"porportionate Reasons"

[Cam42]

[url="http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/election2004/story/BDD8D4B0A7DD794786256F0400134AB6?OpenDocument&Headline=Burke%2Bclarifies%2Bvoting%2Bstance"]http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stor...voting%2Bstance[/url]

[i]Burke said Thursday he believes Catholics could vote for a politician who supports abortion rights as long as that’s not the reason they are voting for the candidate, and they believe the politician’s stance on other moral issues outweighs the abortion-rights stance.[/i]

What is this?????? Is Archbishop Burke now wrong? I don’t think so. This has more to do with Canon 912....rather than Canon 915.

[i]"People couldn’t understand why I was saying what I was saying,” he said Thursday. “I believe now it is important to make the distinction in order to make the discussion full, to articulate the matter as fully as possible. I didn’t articulate it with full distinction in June."[/i]

Burke now says there is one scenario in which a Catholic could vote for a politician who supports abortion rights without committing a grave sin.

How can we know what is in a person’s soul at the moment of reception? We can’t....we have to trust and have faith, that the member and the Church are doing the right thing.

[i]"The sticking point is this - and this is the hard part,” said Burke. “What is a proportionate reason to justify favoring the taking of an innocent, defenseless human life? And I just leave that to you as a question. That’s the question that has to be answered in your conscience. What is the proportionate reason?"[/i]

Amazing.....I think that perhaps the understanding [b]IS[/b] in the language. These are not juridical things. They are matters of conscience. Excommunication doesn’t take place unless there is formal participation. A thought is not participation.....a tendancy is not participation. Action is. The same holds true for interdiction of a Sacrament.

[i]However, a Catholic voter is committing a grave sin if he or she knows a particular candidate supports abortion rights and votes for the candidate because of that position. “That is what’s called formal cooperation in an intrinsically evil act,” Burke said.[/i]

So, it is ok to vote for a pro-abort like Bush, but not for a pro-abort like Kerry.

[i]"I think what I never did before was distinguish the two cases,” he said. “One of the reasons I didn’t go into it then, but have now, is that it is difficult to imagine what that proportionate reason would be."[/i]

Bishop Sheridan understood this....and nobody would pick up on it.....hmmmm.

While we (informed, conservative, Republican, Catholics) must engage in the principle of double effect, we still need to understand and comprehend what Archbishop Burke, Bishop Sheridan and others are and have been consistently saying.

Jumping on a bandwagon is just as fallacious as an ad hominem argument. We must look at all points of a statement and not simply follow blindly.

Geo. W. Bush “formally participates” in abortion. (Understand that he is not held totally accountble by the Church, because he is not Roman Catholic; but we can hold him accountable as Roman Catholic who are also Americans.) We cannot forget this. While it is on a smaller scale, nevertheless it is still a scale that is not acceptable as a Catholic. We must, must, must continue to speak out against this.

Want an oxymoron: [i]Bush opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the mother’s life. He’ll try to seem non-threatening, respecting others’ views without backing off his long-held “pro-life” position. He previously had said he would not demand that his Supreme Court nominees be anti-abortion. It’s even conceivable he’ll choose a running mate who supports abortion rights, Bush said. “I’m going to talk about the culture of life,” he continued. “I’ve set the goal that every child born and unborn ought to be protected. But I recognize [that many] people don’t necessarily agree with the goal.[/i] (Source: George Skelton, Los Angeles Times Jun 5, 2000)

How is that being pro-life? And is that what Archbishop Burke means by [b]“proportionate reasons?”[/b]

Cam42

[MichaelFilo]

One may realize that the bishop, while in an attempt to allow people to vote for Bush, did contradict himself. The article shows he went back on his position.

That aside, it maybe good to note that he was indirectly supporting Bush. It is obvious in his speech. Now in full recognition of that fact, we all realize that abortion is an issue. To vote for a candidate it would be impossible to put anything into consideration about the 5 non-negotiables. So, while the bishop was right, he failed to point out that it is impossible to consider anything that is not a non-negotiable to be of higher importance than something that is one. So, proportionate reasons cannot apply here, as nothing except another non-negotiable is within proportion. The idea of "proportionate reasons" cannot be valid on matters that can't be discussed.

