Formal Cooperation With Evil in New Jersey

It is not surprizing that the media wants Catholics to think that they can blow off abortion as the central issue. Sadly, their job is made easier when priests like the Rev. Ronald J. Cioffi, director of the Office of Social Concerns for the Diocese of Trenton do their job for them. & even worse is the fact that Bishop John M. Smith has let him get away with it.

Fr. Cioffi said: "You may vote for a person who is pro-choice if you feel you have a moral reason to support the candidate for his stand on other issues." he goes on to quote the USCCB's recent Document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (November 2007). "There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave issues. " He ignores the next line which puts a clear qualifier on that choice: "Voting this way would be permissible only for truly grave reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil." (emphasis mine)

Apparently he never read the statement by John J. Myers, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Newark on this very topic. In A Voter's Guide: Pro-choice candidates and church teaching he wrote: "What are "proportionate reasons"? To consider that question, we must first repeat the teaching of the church: The direct killing of innocent human beings at any stage of development, including the embryonic and fetal, is homicidal, gravely sinful and always profoundly wrong. Then we must consider the scope of the evil of abortion today in our country. America suffers 1.3 million abortions each year--a tragedy of epic proportions. Moreover, many supporters of abortion propose making the situation even worse by creating a publicly funded industry in which tens of thousands of human lives are produced each year for the purpose of being "sacrificed" in biomedical research.

Thus for a Catholic citizen to vote for a candidate who supports abortion and embryo-destructive research, one of the following circumstances would have to obtain: either (a) both candidates would have to be in favor of embryo killing on roughly an equal scale or (b) the candidate with the superior position on abortion and embryo-destructive research would have to be a supporter of objective evils of a gravity and magnitude beyond that of 1.3 million yearly abortions plus the killing that would take place if public funds were made available for embryo-destructive research.

Frankly, it is hard to imagine circumstance (b) in a society such as ours. No candidate advocating the removal of legal protection against killing for any vulnerable group of innocent people other than unborn children would have a chance of winning a major office in our country. Even those who support the death penalty for first-degree murderers are not advocating policies that result in more than a million killings annually." In other words, there is no other issue. Abortion is the issue. (emphasis again mine)

Sadly Fr. Cioffi is aided & abetted by Rayanne Bennett, chief communications officer for the diocese. "For instance, conservatives who oppose abortion often support the death penalty. The Catholic Church opposes both." WRONG, WRONG WRONG!!!!! She misrepresents the Catholic Church's teaching on the death penalty in her statement. Paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor." It qualifies the application of the death penalty. The Church does not totally opposes it as it does abortion. The Bishops document called for working to end it, yes, but in th meantime, to see that it is fairly applied.

"Catholics who vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain because of his anti-abortion record also are voting for a candidate who supports the war in Iraq -- a war Pope Benedict XVI clearly has opposed." True, as far as it goes. he opposed it before the war. However, neither he or Pope John Paul II ever called this an unjust war or said that Catholics couldn't support the war. they just called for trying all peaceful means 1st. & the Bishops statement issued last year didn't call it unjust either. It called for a "responsible transition".

Amazingly the New Jersy Times article does state: "A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter's intent is to support that position." But it goes on to take another line out of context: "At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate's opposition to abortion to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity."

While some of this is clearly the paper's twist, the statements by the spokespersons for the Trenton diocese are equally to blame for their stand. Not surprizingly, New Jersey is a blue state. I suspect that this is their way to allow themselves & others to vote Pro-Choice, knowing it is wrong but not caring that they are putting their & other Catholics souls at risk for eternal damnation. & unless Bishop Smith speaks out, I'm afraid he may be leading the procession.

Source: U.S. bishops: Vote your conscience