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Dear Catholic Exchange,
I, like many Catholics, despise religious bigotry – whether it's cheap shots from sloppy reporters or organized cynical ploys by a political party.
However, I was astounded to find a serious lack of perspective on this issue anywhere on your website. Thoughtful coverage would have included this widely linked perspective.
Holding a position against abortion does not make anyone a good or bad Catholic. Respect for human life – no matter what the age – is only part of following the teachings of Christ. But what of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' teachings promoting the dignity of work and the rights of the worker to a decent wage.
Surely you wouldn't further this deceit by suggesting one assign a score sheet on Catholic teachings to see which political party most closely aligns itself with doctrine.
Shame on you for you propagating this shrill ploy.
Martin Smith
***
Dear Mr. Smith,
Thank you for writing. It is clear that you are very engaged with what we present on our website and we do treasure having readers who are paying such close attention.
Your letter was occasioned by news coverage of events that have taken place in the Senate with regard to the confirmation of judges, especially the charges leveled against the Democrats on the judicial committee that they were “anti-Catholic.” In addition to our links to news items, this issue has been addressed by a couple of our columnists. We were particularly interested in what you said because we are convinced that your letter portends the shape of some of the vital political conversation with which this country, and in particular Catholic voters, will be occupied over the next year or so.
There are several issues here:
1. Is there any connection between one's position on abortion and whether one is a good or bad Catholic?
2. Is the charge of anti-Catholicism against some Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee warranted or is it merely a “shrill political ploy”?
3. And then there is the broader point, implied by you but made very explicitly in the opinion piece you referenced: that the Democrat party platform's conformation to Catholic social teaching is so thorough (and that of the Republicans diametrically opposed on so many other issues) that a Catholic is justified in overlooking this one area of disagreement with Church teaching and voting for even a pro-abortion Democrat.
It is clear that where you stand on # 1 is going to influence where you stand on #2. Our firm position is that we must seek to eliminate abortion from our society. It compares to no other social evil in the heinous violence it wantonly perpetrates upon the most innocent and defenseless of human beings. We believe that this is the only position on abortion that is consistent with Catholic teaching. Anyone who wishes to argue otherwise must provide Church documents to back up his assertion.
Given that our definition of a “good Catholic” excludes being a pro-abort and that this has been our consistent editorial position from the inception of this website, we are inclined to agree with Orin Hatch. Was this merely a political ploy? There is a difference between taking political advantage of your opponent's own statements or actions and being deceptive (your accusation). The words and actions of his Democratic opponents (which, let us gently remind you, are wholly in the service of keeping abortion legal) provided ample evidence for his charge.
This is by no means the opinion of a few shrill extremists, unless you place the likes of Deal Hudson, Russell Shaw, and Archbishop Charles Chaput in that category. We don't.
The column by Michael D. Schattman with which you are so taken (and which, amazingly, you do not consider to be “shrill”) is so full of logical inconsistencies that it would never pass editorial muster in our website. Allow us to demonstrate with a particularly revealing quotation “Once the unaborted are born, will Hatch and his gang support unemployed teen-age mothers, milk for poor schoolchildren, Head Start, jobs programs or housing assistance? In a pig's eye. But that would be the Catholic position.”
Leaving out Mr. Schattman's ignorant slander against Republicans (we happen to actually know some who — hope you are sitting down for this — give very generously to charities) the construction of this writer's argument is that because Republicans won't care for the poor mothers and illegitimate children, Catholics are justified in voting for Democrats who want to allow the killing of those poor babies.
This position in essence holds the life and limb of the unborn hostage to the so-called “progressive” social agenda of the Democratic party. The argument that Catholics can continue support this pro-abort party because of its other goals makes the lives of these infants a means, an instrument, to achieve some other “social good” and no such instrumental use of a human being can be squared with Catholic teaching.
Another Catholic position missed by Mr. Schattman is the role of reality vs. idealism in political discussions and decisions. Catholic prudential judgements have to be applied to the real world, not to a fantasy world of idealistic imagination nor the world as we think it “ought” to be.
As a political party — not merely as individual voters and politicians, but as planks in their platform — the Democratic party advances the cause of abortion and the homosexual agenda. Underlying these objectives is a philosophy (“world view”) that explicitly rejects truths about human nature and the world that are non-negotiable Catholic doctrine.
The majority of people who are swept along by this agenda have succumbed to emotive persuasion that substitutes “good intentions” and “feelings” for facts and reason. They do not recognize that the decision to make an appeal to them on that basis is itself rooted in a philosophical position regarding the role that reason (intellect) vs. emotions ought to play in the ordering of human affairs both in the life of the person and in respublica.
We are well aware that many Catholics are sincere in their support of the Democratic party and there are historical, social and familial reasons for this. We challenge them to reject this partisanship for the sake of the babies. But there are other Democrats who have hypocritically wrapped themselves in the mantle of “Catholic social justice” while their failed policies, completely opposing the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, have nearly destroyed the black family and made a disgrace of public education in this country. They favor choice in the areas of pornography, sexual license, and baby dismemberment, while they deny choice in education to poor and middle class families who want to escape the mess they made. If you look beyond their lofty rhetoric you will get mugged by the reality of missing results.
Real charity means giving our own money to the poor and needy, not someone else's through coercive taxation. But even if it were true that all Republicans are hard-hearted scoundrels striding into their luxury corporate suites over the bodies of their hungry and unclothed neighbors shivering in the snow, that would hardly justify Catholics supporting a party whose platform promotes abortion. Nothing justifies that.
Blessings,
Mary Kochan
Contributing Editor
Catholic Exchange
