A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

San Diego Bishop Makes a Mockery of Faith, Reason to Justify Voting Hillary September 30, 2016

What tangled webs we weave, when first we practice to deceive – apparently, the motto of the Bishop of San Diego, widely known liberal Robert McElroy.

McElroy recently published some electoral guidance for his flock.  The core of it, the conclusion, it’s raison d’ etre, is that intrinsic evil – as he defines it – is a poor standard by which to make electoral decisions, because ALL candidates support one intrinsic evil or another, and thus Catholics have to make “complex moral calculations.”  If it sounds like shades of grey, the return of the discredited seamless garment, and not much more than an elaborate attempt to justify that H! sticker on his car, you’re not wrong at all.  I will lay it all out, providing my own analysis of where the wolf in sheep’s clothing errs:

Many widely circulated independent Catholic voter guides propose that the concept of intrinsic evil provides an automatic process for prioritizing the elements of the political common good in the United States.

The church teaches that certain acts are incapable of being ordered to God since in their very structure they contradict the good of the person made in God’s likeness. Such actions are termed “intrinsically evil” and are morally illicit no matter what the intention or circumstances surrounding them. Those who focus primarily on intrinsic evil make two distinct but related claims: 1) that the action of voting for candidates who seek to advance an intrinsic evil in society automatically involves the voter morally in that intrinsic evil in an illicit way; and 2) Catholic teaching demands that political opposition to intrinsically evil acts, like abortion, euthanasia and embryonic experimentation, must be given automatic priority over all other issues for the purposes of voting. [Well what other moral issues, bishop, rise to the level of the murder of over a million innocents a year?  You bring us “starting a major war,” below, apparently still reeling from an offhand remark Trump made 6 or 9 months ago, but there hasn’t been a war anywhere in the world in the past 20 years that has killed as many people in its totality as are killed by abortion in this country in a single year.  THERE IS NO MORAL EQUIVALENT TO ABORTION ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD AT THIS TIME!!!!! So if you want to use elaborate moral calculus to make your electoral choice, abortion gets a value of infinity, and everything else, some finite value which doesn’t matter, because infinity trumps all.  That is what Bishops Farrell and Vann said in 2008, that there is simply no issue that compares with abortion in this country at this time, and it is an issue of such overwhelming moral import that it is impossible for Catholics to support an openly pro-abort candidate for any reason at any time whatsoever.  And now we have democrat candidate and party platform calling for repeal of all limits on abortion and federal funding for it, which funding would surely cause a MASSIVE EXPANSION in the number of abortions in this country.  There is no other comparable evil being endorsed, or even fleetingly addressed, by any major candidate.  You cannot draw a false equivalence between limiting numbers of immigrants, or reducing welfare expenditure, or ]

The recent statement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” shows why this argument is simplistic and thus misleading. The bishops’ statement clearly asserts the absoluteness of the prohibitions against concrete intrinsically evil acts, emphasizing that no circumstances or intentions can justify performing or illicitly cooperating with such acts. At the same time, “Faithful Citizenship” recognizes that voting for a candidate whose policies may advance a particular intrinsic evil is not in itself an intrinsically evil act. Voting for candidates is a complex moral action in which the voter must confront an entire array of competing candidates’ positions in a single act of voting. It is crucial that in voting for a candidate who supports the advancement of an intrinsic evil, Catholic voters not have the intention of supporting that specific evil, since such an intention would involve them directly in the evil itself. But voters will often find themselves in situations where one candidate supports an intrinsically evil position, yet the alternative realistic candidates all support even graver evils in the totality of their positions. [“Forming Consciences” is an extremely dubious and problematic document that Bishops Farrell and Vann more or less repudiated in 2008.  This kind of false moral equivalence is oriented towards doing little but giving false “moral cover” to those who endorse candidates supporting the most evil acts imaginable. And I think many moral theologians would disagree that there is no culpability in supporting such a candidate, that saying “voting for” but not supporting this or that evil is a very weak moral defense]

This is particularly true in the United States today. The list of intrinsic evils specified by Catholic teaching includes not only abortion, physician-assisted suicide and embryonic experimentation but also actions that exploit workers, create or perpetuate inhuman living conditions or advance racism. It is extremely difficult, and often completely impossible, to find candidates whose policies will not advance several of these evils in American life. [THERE IS NO MORAL EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN “ADVANCING RACISM” AND THE MURDER TO 1-2 MILLION BABIES (IF NOT MORE, IF WE FACTOR IN CHEMICAL CONTRACEPTIVE ABORTION!!!!!!  This is really clever and insidious.  He’s trying to say “Oh, all these things are evil, and thus equal,” when that is not at all the case.  When we look at the Left today, which defines racism not by some real prejudice or hostile acts directed at members of a certain race, but some invisible “privilege,” can the bishop not see that what he is advocating is basically an endlessly false moral equality that can be made to justify everything and nothing?!?  This is naught but a most sorry exercise at self-justification and provision of the flimsiest of moral covers.  And since this is all really about giving cover to Hillary supporters, does the bishop really think that allowing millions of illegal immigrants to come here is a way to prevent exploitation of workers?!?  The entire reason for allowing them here is to drive down wages and to give seedy employers the ability to pay people pennies on the dollar.  I would say that controlling and limiting immigration is the best way to prevent exploitation of workers in this country]

Even more important, a fatal shortcoming of the category of intrinsic evil as a foundation for prioritizing the major elements of the political common good lies in the fact that while the criterion of intrinsic evil identifies specific human acts that can never be justified, it is not a measure of the relative gravity of evil in human or political acts. Some intrinsically evil acts are less gravely evil than other intrinsically evil actions. Intrinsically evil action can also be less gravely evil than other actions that do not fall under the category of intrinsic evil. For example, telling any lie is intrinsically evil, while launching a major war is not. But it would be morally obtuse to propose that telling a minor lie to constituents should count more in the calculus of voting than a candidate’s policy to go to war. [Excuse me, but did he just say that?  Am I the only one who takes this as a most pathetic attempt to explain away Hillary’s manifest perjuries and constant recourse to public lies?  Man he has really gotten twisted off by some PuffHost articles on Trump and supposed warmongering.  Clutch that woobie tight, Bishop McElroy. It’ll protect you from the mean, awful monster Trump] It is the gravity of evil or good present in electoral choices that is primarily determinative of their objective moral character and their contribution to or detraction from the common good. Moreover, because voting is a complex moral action involving mitigating circumstances, a vote for a candidate who supports intrinsic evils often does not involve illicit cooperation in those acts. For these reasons the category of intrinsic evil cannot provide a comprehensive moral roadmap for prioritizing the elements of the common good for voting

With “shepherds” such as these, there is no wonder at all that the Church is in the state she’s in. It is almost a diabolical mixture of truth and falsehood.  Notice how he switches subjects there at the end, when he does mix in some truth (that there are different grades of intrinsic evil), from a ludicrous example of a small lie vs. starting a major war, as opposed to addressing the single most pressing issue facing the country (and most of the world) today, which is the mass slaughter of innocents in the womb.  Why suddenly make this switch (of which evils he is highlighting, having brung up abortion previously), unless to press a dubious comparison between the two primary candidates?  “Hillary may be a pathological liar, but Trump’s going to start wars all around the world!”  Please.

Who was Secretary of State that was on watch, and may even have caused, the Mideast to erupt in flames?  Which administration helped precipitate (if it was not the direct cause of, as many think) the most grievous ongoing war in the world right now, one that has caused even more deaths than our disastrous adventure in Iraq?  Which administration has caused the worse relations with Russia in nearly 30 years?