Social justice is also a non-negotiable.

t’s true. There are more than the mere five one again and again hears pro­claimed from the rooftops: abor­tion, euthana­sia, embry­on­ic stem cell research, cloning, and same-sex mar­riage. The Con­gre­ga­tion for the Doc­trine of the Faith lists more. I bet you did not know that. Let us read all that it says:

When polit­i­cal activ­i­ty comes up against moral prin­ci­ples that do not admit of excep­tion, com­pro­mise or dero­ga­tion”—[Those are strong words.]—“the Catholic com­mit­ment becomes more evi­dent and laden with respon­si­bil­i­ty. In the face of fun­da­men­tal and inalien­able eth­i­cal demands, Chris­tians must rec­og­nize that what is at stake is the essence of the moral law, which con­cerns the inte­gral good of the human per­son.

So every­thing the CDF is about to list is “the essence of the moral law.” “At stake,” it says, is “the inte­gral good of the human per­son. That is why these are non-nego­tiable.

Let us go on:

This is the case with laws con­cern­ing abor­tion and euthana­sia (not to be con­fused with the deci­sion to for­go extra­or­di­nary treat­ments, which is moral­ly legit­i­mate). Such laws must defend the basic right to life from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death. In the same way, it is nec­es­sary to recall the duty to respect and pro­tect the rights of the human embryo. Anal­o­gous­ly, the fam­i­ly needs to be safe­guard­ed and pro­mot­ed, based on monog­a­mous mar­riage between a man and a woman, and pro­tect­ed in its uni­ty and sta­bil­i­ty in the face of mod­ern laws on divorce: in no way can oth­er forms of cohab­i­ta­tion be placed on the same lev­el as mar­riage, nor can they receive legal recog­ni­tion as such. The same is true for the free­dom of par­ents regard­ing the edu­ca­tion of their chil­dren; it is an inalien­able right rec­og­nized also by the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion on Human Rights.

Noth­ing so far to cause mas­sive strokes or sweats or seizures on the Right. But we must read on:

In the same way, one must con­sid­er society’s pro­tec­tion of minors and free­dom from mod­ern forms of slav­ery (drug abuse and pros­ti­tu­tion, for exam­ple). In addi­tion, there is the right to reli­gious free­dom and the devel­op­ment of an econ­o­my that is at the ser­vice of the human per­son and of the com­mon good, with—”[Brace your­self now.]—“respect for social jus­tice, the prin­ci­ples of human sol­i­dar­i­ty and sub­sidiar­i­ty, accord­ing to which “the rights of all indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies, and orga­ni­za­tions and their prac­ti­cal imple­men­ta­tion must be acknowl­edged.

There is it is! Social jus­tice! A non-nego­tiable! I mean, to just imag­ine! Get a drink of water if you need to before we go on. The Church will still be here.

Final­ly, the ques­tion of peace must be men­tioned. Cer­tain paci­fistic and ide­o­log­i­cal visions tend at times to sec­u­lar­ize the val­ue of peace, while, in oth­er cas­es, there is the prob­lem of sum­ma­ry eth­i­cal judg­ments which for­get the com­plex­i­ty of the issues involved. Peace is always “the work of jus­tice and the effect of char­i­ty.” It demands the absolute and rad­i­cal rejec­tion of vio­lence and ter­ror­ism and requires a con­stant and vig­i­lant com­mit­ment on the part of all polit­i­cal lead­ers.

But I thought bomb­ing the bejee­bus out of peo­ple was pru­den­tial judg­ment, and now you tell me that peace is a non-nego­tiable? What heresy is this, and what smoke of Satan?

But it seems that we must add, to our five favorite non-nego­tiables, four more: social jus­tice, peace, elim­i­na­tion of slav­ery in all its forms, and edu­ca­tion.

There are nine of them.

•••

“But Alt!” you will say. “The CDF also says that if you vote for a can­di­date who sup­ports abor­tion, you are in mor­tal sin and can’t receive com­mu­nion. It does not say the same thing about vot­ing for a can­di­date who oppos­es social jus­tice.”

But not so fast. Let us read what the CDF actu­al­ly says:

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.

Did you catch that qual­i­fi­ca­tion? Good. We read on.

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.

And guess what? The Church does not give us a list of “pro­por­tion­ate rea­sons,” although I would have to guess that the oth­er items on the list of “moral prin­ci­ples that do not admit of excep­tion” would count. You think it’s safe to guess that? I do.

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. Don’t con­fuse the two. And don’t sit in judg­ment on some­one else’s motives. Unless some­one tells you, “I am vot­ing for Mrs. Clin­ton because she sup­ports abor­tion, and I think that’s great,” you don’t know. And it’s none of your busi­ness any­way.

That Mr. Oba­ma won the Catholic vote in 2008 and 2012 is not a scan­dal. That so many will sit in judg­ment on them, as though they can see into their moti­va­tions, is.

•••

Update: Michelle Arnold adds this impor­tant point:

Just for the record, Catholic Answers (which coined the “non-nego­tiables” in its vot­er guide) *nev­er* claimed there was just five. They chose to *spot­light* five, based on cer­tain cri­te­ria.

With­out pulling out the guide, I think the cri­te­ria were no room for alter­na­tive posi­tions on the issue and that the issue was under cur­rent debate in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. They also delib­er­ate­ly intend­ed to lim­it the scope of the guide to keep it short (to encour­age peo­ple to read it and dis­trib­ute it).

Whether or not you agree with the idea of “non-nego­tiables,” and whether or not you agree with CA’s choice of “non-nego­tiables,” it is incor­rect to assume that CA intend­ed to say that only five exist.

In this post, I was think­ing more of the re-pre­sen­ta­tion of the “non-nego­tiables” else­where, not nec­es­sar­i­ly by Catholic Answers itself.