Please realize tha tI am not some anti-Bush person. If I could vote, I'd vote him double quick. There are other reaons. The bishop happened to point out one that was awfully illogical.

(Note to Dust: This isn't active criticism on faith or morals. It was criticism of logic, so please don't remove it).

God bless,

Mikey

[cmotherofpirl]

The good bishop was misquoted.

[Cam42]

There is more to this than saying no. There is the idea of salvation. Archbishop Burke has clarified his position. It is clear (crystal) that it is in line with what I have been saying.

Bishop Sheridan says, “The Church has taught from the beginning that when Catholics sin seriously they must refrain from receiving Holy Communion until they have repented and been absolved in the Sacrament of Penance (confession). In fact this teaching has been repeated in the most recent writings of the Holy Father on the relationship between the Eucharist and Penance. If a Catholic votes in bad conscience, especially in matters that have to do with the sanctity of life (e.g. abortion), how can this be anything other than a participation in that sinful act? It is at this point that the Church calls upon sinners to withhold themselves from receiving Holy Communion until they have been forgiven of their sins. This is a far cry from denying someone Communion. How, in fact, could I deny anyone Holy Communion since I would not know the condition of the communicant’s soul?”

“And that is called remote material cooperation and if the reasons are really proportionate, and the person remains clear about his or her opposition to abortion, that can be done,” Burke said.

“The sticking point is this - and this is the hard part,” said Burke. “What is a proportionate reason to justify favoring the taking of an innocent, defenseless human life? And I just leave that to you as a question. That’s the question that has to be answered in your conscience. What is the proportionate reason?"

Seems pretty consistent to me.

So, it is ok to vote for a pro-abort like Bush, but not for a pro-abort like Kerry.

I agree that FORMAL participation requires action. (ie. Kerry and Kennedy and Pelosi) But MATERIAL participation must be left to the conscience of the indivdual. (ie. most Democrats)

I pose this to everyone.....find a way to answer Archbishop Burke’s question. “What is a proportionate reason to justify favoring the taking of an innocent, defenseless human life?”

It is important to note that Cardinal Ratzinger makes a clear distinction between public officials and voters, explaining that a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil only if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion.

However, when a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted if there are proportionate reasons.

The best example of proportionate reasoning is the just war theory.

A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified. A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate. A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause. Further, a just war can only be fought with “right” intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury. A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable. The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought. [b]The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered.[/b] States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered. The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.

It is tempting to take a rigorist position and simply declare that all cooperation with evil is sinful, but a few moments reflection reveals problems with this position.

We also see biblical examples of cooperation with evil being justified. When John the Baptist was preaching, Roman centurions and tax collectors came to him and asked what they must do. The Roman Empire was an evil institution that did all kinds of horrible things (including promoting emperor worship), but did John the Baptist tell them that they were morally required to quit their jobs because they were supporting an evil empire?

No, he told them that they personally should do no evil, neither collecting more taxes than their due nor oppressing anybody or extorting money out of him. They should be content with their pay and do their jobs (Luke 3:12-14). As long as they did this, the kind of cooperation they were giving the Roman Empire was morally licit in their circumstances.

It is important to note that the mere use of the word “proportionate” does not mean that one is endorsing a dissident moral theology known as “proportionalism,” which John Paul II condemned in Veritatis Splendor 75-76. This is what confused some people about the Cardinal’s note. They thought it sounded as if he were endorsing proportionalism, but he wasn’t. The word “proportional” may be involved, but that doesn’t result in proportionalism.

Traditional Catholic moral theology allows that remote material cooperation with an evil action may be justifiable in certain circumstances. In the Cardinal’s words it “can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.” Some may find this difficult to accept, but traditional Catholic moral theology has been firm on the point.

God does things that enable others to commit sins (e.g., giving them life, free will, the ability to act). He even continues to supply them with these things when they are in the very act of committing abortion and euthanasia. What the proportionate reasons are that justify God in doing this forms a major part of the problem of evil, but we do know that God is justified in all that he does.

Cam42

[Ash Wednesday]

I always thought that voting for pro-choice candidates was formal cooperation in all circumstances unless both candidates held the same position. Am I mistaken?

