Proportionate Reasons

On Friday last week, Opinion Journal published an editorial by Archbishop John Meyers of the Newark Archdiocese. Meyers expanded on a recent statement from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on whether Catholic politicians who support abortion should receive the Eucharist. Ratzinger concluded that such Catholics should not present themselves for Holy Communion. His statement included a coda extending his reasoning to the question of Catholic voters who support pro-abortion politicians. Lacking "proportionate reasons" a Catholic must not support a pro-abortion politician.

Meyers proceeded to define proportionate reasoning and demonstrate that in this election no proportionate reasons exist for a Catholic to support a pro-abortion politician. He wrote: "... for a Catholic citizen to vote for a candidate who supports abortion and embryo-destructive research, one of the following circumstances would have to obtain: either (a) both candidates would have to be in favor of embryo killing on roughly an equal scale or (b) the candidate with the superior position on abortion and embryo-destructive research would have to be a supporter of objective evils of a gravity and magnitude beyond that of 1.3 million yearly abortions plus the killing that would take place if public funds were made available for embryo-destructive research."

Meyers described the moral imperative for opposing pro-abortion politicians: "Abortion and embryo-destructive research are... intrinsic and grave evils; no Catholic may legitimately support them. In the context of contemporary American social life, abortion and embryo-destructive research are disproportionate evils. They are the gravest human rights abuses of our domestic politics and what slavery was to the time of Lincoln. Catholics are called by the Gospel of Life to protect the victims of these human rights abuses. They may not legitimately abandon the victims by supporting those who would further their victimization."

Worth reading.