Catholic Voting

In her post Voting Catholic, Amy Lamboley raises a very important issue:

The New York Times has an article stating that "The Roman Catholic bishop of Colorado Springs has issued a pastoral letter saying that American Catholics should not receive communion if they vote for politicians who defy church teaching by supporting abortion rights, same-sex marriage, euthanasia or stem-cell research." This does not strike me as a good idea.

First off, it is not the case that in all elections voters will be offered a choice between a pro-life and a pro-choice candidate. In more liberal areas of the country, often both candidates are pro-choice, and disagree only to the extent to which abortion should be regulated and/or subsidized by the state. Must Catholic voters abstain entirely from the election?

Second off, these are not the only areas about which the church has politically relevant teaching. Capital punishment, just war theory, and various social justice issues are all areas in which Catholic teaching can reasonably be applied to American politics, and in a way that does not so squarely line up with the Republican party line, but which a Catholic may wish to consider in choosing a candidate to support. So, for instance, in an election in which both candidates are pro-choice, but one is for the war in Iraq and one against, a voter could well feel that it was vitally important to vote for the antiwar politician. ...

I certainly don't believe that Catholics should check their Catholicism at the door of the polling-place. In fact, I don't understand how one could fail to consult fundamental religious beliefs in deciding for whom one votes. It just strikes me that, given the seriousness of the sanction involved, and given the fact that there is no party in U.S. politics that takes the "Catholic line", many decisions on which politician to support will involve weighing a number of different factors, and making unfortunate tradeoffs, it seems terribly misguided to reduce the decision to a few-issue test.

I think Amy is basically right, although I would want to tweak the analysis a bit.

First, let's remember that Bishop Sheridan did not say that Catholics who vote for, say, pro-abortion candidates will be denied the Eucharist. Nothing in his pastoral letter suggests that priests will be grilling their parishoners on their voting habits before administering the sacraments. Instead, I read the Bishop's letter as calling upon Catholics who do so to voluntarily refrain from participating in the sacraments (or, better yet, to be reconciled with the Church through renunciation and penance).

Second, while I applaud Bishop Sheridan for his strong message that the Church's Gospel of Life has pride of place in any faith-based analysis of public policy, I think he has failed to give adequate attention to the legitimate complexities Amy raises. The most authoritative recent Church treatment of these issues is to be found in the Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political Life, which acknowledges that Catholics should not be single issue voters:

The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility towards the common good.

On the other hand, the Note does support Bishop Sheridan's view that the Church's Gospel of Life takes highest priority:

When political activity comes up against moral principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation, the Catholic commitment becomes more evident and laden with responsibility. In the face of fundamental and inalienable ethical demands, Christians must recognize that what is at stake is the essence of the moral law, which concerns the integral good of the human person. This is the case with laws concerning abortion and euthanasia (not to be confused with the decision to forgo extraordinary treatments, which is morally legitimate). Such laws must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death. In the same way, it is necessary to recall the duty to respect and protect the rights of the human embryo.

Even so, however, the Church acknowledges that even as to abortion compromises may be necessary in the political arena:

As John Paul II has taught in his Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae regarding the situation in which it is not possible to overturn or completely repeal a law allowing abortion which is already in force or coming up for a vote, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality.

What then should Catholics do? There has been an active debate of this topic over at Mirror of Justice. Michael Scaperlanda's recent post notes:

Oregon Archbishop Vlazny's statement on the reception of communion by pro-choice candidates and those who vote for them. Archbishop Vlazny says that pro-choice candidates and those who vote for them because of their pro-choice views should refrain from receiving the Eucharist. In contrast, the Archbishop says that those who vote for a pro-choice candidate despite the candidate's pro-choice position should not refrain. He says:

"Should Catholics who choose to vote for pro-choice politicians refrain from reception of the Holy Communion? If they vote for them precisely because they are pro-choice, I believe they too should refrain from the reception of Holy Communion because they are not in communion with the Church on a serious matter. But if they are voting for that particular politician because, in their judgment, other candidates fail significantly in some matters of great importance, for example, war and peace, human rights and economic justice, then there is no evident stance of opposition to Church teaching and reception of Holy Communion seems both appropriate and beneficial."

He goes on to say that those who vote for a pro-choice candidate should make their disagreement with the politicians stand on abortion abundantly clear.

I suspect Amy would find Archbishop Vlazny's position far more congenial than that of Bishop Sheridan. Personally, I come out where Archbishop Vlazny does. Out here in LA, I rarely get the chance to vote for a pro-life candidate. Instead, I am usually choosing between two pro-choice candidates. In such situations, Vlazny's analysis that voting for one of them could still be licit strikes me as analogous to John Paul's view of permissible compromises. Since my choice between two such candidates is made on grounds other than their position on abortion, I am comfortable that I am not acting in opposition to or derogation from Church teaching on these vital issues.