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In his comments this past weekend to Catholics in Belgium, Pope Francis once again referred to abortionists as hitmen, and said he plans to open the beatification process for King Baudoin, who chose to abdicate his throne in 1990, albeit briefly, rather than sign a pro-abortion law.
Earlier this month, flying home from Southeast Asia, the Pope was not nearly as clear on the topic of abortion. But one thing I learned in Catholic seminary — reinforced strongly during the years I served as an official at the Vatican — is that that official Catholic teaching doesn’t come from a papal press conference.
Official teaching, rather, is conveyed in documents that are carefully crafted, vetted and issued under one of several categories of authority.
This is the first thing to keep in mind when we read his comments comparing issues and candidates in elections:
“Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies. … One should vote, and choose the lesser evi. … Who is the lesser evil, the woman or man? I don’t know. Everyone in their conscience should think and do it.”
The “one should vote” part of the statement was helpful inasmuch as it reminds voters not to sit out the election. Choose one or the other.
It’s not that we can ever choose evil, as such. But by voting for the better candidate, we can choose to limit evil, and that is a good.
We have a duty to limit evil. By doing nothing, we are still responsible for a bad outcome.
It is like being on a runaway train that can’t be stopped, but we can switch the track to minimize the damage. Isn’t that exactly what we would do?
On the other hand, the Pope displays a particularly shallow moral reasoning when he seems to equate “kicking out migrants” with “killing babies.”
The only way the immigration crisis would be equivalent to abortion is if we had hundreds of legal clinics set up on the border, in which thousands of migrants a day were legally beheaded and dismembered.
That alone would make the issues equivalent.
As the Pope knows full well, paragraph 2241 of the Catholic Catechism says the duty of nations to welcome migrants is limited “to the extent they are able,” and that nations are responsible for “the common good” and can make immigration “subject to various judicial conditions.”
Moreover, this Catholic teaching asserts, migrants entering a country “are obliged … to obey its laws.”
So “kicking out migrants” is not necessarily an evil at all, never mind a lesser one.
Specifically, in reference to abortion, the Pope reiterated in that same press conference that it is “killing.” Numerous Church documents that express official Catholic teaching explain why abortion is more grave an evil than others.
St. John Paul II, for instance, wrote,
”Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.”
The entire body of U.S. Bishops echoed this teaching when they wrote,
“Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the 'rightness' of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community.”
They compared various issues to the interlocking parts of a house, but said that abortion strikes at the foundation.
Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict XVI) wrote when he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion ... When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion ... but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”
Again, the distinction of “proportionate reasons” is given, not the vague “everyone in their conscience should think” press-conference soundbite of Pope Francis.
The most authoritative and comprehensive teaching document the Church has issued on abortion is the 1995 encyclical of St. John Paul II, The Gospel of Life.
He points out that abortion is particularly grave because the unborn are the most innocent and defenseless, that this act of violence has been transformed into a “right,” that it takes place within and with the complicity of the family, and that the right to life is the foundation for all other rights.
He also says in the same document that when a state legalizes abortion, it “is transformed into a tyrant state” and that this leads to “the death of freedom” and “the disintegration of the State itself” (n. 20).
Pope Francis himself, in a much more official context, wrote in his document Evangelii Gaudium that “among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us” (n. 213).
In short, we don’t just pick and choose, and decide for ourselves what moral issues are or are not equivalent. It’s not a shallow analysis of “both are against life,” because with a moment’s thought we realize that every issue is about life, from abortion to immigration to national security to fixing potholes on the city streets.
If an issue doesn’t impact human life, why is it an issue at all?
Every human life is equal. But not every attack on life is equal. As we vote, let’s start at the beginning: no civilized society kills its babies. Let’s give them life. Only then can we work on giving them a better life.
Frank Pavone is an anti-abortion leader, and National Director of Priests for Life. Read Frank Pavone Reports — More Here.