Month: October 2016

Some, putting up the armor of polit­i­cal the­o­ry against the teach­ing of the Church, will object that wages are a pri­vate con­tract. If a man thinks his wage is unjust, he can ask for a raise. Just like that! Or if his boss is a tight­wad, he can find anoth­er job. Just like that! Sim­ple. Boss­es and mag­nates nev­er exploit­ed labor in the good old US of A, before there were laws to pre­vent it! That just did not hap­pen. Not ever! But Leo XIII would find such think­ing naïve. “The labor­ing man,” he says, “is, as a rule, weak and unpro­tect­ed” and often a vic­tim of “usu­ri­ous deal­ing.”

Bot­tom line: The Church does not tell us how to vote. Often a can­di­date who sup­ports abor­tion is run­ning against a can­di­date who oppos­es social jus­tice. The Church does not tell us how to resolve this con­flict. What the Church does do is name the moral prin­ci­ples that should fac­tor in our vot­ing, and then leave it up to the individual’s own con­science and prayer. The one thing the Church tells us we must not do, on pain of mor­tal sin, is vote for a can­di­date because that can­di­date sup­ports abor­tion. Our motives can put us into mor­tal sin, but not our vote itself.