I would have a hard time finding proportionate reason if a pro-choice politician also supported euthanasia, gay marriage, cloning, and stem cell research. I could be wrong here, but isn't this often the case, or at least the direction they seem to be going in?

It is frustrating to me, how limiting our two-party system is.
The DNC left me disgusted and irate.
The RNC made me want to run and build a bomb shelter.

If I have to plug my nose and vote for one of the two, it would be the Republicans. The war in Iraq is wreckless and not just in my opinion, but the GOP seems more up front about where they stand. Kerry, to me, is a pro-war politician in pacifist clothing. I'm not even sure what Kerry's stance on Iraq [b]is[/b]. He said he would still have agreed to the war in August had he known what he does now, voted for the war in the first place, voted against funding it, and has no qualms about offering his criticism. But he has no real stance, and in terms of military action, indecisiveness doesn't cut it or get anything done. You're either in, or out.

Needless to say the direction the Democrats have with the other moral issues makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for me to justify voting for them.

This is very interesting food for thought, and I will be keenly interested in seeing what people have to say. Thank you for sharing, cam.

[daugher-of-Mary]

[url="http://www.jimmyakin.org/2004/09/what_ratzinger_.html"]Jimmy Akin [/url] stepped up to bat on this issue. It's the most concise explanation I have heard so far.

[Cam42]

Yes daughter, he has.....

This is where I got some of my material.

Cam

[Oik]

This issue is easy. Obviously Bush is not 100% pro-life. He has supported a ban on gay marriage, he supported a ban on partial birth abortion, he supports ending abortion, He is against cloning. However, he signed legislature that allowed for scientists to experiment on embyonic stem cells that already exisist.

Kery on the other hand is pro-abortion, pro-cloning, and pro-stem cell research and cloning.

The issue is clear, Bush is more pro-life than Kerry. Bush's morality is closer to the Church, vot for Bush.

The Catholic conscience is guide by the magestirium (sp) and formation from the faith. We must make a well-imformed decision guided by the aforementioned. Basically, when no candidate is 100% catholic, we go with the lesser of two evils.

As for the War on Iraq, it is devestating. The point that remains though, is that no amount of war casualities have or can measure up to the current genocide of innocent children in the womb. It comes to this, a matter of innocent lives , never lived, violently tartgeted and systematically being murdered in the number of 4,OOO+ a day, a day!!!

So it comes down to conscience. EWTN has a guide and phatmass has discussed and discussed and discussed and discussed this, so there are a lot of threads laying around to view.

[Ash Wednesday]

I really like the EWTN voter's guide. :thumb:

I'm taking it these statements were made in the context of addressing Catholics that would feel scrupulous about voting for Bush because he isn't 100% pro-life. At least he isn't an utter failure on moral issues like Kerry.

My concern would be the general Catholic public interpreting this as being the green light to vote for candidates that hold positions like Kerry's (people really seem to wave the "Spirit of Vatican II" banner when they vote pro-choice, usually Democrat...), when chances are, there are more morally suitable candidates running against them.

*praying*

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='daugher-of-Mary' date='Sep 10 2004, 07:46 PM'] [url="http://www.jimmyakin.org/2004/09/what_ratzinger_.html"]Jimmy Akin [/url] stepped up to bat on this issue. It's the most concise explanation I have heard so far. [/quote]
Daughter of Mary,

Thanks for the link, it is an excellent article.

[Sinner]

I don't see the difficulty in this....... I can be kind of simple sometimes.

Deep rhetoric aside; If I have to choose between sticking my hand in mildly scalding water or molten lava, that is a no brainer.

[Cam42]

Ash,

[quote]I always thought that voting for pro-choice candidates was formal cooperation in all circumstances unless both candidates held the same position. Am I mistaken?[/quote]

There has always been the idea of "remote material participation." This is a very old tenant of Catholic moral Theology. It is also a very touchy one.

The main reason is what Jimmy Akin said about part of the problem of evil: [i]"God does things that enable others to commit sins (e.g., giving them life, free will, the ability to act). He even continues to supply them with these things when they are in the very act of committing abortion and euthanasia. What the proportionate reasons are that justify God in doing this forms a major part of the problem of evil, but we do know that God is justified in all that he does."[/i]

Also, Evangelium Vitae speaks to this. Look at #73.

