Those friends who follow my posts on Facebook don’t have to guess where my political leanings may lie. Ever since Donald Trump descended the golden escalator spewing his anti-immigrant bile, I have been an avowed anti-Trumper. Since my posts are not public (I’m not insane!), occasionally a Republican friend and supporter of Trump asks the question: “Since Trump is anti-abortion, how can you support a pro-choice candidate?” This is a question that is often asked of sincere Catholics and others who understand and accept the gravity of abortion from a Catholic ethical perspective. Perhaps, the following apologia for why one who supports the seamless dignity of all life, from ‘womb to tomb’ may support a Democrat for President and not Donald Trump:
Neither the Republican nor Democrat Presidential candidate and their respective platforms reflect perfectly Catholic moral values. Both are gravely deficient. As a Democrat, I of course, do not accept their entire platform, specifically on abortion. However, I find equally despicable and morally bankrupt Donald Trump’s stance on capital punishment, which is contrary to Catholic ethics, demonization of immigrants, ridicule of climate change as a hoax, demonization of anyone who disagrees with him, his threatening the integrity of the Constitution which is the very essence of our democracy. Most of all, political leaders must possess both the character and moral center to lead with integrity all the people entrusted for the common good. Donald Trump, in my opinion and that of countless women and men who worked with him in his prior administration, is totally bereft of character and integrity.
As Pope Francis so rightly has pointed out, when we are faced with conflicted moral and political choices, it comes down to a matter of personal conscience in determining which candidate and platform proportionately on the whole will support Catholic values. I am not as naive as to question that some conscientious Republicans, arrive at a good faith conclusion that Trump and the Republican platform best represents that. And I would only ask that Republicans and Trump supporters afford me the same courtesy, aware that I too have weighed the proportionate values and disvalues and have arrived in good conscience at a different conclusion.
However, I categorically reject those who state that voting for a Democrat means one is supporting abortion and, hence, all Democrats directly cooperate with intrinsic evil and are guilty of grave sin and should even refrain from communion! This important distinction is clearly articulated in the USCCB’s statement, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.
In an important letter written to an American cardinal when he was Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stated:
“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 favor 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.”
While single issue voters exist, I far more believe that it is the full complement of political decisions that a candidate may support that either support, compromise or violate Catholic ethical principles that inform the conscientious Catholic voter to choose which candidate, overall, best reflects Catholic ethical principles. That decision remains in the inviolate area of personal conscience.
I find it interesting when I encounter folks who say they ‘despise Trump’s character’ but since he’s against abortion, they have no other choice than to vote for him. The Nazi laws enacted by Hitler for the Third Reich outlawed abortion as a crime for Aryans and was strictly enforced. I would certainly hope that if Hitler were alive today, nobody would vote for him because he was against abortion!
