What Ratzinger and the CDF really said about voting for pro-choice candidates.

t’s not what you may have heard. Death Site News pro­motes the words of Fr. Mark Gor­ing; he says that “The blood of these unborn chil­dren is on your hands if you vote for and sup­port an aggres­sive­ly pro-abor­tion politi­cian.” That is false. The Church nowhere teach­es that a per­son who votes for a pro-choice Demo­c­rat incurs the guilt of abor­tion. It is a lie to claim oth­er­wise.

Now, in 2004, the CDF—with Car­di­nal Joseph Ratzinger as its prefect—put out a doc­u­ment enti­tled “Wor­thi­ness to Receive Holy Com­mu­nion: Gen­er­al Prin­ci­ples.” In this doc­u­ment, the CDF says that Catholics may not:

• Pro­pa­gan­dize in favor of abor­tion
• Sup­port laws per­mit­ting abor­tion

In terms of vot­ing for polit­i­cal can­di­dates, the CDF says this:

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 and/or euthana­sia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abor­tion and/or euthana­sia, but votes for that can­di­date for oth­er rea­sons, it is con­sid­ered remote mate­r­i­al coop­er­a­tion, which can be per­mit­ted in the pres­ence of pro­por­tion­ate rea­sons.

Nowhere does the CDF tells us what those “pro­por­tion­ate rea­sons” are. This means that the Church leaves it to the indi­vid­u­al’s own pru­den­tial judg­ment; the Church leaves it to the indi­vid­u­al’s own con­science before God.

Sup­pose, for exam­ple, that a per­son were to believe that a can­di­date’s poli­cies would result in few­er women decid­ing to have an abor­tion than the oppo­nen­t’s poli­cies (irre­spec­tive of the legal­i­ty of abor­tion). That might count as a “pro­por­tion­ate rea­son.”

Or sup­pose a per­son were to believe that an oppos­ing candidate—the Repub­li­can, let us say—would not change any­thing rel­a­tive to abor­tion. The issue can­cels itself out and the vot­er makes a deci­sion on the basis of issues apart from abor­tion.

Or sup­pose a per­son were to believe that the Trump admin­is­tra­tion and the Repub­li­can par­ty presents a present dan­ger pro­por­tion­ate to the evil of abor­tion. Sup­pose he or she votes for a Demo­c­rat can­di­date to mit­i­gate that dan­ger. That would also count as a “pro­por­tion­ate rea­son.”

A vot­er might very well be wrong in these per­son­al judg­ments. But that does not of itself mean that they vote Demo­c­rat to advance pro-abor­tion poli­cies; still less does it mean that they incur the guilt of abor­tion and have “blood on their hands.”

The USCCB, in Form­ing Con­sciences for Faith­ful Cit­i­zen­ship,” address­es anoth­er con­tin­gency in vot­ing:

When all can­di­dates hold a posi­tion that pro­motes an intrin­si­cal­ly evil act, the con­sci­en­tious vot­er faces a dilem­ma. The vot­er may decide to take the extra­or­di­nary step of not vot­ing for any can­di­date or, after care­ful delib­er­a­tion, may decide to vote for the can­di­date deemed less like­ly to advance such a moral­ly flawed posi­tion and more like­ly to pur­sue oth­er authen­tic human goods.

The Church leaves it to the voter’s own con­science and dis­cern­ment when such a sit­u­a­tion exists, and which can­di­date is “less like­ly to advance” moral evil and “pur­sue oth­er authen­tic human goods.”

It may be, in one’s con­science, that it is the Demo­c­rat who will pur­sue those “goods.”

Don’t give in to the moral bul­ly­ing that takes place every elec­tion year, that sin­ful­ly attempts to manip­u­late your con­science and your vote by rais­ing the spec­tre of “blood on your hands” unless you vote Repub­li­can. Don’t believe it. This is not Catholic teach­ing.