Phooy, on that basis you can vote for anyone.  It makes a mockery of the Church’s teachings.  “I offered incense to Caesar not becasue he is a god but in spite of it.”

Actually, I believe this makes a great deal of sense.  If one candidate is pro-choice and the other is pro-death penalty and pro-war, should the voter who is against abortion, against the death penalty and against the war simply stay home on election day?  Should a candidate’s position on taxation, the environment and health care issues be ignored? 

I realize that there are a lot of single-issue voters out there, possibly more in the Catholic Church than in any other.  But I don’t think it’s realistic to insist that every Catholic in America be a single-issue voter.

I don’t think casting a reluctant vote for someone is the same thing as offering incense to them and worshiping them as a God.  That said abortion is a pretty nonnegotiable issue for me.  Just my 2 cents…

ICXC NIKA
John
(Happy Ascension Thursday!)

#2, again, the death penalty is NOT an intrinsic evil like abortion or torture.  Apples and Oranges.  Then you’d have to weigh the consequences of a candidate who has come out in strong support of continuing or increasing availability of abortions (how many millions a year die now?) versus a pro-war candidate who might enact or continue policies which will contribue to the deaths of hundreds or thousands.

Not that I think McCain is half as pro-war as Obama is pro-abortion.

The only candidate for whom I have ever actively campaigned was pro-choice. The alternative was a corrupt businessman who (like the first Pres. Bush) mouthed the party line on pro-choice but evidenced no conviction on the matter.  It was also a race which had minimal impact of life issues.

I wish Canon Harmon had included the rest of Abp. Chaput’s comment, since this post effectively replicates the out-of-context problem.  Apparently NCR has moved the article behind their subscriber login, but these thoughts are also published on the First Things website. Here’s the relevant quote:

But [Catholics who support pro-choice candidates] also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it. What is a “proportionate” reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life—which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.