Can Catholics vote in good conscience for Barack Obama and Joe Biden? Or will such a vote undermine their standing in the church?
The bishop of Scranton, PA, the city where Biden was born, apparently considers the vote to be a betrayal of Catholic principles.
In a letter that Bishop Joseph Martino ordered to be read in every parish in the Scranton diocese, he focused on abortion, calling it “homicide,” and terming it “the gravest injustice a society can tolerate.”
Earlier he had announced that Joe Biden, a Catholic, was to be refused communion because of his “pro choice” position.
However, J. Terry Steib, the bishop of Memphis, Tennessee, takes a different position, avoiding the one-issue approach to voting.
Bishop Steib believes “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.”
This quotation comes from a statement issued by the conference of American Catholic bishops last November. As a group, they rejected the hard-line position whereby a pro-choice candidate is automatically disqualified.
Most bishops have had the good sense to avoid telling people whom they can vote for and whom not. They all consider abortion to be a grave sin in itself but they leave electoral decisions to the consciences of Catholics.
Many Catholics, if not most, recognize other life and death issues besides abortion ─ war and capital punishment, for instance.
In addition, they care about economic justice and human rights. What a candidate thinks about these issues helps shape their votes.
So just because a candidate takes a position on abortion known as “pro- choice” does not deprive him or her from consideration.
While strongly disapproving of abortion in itself, many Catholics make an important distinction. In itself, taking the “pro-choice” position does not mean that you endorse abortion. Rather, it means that you do not want abortion to be made a civil crime.
This distinction demands attention in the ongoing national discussion. It can be ignored only at the risk of knocking that discussion off the rails.
Two facts bear heavily on this issue.
First, criminalizing abortion does nothing to reduce its frequency. In fact, research suggests that it increases the number. And illegal abortion results in death and injury to many mothers.
Secondly, in its eight years in power, the political party identified with the pro-life position has done little or nothing to stop abortion. In fact, you can argue that the party’s policies have made it more difficult to reduce its frequency.
Pro-life forces have long hoped for a Supreme Court reversal of the Roe decision. They speak as if such a reversal would finally resolve the issue. However, this view comes from fantasy land. Most legal experts believe this decision would send the issue back to the states, making for a patchwork of differing laws on abortion
On a wider front, Obama is strongly committed to values of great importance to Catholics and other Christians. Specifically, his positions on most issues fit the teachings of the church as expressed in papal letters and other documents over the past hundred years.
Though not a Catholic himself, Barack Obama has had extensive experience in a Catholic milieu. During the 1980s, he worked as a community organizer for eight Catholic parishes in Chicago. His work also received funding from the Campaign for Human Development, a program supported by the Catholic bishops of America.
About this experience he told an interviewer: “My career was intertwined with a belief in social justice that is so strong in the Church.”
Many Catholics will probably do what Douglas Kmiec has done. Kmiec is a Republican legal scholar who served as constitutional legal counsel to two presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also is an active Catholic committed to the pro-life position on abortion.
Against expectation, Kmiec has endorsed Barack Obama. He has done so for two reasons. First, he believes that Obama cares more about the full range of “life” issues such as human rights and economic justice than does his opponent.
And secondly, he considers Obama’s approach to abortion more likely to reduce its frequency in the short run.
After his endorsement, Kmiec attended Mass and was publicly condemned in the priest’s sermon. Later, the priest refused to allow him to receive communion.
Incidentally, the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles later issued a statement of regret. The priest was admonished by his religious order and was required to write Kmiec a letter of apology.
If Kmiec is right, perhaps better health care for pregnant women, improved day care, better job training, and other social and educational programs supported by Obama could do more to reduce abortions than does the so-called “pro-life” agenda.
It is a question worth pondering, even for bishops.
Richard Griffin