeless
center. Robin Hood’s good motive (altruistic giving) does not wash away
the bad object or immediate purpose of his action (robbery).
But to say that an act is intrinsically evil does not by itself say
anything about the comparative gravity of the act. Some acts that are
not intrinsically evil (driving while intoxicated) can on occasion be
worse both objectively and subjectively than acts that are
intrinsically evil (telling a jocose lie). Some homicides that are not
intrinsically evil are worse than intrinsically evil homicides.
Furthermore, the fact that an act is intrinsically evil does not by
itself tell third parties anything at all about their duty to prevent
that act from occurring.
The following analyses and reflections may provide some clarity and
further issues for reflection as we continue to debate the use and
misuse of church teachings in the political realm.
[Then, Cathy's article proceeds carefully under these five headings: 1. "Intrinsically evil" does not mean "gravely evil." 2. An intrinsically evil homicide is not always worse than every other wrongful homicide. 3. Preventing intrindically evil acts is not always our top moral priority. 4. The motives and circumstances of particular moral actions also deserve moral scrutiny. 5. Intrinsic evil is not the only useful category in deciding one's vote. To read Cathy's careful analysis, click here. Here is the conclusion to Cathy's essay:]
‘Intrinsic Evil’ as Prophetic Language
Finally, the defender might admit that there is one issue of
overriding importance for which the term “intrinsic evil” is useful in
political considerations: abortion. For more than three decades, the
regime of legalized abortion has taken the lives of well over a million
unborn children a year. The Supreme Court of the United States not only
permits this regime, it honors it as the instantiation of a fundamental
right. In this circumstance, the term “intrinsic evil” helps evoke why
abortion deserves prime consideration in voting. Abortion happens
inside a woman’s womb, inside what should be the safest relationship of
all: that between mother and child. Abortion happens deep inside our
society, permeating big cities and small towns alike.
But note that this use of the term “intrinsic evil” has moved far
beyond the technical use normally employed in Catholic action theory:
it is evocative, not analytical. Its prophetic tone echoes Vatican II’s
“Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 27):
Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of
murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction,
whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as
mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the
will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living
conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution,
the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working
conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than
as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their
like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more
harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury.
Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator.
Pope John Paul II used this passage to illustrate the
incompatibility of intrinsic evil with human flourishing in “The
Splendor of Truth” (No. 80). Like the use of the clearly prophetic word
“infamies” in the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World,” the prophetic use of the term “intrinsic evil” is meant to
start an urgent discussion among people of good will about grave
injustices in the world. It does not provide a detailed blueprint for
action. Identifying infamies is one thing. Deciding upon a strategy to
deal with them is something else again. For many pro-life Catholics,
the issue of voting and abortion comes down to this: what does one do
if one thinks that the candidate more likely to reduce the actual
incidence of abortion is also the one more committed to keeping it
legal? The language of intrinsic evil does not help us here. Only the
virtue of practical wisdom, enlightened by charity, can take us further.
Social Science, Public Policy and Christian Faith In Conversation at the University of Chicago
In recognition of the 60th Anniversary of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 10, 1948 – December 10, 2008)
Thursday, November 6, 2008
7:00 p.m. Screening of Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North; a PBS documentary produced by Katrina Brown, whose ancestors in the DeWolf family were the biggest slave traders in America. Watch an excerpt | Tom DeWolf,
author of the book on this project will be present to answer questions
on his book and the movie. In addition, he will talk about his
participation in an ongoing racial reconciliation discussion project
called Coming to the Table and organized by the Center for Justice and
Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University.
Friday, November 7, 2008
9:00 a.m. Jean Bethke Elshtain - The nature of the citizen, goverment, and religion for the cause of civil society and justice.
10:30 a.m. Randolph Stone
- Mass Incarceration and its Aftermath: What do we do when hundreds of
prisoners are released and return to troubled communities.
12:00 p.m. - Lunch. Lunch is provided for registered participants.
1:00 p.m. Michael Perry - Human rights in society - religious vs. secular foundations.
2:30 p.m. Jeanne Ward - Human rights for women and children.
4:00 p.m. Panel Discussion
6:00 p.m. - Dinner. Dinner is provided for registered participants.
7:00 p.m.
Panel Discussion with people involved in Social Justice and Human Rights Ministries.
