www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall No one has mentioned this so far-- political.

Here is what CNS news had to say about that same subject...


VATICAN LETTER Sep-17-2004 (1,040 words) Backgrounder. With photo. xxxi

Vatican dismay: Memo on politicians touches nerve in U.S. campaign

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent out a brief memo in June about politicians and Communion, he probably never imagined it would ignite a heated discussion about Catholics and voting.

The document, leaked to an Italian reporter but never officially acknowledged by the Vatican, focused on the grounds for denying Communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians.

Almost as an afterthought, it added two sentences about Catholic voters:

First, it said, a Catholic who deliberately voted for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's pro-abortion (or pro-euthanasia) stand would be guilty of "formal cooperation in evil" and should exclude himself from receiving Communion.

Second, when a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered "remote material cooperation," which is "permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."

Reaction to those two sentences has been simmering all summer, fueled in part by election-year politics.

One self-styled "traditional" Catholic publication criticized Cardinal Ratzinger, who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying his words would be taken as a "license to vote for pro-abortion politicians."

In a New York Daily News column headlined "Catholics can vote for Kerry," Father Andrew Greeley said Cardinal Ratzinger had correctly underlined that Catholics should not be single-issue voters, but should weigh all the issues.

Other conservative Catholic Web sites have criticized Father Greeley's column and disputed the idea that Cardinal Ratzinger has given a green -- or at least yellow -- light to Catholic voters who intend to vote for pro-abortion candidates.

At the Vatican, officials are dismayed for several reasons, starting with the fact that a private communication was leaked. Moreover, they say, the ensuing discussion has mixed up two very different issues -- the public actions of Catholic politicians and the private moral decisions faced by Catholic voters.

Vatican officials also are concerned that the discussion of "leeway" in voting for pro-abortion candidates may eclipse a more important point Pope John Paul II and others have been hammering home for years: That Catholics are morally obligated to try to limit the evil of abortion and euthanasia, and that those life-and-death issues should have unique moral weight with Catholic voters.

The one-page memo that started the discussion was sent with a letter from Cardinal Ratzinger to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, who heads the U.S. bishops' Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Catholic Politicians. Sources described the memo as an unsigned "staff document" aimed at summarizing basic principles. They said it did not begin to explore the complexity of the issue of voting and sin, which, in the words of one official, is pretty much "terra incognita" for moral theologians.

"The memo was certainly not intended to clear the way for Catholics to vote for candidates who are in favor of laws permitting abortion or euthanasia, but rather to clarify that the simple act of voting for such candidates might not per se justify one's exclusion from Holy Communion," said U.S. Dominican Father Augustine DiNoia, undersecretary of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation.

The problem is that it's difficult to determine the purpose, or "moral object," of an act of voting, Father DiNoia said.

"The only thing we could say is, a person might come to be in the state of mortal sin and therefore unworthy to receive Communion if they voted precisely with the moral object of extending abortion or the provision of abortion," he said.

"But that would be the only case where that would happen," he said.

For the church, there's no question about the sinfulness of abortion, but there are serious questions about how far culpability extends beyond those directly involved in abortion.

That's where the concepts of "formal" and "material" cooperation come in. These are traditional terms in theology, although their application to the act of voting is quite new.

Cooperation in evil concerns people who are drawn into the bad act of another person. In general, "formal" cooperation means culpability, whereas "material" cooperation -- being more remote -- does not, Father DiNoia said.

In the case of abortion, the church considers as the principal agents the person procuring it and the doctor performing it. In his 1995 encyclical, "Evangelium Vitae," Pope John Paul II spoke at length about cooperation in acts against human life -- but did not mention voting.

"Christians, like all people of good will, are called upon under grave obligation of conscience not to cooperate formally in practices which, even if permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to God's law," the pope said.

"Such cooperation occurs when an action, either by its very nature or by the form it takes in a concrete situation, can be defined as a direct participation in an act against innocent human life or a sharing in the immoral intention of the person committing it," he said.

The recent doctrinal memo's mention of "proportionate reasons" has led some people to suggest a set of reasons that could justify voting for pro-abortion politicians -- or to argue that no "proportionate reason" can exist in such a case.

Father DiNoia said one obvious proportionate reason would be when, as often occurs, Catholic voters must choose between two candidates who support legalized abortion but to widely differing degrees. In that situation, not to vote at all would seem to go against a Christian's responsibility to participate politically.

But further defining what may or may not be "proportionate reasons" in these cases is extremely difficult, Father DiNoia said. The situation of individual Catholic voters is different, so it's impossible to have a standard list of acceptable reasons, he said.

In the end, then, theology is not able to say categorically in every circumstance when a Catholic voter sins or does not sin. What it can do -- and what the recent memo attempted to do -- is offer principles that are applied to the different situations.

Vatican officials have been reluctant to comment at all on the voting issue, saying it is a complex question that is easily muddled. They say the best thing that could come out of the recent discussion is that Catholics in general think more seriously about their worthiness for Communion.

And I thought scholasticism had died out.

Byz,

You'd be surprised how much fun "splitting hairs" can be. It's interesting how many priests will take this as a go-ahead to not only vote for Kerry themselves but also to advise their people to vote for him.

Dan L

But Dan, doesn't it seem like the Vatican can no longer call a shovel a shovel, without getting into the implications of how the handle feels about its attachment to the shovel? It makes you wonder if it is just hair splitting, or if our leaders have truly lost their minds.

That's why I prefer the Eastern Way, or is it that we've been abused so often we refuse to define anything? To understand the Vatican's point on this you must be willing to read very very carefully about all of the nuances that are possible. I'm not so irritated with the Vatican as I am with many disingenuous American Roman priests. Some of the pronouncements that they have made have intentionally mislead the people. It's as if they know that we are intimidated away from questioning them and they are taking advantage of the situation. I'm thankful that I have a priest who will not ever intentionally take advantage of us.

Dan L

Dear Friends,

But why worry about Kerry?

Has anyone seen the polls recently?

Alex

Alex,

It's good to see that God is still involved in the affairs of humans.

Dan L

As Bill Maher so eloquently put it..

Bush should win, just so he has another 4 years to clean up his own mess...

I still think Alfred E. Newman from "Mad Magazine" would be the best candidate - better than the other two, anyway.

I wouldn't put it quite that way, but essentially, I agree.

If only we could get Alan Keyes in there.

Dan Lauffer

Which polls, Dr. Roman?

The Holy Father has written, "The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights -- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture -- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination . . . " (Christifideles Laici, n.38)

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=49498

And that is really all that is worth mentioning.

Fr. Deacon Lance

In the interest of fairness, I would point out that the reference in Fr. Deacon's post refers to "right to life". The opinions of the Cardinal are his own. It is interesting the Cardinal makes reference to Paragraph 38.

Let's look a bit closer at the Holy Father's words:
The Holy Father, unlike the Cardinal, makes no false distinction trying to quantify in a relativistic sense between the value of life in an unjust war vs. that of abortion or euthanasia in Paragraph 38. All three are perpetrated by man against man.

Respect for life, if we are to truly respect it, entails the entirety of the human life span. That is clearly the Holy Father's message. He reiterates all offenses against life itself.

Sorry, when I said "Cardinal" I meant Fr. Pavone. I certainly support the work of Priests for Life, however the narrowing of church documents like this is not acceptable.

If he is going to talk about life issues, the entirety of life issues needs to be discussed. Especially considering the name of the organization. If we are going to make this "one issue" let's talk about the whole issue.