Is Barack Obama the best and most principled choice for Catholics seeking to foster a culture of life in the United States and abroad, or is he the most extreme pro-abortion presidential candidate ever to appear on a national ticket?
In the past few weeks, Catholic leaders have staked out ground that far apart.
Prominent anti-choice Catholics who have endorsed Obama, including Doug Kmeic and Nicholas Cafardi, emphasize Obama's pro-prevention policies as a more effective means of reducing the rate of unintended pregnancy. They also call attention to Obama's support for a stronger social safety net, and his position on a host of other issues they see as moral imperatives - war, the environment, health care, and poverty. Two Catholic organizations, Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which calls for a "consistent ethic of life," are promoting the idea that Catholics can vote their consciences by supporting candidates who favor health care access and stronger social services for pregnant women.
Other Catholics, both ordained and lay, have been vocal opponents of Obama's candidacy. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll found that Catholics favor John McCain by 54% to 41%.
But although the Catholic Church hierarchy is unqualified in its opposition to legal abortion, Catholics, the Post/ABC poll found that Catholics are divided over the issue of abortion, with slightly more saying it should be legal in most or all cases.
If you're Catholic and a regular church attendee, it's not as easy as it once was to simply support and vote for candidates who hold positions with which you agree.
Catholic hierarchy members are lashing out at fellow Catholics for daring to examine presidential candidates who do not pass a litmus test for abortion. Over the weekend, Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput told a Catholic women's group, "To suggest - as some Catholics do - that Senator Obama is this year's 'real' pro-life candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse." It's nothing new - when John Kerry ran for President in 2004, he was denied communion by some Catholic churches solely because of his support for access to abortion services for women. There was little response from fellow Catholics then.
But in this election season, Catholic religious leaders are being challenged. And they don't like it. Fellow Catholic religious leaders, pro-life scholars, church-goers, and Catholic organizations alike are revealing that their Catholicism does not mandate voting for a candidate based on a single issue. They are also saying that they will no longer stand for certain religious leaders interpreting Catholicism on behalf of all Americans.
Catholics grappling with their upcoming choice are buzzing on the blogosphere, too -- including plenty who can't understand Catholics who support Obama.
On Public Discourse, Robert George made the "most extreme pro-abortion candidate" charge, on the grounds that Obama supports the Freedom of Choice Act and opposes the Hyde Amendment, which outlaws federal funding for abortions. As Amie wrote last week, and I'll write this week, neither support for FOCA nor opposition to Hyde is radical or extreme. Both merely ensure that reproductive rights as outlined by Roe are just that - rights, not privileges based on geography or socioeconomic status.
Writing on the American Spectator, Robert Stacy McCain claims that the interventions proven to reduce the unintended pregnancy rate - comprehensive sexuality education and access to contraception - themselves can't be supported by staunch Catholics: "Catholic doctrine...is directly at odds with the 'comprehensive sexuality education' (CSE) philosophy that Obama and the Democrats support. Not only is CSE pro-homosexuality, but it mandates explicit instruction in the use of condoms and contraceptives ('safe sex'), which are forbidden by Catholic teaching."
Mollie at GetReligion teases out Kmiec's stance on legal abortion, and on the difference between being personally pro-life and believing that that belief should be expressed in law and public policy. She cites a recent Kmiec op-ed in the LA Times, in which Kmiec writes, "The way out is to remember that when there are differences among religious creeds, none is entitled to be given preference in law or policy. Sometimes the law must simply leave space for the exercise of individual judgment, because our religious or scientific differences of opinion are for the moment too profound to be bridged collectively." For Mollie, that position means Kmiec shouldn't claim the "pro-life" label: "[I]f Kmiec is arguing that abortion should be legal because of a lack of consensus on the issue, it makes it a bit difficult to call him pro-life. How is that position different from that of pro-choicers such as former Gov. Mario Cuomo or Sen. Joe Biden?"
PhatCatholic Apologetics features an exchange between a Catholic concerned about hunger issues, health care and capital punishment and using those concerns as his or her mandate for selecting a candidate, and a Catholic who argues that Catholics should vote based on a candidate's position on "unquestionable evils" that cannot balanced against other positions or policies the candidate holds.
No matter how Catholics break on November 4, this year's election has seen unprecedented engagement with what "voting your conscience" really means.
