The Muddy Waters

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It seems they are even muddier these days. No clear divisions anymore, anywhere.

You know what I'm talking about -- politics.

Muddy puddles everywhere. And here's one I've always been mystified by -- the Catholic who votes Democrat.

There, I said it. I don't like getting political, but if devout Catholics don't fight this one out, no one will.

I know Catholics who vote Democrat. I know Catholic clergy who vote Democrat. For some it's about a life-long voting record, voting the Party. It's about labor unions, or social justice. It's about non-life-threatening "injuries." At one time, it was fine for Catholics to vote Democrat. But not in recent history. Now if you align yourself with the Democratic Party you are aligning yourself with the culture of death. And, if you don't already know this, folks, if you vote Democrat, you vote pro-choice, almost without exception. And if you align yourself with the Democratic Party because you are pro-choice. Well, you need to find a new Church. You cannot be Catholic and pro-choice. Senator Biden -- that includes you!

We are at a time in our country when we must use triage mentality to voice our choice at the voting booth (the process of sorting victims, as of a battle or disaster, to determine medical priority in order to increase the number of survivors). It really comes down to that. What issue is taking the most lives?

I think we can all agree it's not a lack of fair labor practice, or the welfare system. It's not Capital Punishment or even "the war." It is abortion. I'm not saying that those issues are not important. They are -- human suffering must be acknowledged, and to the best of our ability, resolved. But we are at triage level -- who is suffering the most; where are the most losses?

I have written before about the five non-negotiable issues that Catholics should consider when choosing a candidate for any public office. They are intrinsically evil issues -- as in no good can ever come from them. They are morally wrong and as Catholics we must understand that to commit these acts is a serious sin against God. We also must voice our vote against them. From Priests for Life, "Catholics must avoid voting for any candidate who intends to support programs or laws that are intrinsically evil. When all of the candidates endorse morally harmful policies, citizens must vote in a way that will limit the harm likely to be done."

Catholic Voter's Guide from Priests for Life

Five Non-Negotiable Issues

1. Abortion

The Church teaches that, regarding a law permitting abortions, it is "never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or to vote for it" (EV 73). Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide.

The unborn child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child’s, who should not suffer death for others’ sins.

2. Euthanasia

Often disguised by the name "mercy killing," euthanasia is also a form of homicide. No person has a right to take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.

In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed, by action or omission, out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include intentionally doing something intrinsically evil to another person (cf. EV 73).

3. Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Human embryos are human beings. "Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo" (CRF 4b).

Recent scientific advances show that often medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there is no valid medical argument in favor of using embryonic stem cells. And even if there were benefits to be had from such experiments, they would not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.

4. Human Cloning

"Attempts . . . for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through ‘twin fission,’ cloning, or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union" (RHL I:6).

Human cloning also involves abortion because the "rejected" or "unsuccessful" embryonic clones are destroyed, yet each clone is a human being.

5. Homosexual "Marriage"

True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recognition of any other union as "marriage" undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in what is an objectively immoral arrangement.

"When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral" (UHP 10).

You can find more information on Catholic political responsibility here.

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