[i]A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. It is a fact that while in some parts of the world there continue to be campaigns to introduce laws favouring abortion, often supported by powerful international organizations, in other nations-particularly those which have already experienced the bitter fruits of such permissive legislation-there are growing signs of a rethinking in this matter.[/i]

This is a "sticky point" as Archbishop Burke says.

Cam42

[phatcatholic]

since the critical question here is "What constitutes a proportionate reason for voting for a pro-abortion candidate" i would like to paste here what Jimmy Akin says about this. [i]i highly suggest that everyone here read this entire exerpt[/i]:[list]
[*][b]Proportionate Reasons[/b]

Traditional Catholic moral theology allows that remote material cooperation with an evil action may be justifiable in certain circumstances. In the Cardinal’s words it “can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.” Some may find this difficult to accept, but traditional Catholic moral theology has been firm on the point.

Consider a parallel: God does things that enable others to commit sins (e.g., giving them life, free will, the ability to act). He even continues to supply them with these things when they are in the very act of committing abortion and euthanasia. What the proportionate reasons are that justify God in doing this forms a major part of the problem of evil, but we do know that God is justified in all that he does.

Catholic moral theology thus seems to be on firm ground in acknowledging the principle that remote material cooperation with an evil can be justified when there are proportionate reasons.

We thus might ask: What kind of reasons could there be to vote for a pro-abortion or pro-euthanasia politician?

Here is a clear case: Suppose that in a given election either Candidate A or Candidate B is morally certain to win, but it is not clear which will win. Candidate A’s only policy is that he supports abortion, while Candidate B has two policies: He supports both abortion and euthanasia. In this case, more harm will be done to society by the election of Candidate B, and so based on principles touched on by John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae 73, one may cast one’s vote in such a way as to limit the harm done to society (see my discussion of this topic in PUBLICATION INFORMATION).

In such a situation, casting one’s vote for Candidate A does not amount to an endorsement of his policies. It represents an attempt to reign in the greater harm that otherwise will result.

This is something many seem confused about. It often appears that people regard casting their votes as if they were swearing to a particular proposition, such as “I support all of the policies of this candidate.” If that was the case then one could never vote for a candidate with a less then 100% perfect set of social policy views, for one would be pledging to support some things that are wrong.

But voting does not entail this. Votes very likely are not to be understood as involving propositions at all, but to the extent that they can be translated into propositions, they would be something more limited, like “Of the options available, I want this candidate to be elected this time.”

That doesn’t involve a personal endorsement of any of the candidate’s policies. In fact, one might oppose all of a candidate’s policies and vote for him purely to keep an even worse candidate out of office.

This was the case with voting for Candidate A to prevent the election of the even worse Candidate B. Candidate A’s only policy was evil, but Candidate B’s policies were even more evil.

That situation was artificially simple in order to illustrate a principle. In the real world the principle is more difficult to apply because candidates rarely have entirely evil platforms. Many will have elements in their platforms, alongside support for abortion and euthanasia, that Catholics are permitted to support, and some will be tempted to support them for these reasons.

Many suggested Cardinal Ratzinger was giving his blessing to voting for pro-aborts if there were enough other good things about them. But having a number of good points is not enough. As the Cardinal indicated, there must be counterbalancing reasons proportional to abortion.

Such reasons are not easy to come up with, particularly for candidates seeking offices that have the ability to significantly impact abortion law. These include the presidents who nominate Supreme Court justices and the senators who confirm them.

One wants to weed out pro-abort candidates on the lowest level possible so that they can’t use their political track record to get elected to higher office, but the more impact the office has on abortion policy, the more weighty a reason must be to allow a vote for them.

What kind of reason would be needed to vote for a pro-abort candidate for president? Something unimaginably huge.


[b]The Abortion Numbers[/b]

Consider: A million and a half new Americans are murdered every year by abortion.

While particular historical circumstances increase or decrease the number of Supreme Court appointments a president gets to make (some presidents get many and some get none), if we average out the differences then it turns out that a pro-abort president on average could extend the abortion holocaust by four years equivalent to the four year term he spends in office.

