Friday, June 13, 2008
VOTE FOR OBAMA AND STILL RECEIVE COMMUNION ?
From an article at LifeSite:
June 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - With an election in the United States looming, much is being made of the Catholic vote and what is moral for Catholics as they head to the voting booth. Pope Benedict XVI, just prior to his election to the pontificate, addressed the matter in a doctrinal note to the US Bishops Conference.
Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in his capacity as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, intervened in a debate among the US Bishops on the issue of denying communion to pro-abortion politicians in 2004. Simply put, Cardinal Ratzinger said in his letter, titled "Worthiness to receive Holy Communion", that obstinately pro-abortion Catholic politicians, after being duly instructed and warned, "must" be denied Communion.
The article goes on to offer a small loophole in proportionality. For good and compeling reasons a person may vote for a pro-abortion candidate if that candidate:
The key is that in order to vote for a pro-abortion politician and remain in good enough standing with Our Lord to be worthy to receive Him in Holy Communion, one must have "proportionate reasons". But what can be considered proportionate?...
One suggestion offered is that a Catholic may vote for a politician who supports abortion in very limited circumstances (for instance in cases of rape), if the only other viable candidate is one who supports abortion in most or all cases....
As Bishop Rene Henry Gracida, of Corpus Christi Texas, explained in September 2004: "Consider the case of a Catholic voter who must choose between three candidates: Kerry, who is completely for abortion on demand, Bush, who is in favor of very limited abortion, i.e., in favor of greatly restricting abortion and Peroutka, a candidate who is completely against abortion but who is universally recognized as being unelectable. The Catholic can vote for Peroutka, but that will probably only help ensure the election of Kerry. Therefore the Catholic voter has a proportionate reason to vote for Bush, since his vote might help to ensure the defeat of Kerry and might result in the saving of some innocent human lives."
There is more in the article about proportionality, but this gives the drift.
So can a vote for Obama fall into the proportionality argument?
An article at CNSNews presents Obama position on abortion, headlined "Obama Is the Most Pro-Abortion Candidate Ever":
Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever.
He is so pro-abortion that he refused as an Illinois state senator to support legislation to protect babies who survived late-term abortions because he did not want to concede -- as he explained in a cold-blooded speech on the Illinois Senate floor -- that these babies, fully outside their mothers' wombs, with their hearts beating and lungs heaving, were in fact "persons."
"Persons," of course, are guaranteed equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment.
In 2004, U.S. Senate-candidate Obama mischaracterized his opposition to this legislation. Now, as a presidential frontrunner, he should be held accountable for what he actually said and did about the Born Alive Infants Bill.
State and federal versions of this bill became an issue earlier this decade because of "induced labor abortion." This is usually performed on a baby with Down's Syndrome or another problem discovered on the cusp of viability. A doctor medicates the mother to cause premature labor. Babies surviving labor are left untreated to die.
The article goes on to describe Obama's position on this critical bill. Proportionality cannot be applied in the face of such blatant defense of abortion when he opposes a candidate who is pro-life.