10:30 a.m. As We Forgive - A journey into the lives of three Rwandan genocide survivors who discover the power and pain of radical forgiveness.
NOTE: We are hoping to have at least one person involved with making
movie and at least one Rwandan with us to discuss the process of
reconciliation going on in Rwanda, since almost 50,000 prisoners
accused of genocide were released in 2006, due to the fact that there
were not enough courts or judges to try their cases.
11:30 a.m. Panel Discussion
12:30 p.m. - Lunch. Lunch is provided for registered participants.
1:00 p.m.
Presentations and Resources by Social Justice and Human Rights Groups.
I hope this paper, which I posted to SSRN last month, will be of interest to some MOJ-readers.
Here's the abstract, followed by a link to the SSRN page where the paper can be downloaded/printed.
There has been growing interest in, and scholarly attention to, issues
and questions that arise within the subject matter domain we may call
"human rights theory". See, in particular, Amartya Sen, "Elements of a
Theory of Human Rights," 32 Philosophy & Public Affairs 315 (2004);
James W. Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights (rev. ed. 2006); Michael
J. Perry, Toward a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts
(2007); James Griffin, On Human Rights (2008); Nicholas Wolterstorff,
Justice: Rights and Wrongs (2008). This essay - a version of which will
appear in a multi-authored collection of essays to be published by
Oxford University Press in 2009 - is intended as a contribution to
human rights theory. These are the principal questions, or sets of
questions, I address in the essay:
1.
What is the morality of human rights - by which I mean the morality
that, according to the International Bill of Human Rights, is the
principal warrant for the law of human rights?
2. How does the morality of human rights warrant the law of human rights?
3.
Some human-rights-claims are legal claims, but some are moral claims,
and some are both. What does a human-rights-claim of the legal sort
mean? A human-rights-claim of the moral sort? And when does it make
sense to think of a right that only some human beings have - children,
for example - as a human right?
4. Is there a plausible secular ground for the morality of human rights?
5.
At the end of the proverbial day, what difference does it make - why
should we care - if there is no plausible secular ground for the
morality of human rights? Now, the link: here.
The McCain campaign and the Republican National
Committee are pumping a robocall into multiple states that directly
alleges that Obama has “worked closely” with “domestic terrorist Bill
Ayers,” whose organization has “killed Americans,” according to
multiple reader reports and an audio recording we listened to.
The caller begins by announcing that he’s calling on behalf of McCain and the RNC. the call continues:
“You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely
with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S.
Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home, and killed Americans. And
Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of
Washington. Barack Obama and his democratic allies lack the judgment to
lead our country.”
The call concludes by saying it was “paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee.”
Torture and American Culture: An Inquiry and
Reflection
Tuesday, 21
October 2008, 1 – 5 p.m.
Fordham
University • Lincoln Center Campus • McNally Amphitheatre • 140 W. 62nd
St.
The photographs that revealed the
torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib shocked the world. Further
revelations of CIA rendition policies, deaths in custody, Guantanamo detainees
and government secrecy raise critical questions about U.S. culture and the
conditions that have fostered the resort to torture.
THIS FORUM WILL
EXAMINE TWO ISSUES:
What in U.S. culture predisposes us to torture or a tolerance for torture?
What strengths and weaknesses have U.S. leadership groups (political,
military, religious, medical, psychological, legal, etc.) exhibited in
responding to the current controversies over torture?
Session I: 1
– 2:15 p.m. Popular Culture, Graphic Representations of Torture and
Violence
MODERATOR William McGarvey, editor-in-chief,
Busted Halo, online magazine.
PANELISTS David Danzig, Human Rights First,
director, Primetime Torture Project. Todd Gitlin,
professor, Columbia University School of Journalism. Richard Alleva, film critic,
Commonweal.
Session II:
2:30 – 3:45 p.m. American Elites and Their Response to Torture
MODERATOR Frederick Wertz, professor, Fordham
University, Department of Psychology.
PANELISTS Legal Profession: William Treanor, dean
and professor of law, Fordham University School of Law. Military and
Intelligence: Col. Patrick Lang (Ret.), president,
Global Resources Group. Religion: Drew Christiansen,
S.J., editor, America magazine. Psychology: Stephen Behnke, director, ethics office, American
Psychological Association.