At a million and a half kids killed per year, that means that a pro-abort president would be responsible for extending the abortion holocaust to include six million additional murders.

When one takes into account the fact that about half of the recent presidents have had second terms, that would mean a pro-abort president would be responsible for extending the abortion holocaust to include approximately nine million Americans.

No other issue involves numbers that high. Nothing short of a full-scale nuclear or biological war between well-armed nation states would kill that many people, and we aren’t in imminent danger of having one of those.

Not even terrorists with WMDs could kill that many people. As vital as the issue of terrorism is, it does not get us up into the number of deaths caused by abortion. It would take three thousand 9/11-size events in a president’s average term of office (more than one a day) to rack up sufficient deaths to make terrorism proportionate to abortion. Al-Qa’eda simply does not have enough suicidal fanatics to make terrorism proportionate to abortion.

Jobs? The economy? Taxes? Education? The environment? Immigration? Forget it. We do not have nine million people dying in a typical president’s term of office due to bad job programs, bad economic policies, bad taxes, bad education, bad environmental law, bad immigration rules—or even all of these combined. All of them together cannot provide a reason proportionate to the need to end abortion.

Make no mistake: Abortion is the preeminent moral issue of our time. It is the black hole that out-masses every other issue. Presenting any other issues as if they were proportionate to it is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
[/list]
pax christi,
phatcatholic

[Good Friday]

[quote]Burke said Thursday he believes Catholics could vote for a politician who supports abortion rights as long as that’s not the reason they are voting for the candidate, and they believe the politician’s stance on other moral issues outweighs the abortion-rights stance.[/quote]
All the schmooze in this thread aside, the issue is being avoided completely. The issue is that both Archbishop Burke and Cardinal Ratzinger have stated that one can vote for a pro-choice politician with proportionate reasons. Cardinal Ratzinger's words were very vague, and have been interpreted very differently by different wings of the American church. I'm sure that was the intent; the Vatican didn't want to definitively decide this.

The fact is that Cardinal Ratzinger said that a person could vote for a pro-choice politician if there were proportionate reasons for doing so, implying that there are proportionate reasons for doing so. The fact is also that Cardinal Ratzinger said that his advice to the American bishops and his own opinion were "very much in harmony" with the norms they adopted: norms that are more moderate than the position taken by many American laymen, most of whom are Republicans and very loyal to their party in all circumstances.

It appears that the hierarchy has taken a more moderate approach to this issue and that they are encouraging others to take a more moderate approach. Hopefully their advice will be taken. Their advice is basically that the hierarchy isn't going to tell people how to vote, and that they should heed the counsel of a well-formed conscience.

[qfnol31]

Umm, Good Friday, you may be taking what they're saying a little out of context. There are some reasons for voting for an pro-abortion candidate, but those are very far and few between. First of all the Church teaches that abortion is one of the main issues that we should vote upon, and this the heirarchy upholds. Here are a few examples I can think of when it would be prudent to vote for a pro-abortion candidate (these are a little exaggerated):

The other "winnable" candidate(s) is(/are) pro-murder.
The other "winnable" candidate(s) is(/are) more pro-abortion.
Both/all candidates are pro-abortion, but one is less so (as in the case of Bush and Kerry).

In all of these cases we are to limit the evil that is done (our only good choice). This is what the Church teaches. She can never say "vote for this candidate" specifically, that is for us to inform our consciences. She will never say different things such as a war is just, etc. for it is not Her place.

In this case, I think the Bishops are very clear. There are five issues that we should vote upon, and of those five one clear winner results. Sure, he's a little pro-abortion, but the other is much worse.

This is what Ratzinger and Burke are saying. There is no such thing as a "moderate approach" for the Church as much as it is a Christian choice that they promote. I am not a Republican, but I know for a fact who I'm going to vote for. I hate discussing politics any more because I think people have become to indignant to who they want to vote for. Oh well, that's okay.

To vote for a more pro-abortion candidate (out of those who win), rather than the lesser is to formally participate in evil if there isn't something extreme in the other candidate's platform. I have yet to see this be the case in the Bush/Kerry case.

Edited September 23, 2004 by qfnol31