This showed up on my facebook feed this morning and I thought it was very relevant. Many of you still have primary elections coming up. Many of my friends have said they will vote for Romney now that Santorum is out of the race. To that I ask, what the heck is wrong with you? Just because a candidate says he is pro-life (usually meaning, at best, anti-abortion) doesn’t mean he really is.  

OPPOSITION TO ABORTION DOES NOT TAKE AWAY THE SINS OF

THE WORLD

We welcome guest blogger Mark P. Shea, author of the new book The Work of Mercy: Being the Hands and Heart of Christ from Servant Books.

Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat. Abortion is the single most serious moral issue of our time. Nothing in our civilization equals the gravity of a society that can look straight at a newborn baby, made by God, helpless, innocent and beautiful—and stick a pair of scissors in her brain while declaring that a sacred right which must be guarded and extended to all the world, by imperial force if necessary. Such repellent worship of Moloch is biblical in its epic, almost theatrical, level of evil. It is a mark of how deeply corrupted our culture has become that so many people can not only fight to protect this evil as though it were a sacrament, but even joke about it and spit on those who seek to protect the unborn with utter contempt. No issue is of graver import.

That said, however, it is not the case that opposition to abortion exhausts the moral obligations of the Christian in the world and it is *emphatically* not the case that opposition to abortion takes away the sins of the world.

What do I mean? I mean that many serious, believing Christians have begun to embrace a false soteriology when it comes to abortion. What’s “soteriology”? It’s a three dollar word referring to that branch of salvation pertaining to salvation. We humans are always looking for someone or something to save us—besides Jesus. And there are lots of candidates out there. Some people look to correct liturgical practices to save them. The Pharisees thought that attention to religious niceties would do the trick. Lots of people look to money, sex, and/or power to do it. Others hope that the correct tribal affiliation in politics will do it. Still others have a lively faith that the correct views on, say, global warming, or recycling, or Obama, or Romney, or those damn libruls, or those Neanderthal conservatives are salvific. Conversely, a taste for Justin Bieber, Manga, disco, country music, disposable diapers, SUVs, or tobacco are thought by various tribal groupings to definitively consign people to the ranks of the damned—or whatever stands in for damnation among those who do not believe in heaven or hell.

Now, among conservative Christians (my own tribe) abortion has rightly been seen as the most appalling social evil of our time. But as the years have rolled on, many of my tribe have slowly evolved from treating it as the most important issue to treating as the only issue. And in doing so, many of us have concurrently moved to hitching our wagons to any politician who promises to “do something” about abortion—even when that same politician demands our vote so that we will support his plans to launch an unjust war, or torture people, or vote to force you to pay for contraceptives which are (irony of ironies) abortifacients. We buy into agendas which totally ignore or treat as completely disposable virtually the whole corpus of Catholic moral teaching—and then declare that it’s okay because Our Guy says something about being against abortion.

That’s a very dubious theory of salvation. Opposition to abortion is a *necessary* condition of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. But it is not a sufficient one. Opposition to abortion does not take away the sins of the world: Jesus does. And Jesus commands far more of us than mere opposition to abortion. How much more?

That is summarized in the Church’s teaching on the 14 corporal and spiritual works of mercy. These are:

Feed the Hungry

Give Drink to the Thirsty

Clothe the Naked

Harbor the Harborless

Visit the Sick

Ransom the Captive

Bury the Dead

Instruct the Ignorant

Counsel the Doubtful

Admonish Sinners

Bear Wrongs Patiently

Forgive Offenses Willingly

Comfort the Afflicted

Pray for the Living and the Dead

Any theory of salvation which imagines it is possible to ignore or minimize these is doomed. So it is vital that we return to the embrace of the Church’s *whole* teaching and not continue to allow it to be whittled down, even for the very good cause of saving the unborn. We must teach our political tribes that they are to be the servants of the least of these, whether they are babies *or* unwed mothers, poor children before they are born or after, babies born here or abroad in some country where we are planning our next adventure in nation building at gunpoint. And we must continue to care for those babies even when they become poor men and women, or deeply sinful, or hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, or in prison. The whole world, not just the unborn, is the least of these.

My friend posted  something today and it turned into politics, natch. Her friend is a Santorum supporter and I am, well, it’s pretty obvious, I’d rather have a root canal than to vote for him.  I do, however, realize that there is a lot of support for him (why I am not sure) and I am further saddened by his lack of docility to the teachings of Holy Mother Church.

There isn’t a single candidate running who is perfect. With that said you have to do the best you can when deciding who to vote for and that boils down to informing yourself through prayer and research to the best of your ability and voting on what you think is most important for our country. I have many reasons voting for Rick Santorum. He is passionate about what he believes in. I have seen him talk in person, on national television during the debates and he has consistently spoke out against abortion and the negative effects of contraception on women. He has not only spoken out about it and the importance of family values and defending marriages he has also put it into action through his leadership in the partial birth abortion ban and others. I agree with Ron Paul in most of his issues but when comes to things he seems to leave a gray area like in his stance on exceptions in the cases of rape and incest. He doesn’t come across as passionate and strong. As far as torture the Church isn’t 100 percent clear so again we have to apply prayer and discernment. He feels that Iran is already at war with us so I wouldn’t go as far to say he is pro war as people think he is without looking at the reasons why he is for the war with Iran.

 

While I address the other issues on Facebook,  I wanted to address the issue of torture and war here. I have pretty much beaten a dead horse about the pro-life issues and have done so on my blog, but torture and just war, I feel, need to be addressed.  I am keeping it simple, citing the Catechism and an encyclical here, but that is all we need to see that the Catholic Church does not, in anyway, support torture.

As far as the church teaching on torture, it is pretty clear. From CCC 2297 Kidnapping and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. Terrorism threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately; it is gravely against justice and charity. Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.

Further, the Church defines torture formally (i.e., what makes an action torture):

1. violation of human dignity in the form of
2. intentional mental and/or physical harm in order to
3. use a human person as a means (or instrument) for some producible end
4. against that person’s will.

These are the essential features of torture, and any material action with this form is torture. And it does not take any meticulous reasoning to figure out which material acts bear this essential form.

Church sources: Veritatis Splendor 80 & CCC 2297

Pope Benedict XVI, September 2007 “Public authorities must be ever vigilant in this task, eschewing any means of punishment or correction that either undermine or debase the human dignity of prisoners. In this regard, I reiterate that the prohibition against torture “cannot be contravened under any circumstances” (Ibid., 404).”

He is reiterating what Blessed John Paul II said in 2004 in the COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH # 404. 

The Church is nothing but 100% clear on the situation.

How is Iran already at war with us? Have they attacked us? How so? Church teaching on Just War is just as clear:

2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.105

2308 All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.

However, “as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.”106

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

– the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

– all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

– there must be serious prospects of success;

– the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgement of those who have responsibility for the common good. http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.htm