Moreover, even if one posits that the embryo is an ensouled person worthy of life, it does not mean that the embryo has the right to live within another person’s body. Or will Personhood Amendments now give the embryo the right to live within another person’s uterus? Where else in law do we force a person to house another within their body?

Plan B and other implantation blockers will be the wave of the future in abortion research, and will survive any bans on the abortion procedures because many people do not believe they can be forced to house another being within their bodies. And the compromise will be that these medications do not directly destroy the embryo/fetus, but they protect bodily integrity of the woman by preventing an illegal taking of their uterine lining.

Nick Jost,

But the issue here is when your conscience dictates and when your conscience can be dictated to.

We are never to make a separation between “my faith” and “my life.” My faith is my life. It is not a matter of imposing beliefs on anyone else. What the Church has constantly taught is that these persons—political and civil officials in particular—should never separate their faith from their public life. If one is personally, as a Catholic, opposed to abortion, then the expectation is you’re opposed to abortion all the time.

While a very strong argument can be made that this is correct in the case of abortion, is is an overly broad statement about the relationship between a Catholic (Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, etc.) politician’s religious beliefs and his or her public duties. Where does one draw the line here? If a Catholic politician’s religious beliefs about same-sex marriage demand political and legal opposition to same-sex marriage, what about divorce and remarriage? If a Catholic politician’s religious beliefs about abortion demand political and legal opposition to abortion, what about contraception? How does this apply to judges? Scalia says his jurisprudence is not at all influenced by his Catholicism. Why is this acceptable for a judge but not a senator?

The problem with Bishop Kagan is not that he is completely wrong, but rather his statements are devoid of nuance, and he does not know where to draw the line, or perhaps doesn’t believe in drawing lines at all.

David Nichol, there is no reason to assume that the letter reads as a command to vote one way. And yes, even if it did, I would not object. I may not follow the command as my conscious dictates but I do understand that whole cities, states, and people’s can fall under condemnation. I also believe that a bishop could notice such a state and rightfully warn his people of it. Further it would be his DUTY to do so. We should all pray that such things never happen, but in our world it most assuredly can.

As for the senator: “a society supportive of life needs all to participate”. You can’t participate when you are killed before birth. To see the ugliness of abortion culture, I would suggest Catholic democrats read Life News headlines for about one month.

Nick Jost,

Are you saying—and I hope you are not—that if Bishop David Kagan had said Catholics in his diocese should vote Republican, his instructions would be binding, and that anyone who disagreed would not have a well formed conscience?

If the Bishop had said “vote Republican because xyz” he would be perfectly within his rights. It would have been tacky, but nothing more.

The Democratic party has, sadly, endorsed evil _in its party platform_. It has also essentially declared open hostility on the Catholic (and by extension all) Church. This is sad and I honestly feel for those who continue as good Democrats in the face of the perversion of their party. Heck, I proudly know some.

But lets not play this game that moral positions don’t sometimes lead directly to political decisions. That’s post-modern garbage.

1776 “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.”

A decision of conscience is a very personal one. No one can delegate his or her decisions of conscience to another, and no one may take it upon himself or herself to dictate another person’s decisions of conscience.

I think Bishop David Kagan, in his letter, goes beyond attempting to aid those in his diocese in developing a well formed conscience into usurping their obligation to make decisions of conscience for them. The Church teaches abortion is an intrinsic evil. The Church is said to teach that abortion must be illegal. But the Church does not have any teaching about voting for any particular candidate, even if that candidate is pro-choice. To paraphrase what I quoted above from Cardinal Ratzinger, a Catholic may not vote for a candidate because that candidate is pro-choice. But a Catholic may indeed vote for a candidate in spite of the fact that the candidate is pro-choice “in the presence of proportionate reasons.” It seems to me what Bishop Kagan is doing is either omitting the matter of proportionate reasons from his letter altogether, or taking it upon himself to decided the matter of proportionate reasons on behalf of Catholic voters—something he has no right to do.

Here’s a frequently quoted comment by Pope Benedict:

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

However, in voting, a Catholic may be in perfect agreement with Church teaching that abortion is intrinsically wrong and never permitted, but he or she still may come to a different conclusion than the pope or a bishop on how to vote when abortion is only one of many issues involved.

The most a bishop can do is to make clear what Catholic teaching is on matters like abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and so on. He can explain principles like material cooperation with evil. But he can’t make the voters’ decisions for them. He can’t tell them the Church requires them to vote Republican, or to vote against a particular pro-choice politician. He can’t usurp the right of Catholic voters to make their own prudential decisions.

Other than that, he identifies certain actions as intrinsic evils which can never be supported. The other issues which Senator Matern mentions are all matters of prudential judgement. For instance, he includes “Paul Ryan’s budget,” meaning, I suppose that that budget is supposed to harm the poor. But one may prudentially decide that the collapse of the economy due to an overload of debt will soon hurt the poor more than a small reduction of benefits. These issues can never be proportionate reasons to vote for someone who supports, for instance, abortion, and who might be in a position to influence how abortion is treated in law, for instance, by the passage of legislation about abortion or the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices who may rule on abortion legislation.

Catholics like Senator Matern, whose judgment leads them to support Democratic positions about these issues of prudential judgment, should be doing all they can to bring the Democratic party back to positions on life and marriage issues which they can in good conscience also support.

Susan Peterson