Further
Reflections: 4 – 5 p.m.
MODERATOR Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, co-director,
Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.
PANELISTS The panelists in conversation Q & A from the audience.
Stephen Braunlich, a law student at Catholic U., rightly thought that many MOJers would be interested in this:
The Catholic Vote 2008: A Life Cycle Colloquium
You are cordially invited to join the fellows and friends of the Life Cycle Institute at The Catholic University of America for a special colloquium on The Catholic Vote 2008. Please join this gathering of Life Cycle and outside experts as they consider the Catholic vote in the context of the current national election.
Moderator: Professor Sandra Hanson, Department of Sociology & Life Cycle Institute, CUA
Speaker: Professor Mark Rozell, School of Public Policy, George Mason University
Speaker: Dr. Gregory Smith, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Speaker: Professor John White, Department of Politics & Life Cycle Institute, CUA
Respondent: Dr. William DʼAntonio, Life Cycle Institute
Respondent: Michael Sean Winters, Author of Left at the Altar
McGiveny (formerly Keane) Auditorium Wednesday, October 22nd, 4:00-6:00pm Reception to Follow
Often labeled a “swing group,” Catholics comprise one-quarter of the electorate. In six of the last seven presidential elections, Catholics have voted for the winner. At the same time, Catholics are sharply divided along party lines—with 43% of selfidentified Catholics Democratic, 34% Republican, and 19% independent. All of which makes the question of the Catholic Vote 2008 a fascinating one to consider in the final week-and-a-half before election day. How will they vote in 2008? What issues and policies matter most to Catholics? How will their votes impact the election?
Life Cycle Institute The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 Phone: (202) 319-5999 Fax: (202) 319-6267 Email: [email protected]
It would be interesting to see Supreme Knight Carl Anderson (see Paul Moses’ post below)
face off with Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, who told
NCR’s John Allen that he would “obviously” vote for Barack Obama if he
could. That seems consistent with what I’ve heard from and about
prelates outside the American ecclesial echo chamber. But Onaiyekan is
particularly thoughtful in his remarks:
Known as a strong advocate for social justice, Onaiyekan
said Obama’s pro-choice record wouldn’t stop him from voting for the
Democrat.
“The fact that you oppose abortion doesn’t necessarily mean that you are pro-life,” Onaiyekan said in an interview with NCR. “You can be anti-abortion and still be killing people by the millions through war, through poverty, and so on.”
A past president of the African bishops’ conference, Onaiyekan is
widely seen as a spokesperson for Catholicism in Africa. During the
synod, he was tapped to deliver a continental report on behalf of the
African bishops.
Onaiyekan said the election of an African-American president would
have positive repercussions for America’s image in the developing world.
“It would mean that for the first time, we would begin to think that
the Americans are really serious in the things they say, about freedom,
equality, and all that,” he said. “For a long time, we’ve been feeling
that you don’t really mean it, that they’re just words.”
Onaiyekan said he’s aware that many American Catholics have
reservations about Obama because of his stand on abortion, but he looks
at it differently.
“Of course I believe that abortion is wrong, that it’s killing
innocent life,” he said. “I also believe, however, that those who are
against abortion should be consistent.
“If my choice is between a person who makes room for abortion, but
who is really pro-life in terms of justice in the world, peace in the
world, I will prefer him to somebody who doesn’t support abortion but
who is driving millions of people in the world to death,” Onaiyekan
said.
“It’s a whole package, and you never get a politician who will
please you in everything,” he said. “You always have to pick and
choose.”
UPDATE! Via CNS, this story about a 106-year-old nun
who is going to vote for the first time since 1952…and she’s going to
vote for Obama! Maybe she and the Archbishop can talk shop while
waiting in the non-communion line. It’s a very nice piece, actually.
ROME (CNS) — U.S. Sister Cecilia Gaudette, a
106-year-old member of the Religious Sisters of Jesus and Mary, will
vote for the first time in 56 years and will cast her ballot for
president for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. The nun, a retired music and
art teacher, has lived in Rome for 50 years and only recently found out
that she could register for an absentee ballot without returning to the
United States.
…Sister Cecilia said she was sure Obama would win, just like the
last U.S. presidential candidate she voted for — Republican Dwight D.
Eisenhower in 1952. “I always said, ‘I voted once and I won the
election,’” she told CBS News.
