"Catholic Election Follies"

The National Catholic Reporter recently had an editorial on the election campaign and the rhetoric it has produced among some Catholics:

Issue Date: October 22, 2004

Catholic election follies continue

The election follies continue. Three cases in point:

In the opening paragraphs of his Oct. 1 pastoral letter “On Our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good,” St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke compares today’s United States to Nazi Germany.

Writing on the Web site of National Review magazine Oct. 12, Robert George, director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, and Gerard Bradley, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, argue that “to vote for John Kerry in 2004 would be far worse … than to have voted against Lincoln and for his Democratic opponent in 1860. Stephen Douglas at least supported allowing states that opposed slavery to ban it. And he did not favor federal funding or subsidies for slavery. John Kerry takes the opposite view on both points when it comes to abortion. On the great evil of his own day, Senator Douglas was merely John Kerry-lite.”

“If you vote this way,” meaning for a pro-choice candidate, “are you cooperating in evil?” Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput asked The New York Times Oct. 9. “And if you know you are cooperating in evil, should you go to confession? The answer is yes.”

So, there you have it. Kerry-supporting Catholics are Nazi-like appeasers of evil, anti-freedom and need to go to confession on Nov. 3.

What to make of this hyperbole?

A few thoughts:

However much they stretch it (and, God knows, with the talk of Nazis and slavery and voters committing sinful acts, they are pushing the limits of civil discourse), Burke, George, Bradley and Chaput have a good point. Kerry says he “believes” that life begins at conception, but that he can’t “take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn’t” agree. It’s a wholly unsatisfactory answer.

Articles of faith and matters of morality (“Thou shall not kill” and “ Love thy neighbor as thyself” being good examples) are, in fact, legislated all the time. No one is suggesting that Kerry force non-Christians to, for example, accept the doctrine of the Trinity or the incarnation. No, he’s being asked about serious public policy questions -- abortion and stem cell research -- that are also questions of morality.

You can read the rest of the article here

Vince