[lbo-talk] Vatican: Okay to Vote for Pro-Abortion Politician

[J Cullen]

You could read it as a rebuke to Dubya, who reportedly pressed the 
Pope in Rome to bring the bishops into line and get them actively 
preaching against Democrats.  Now those bishops who suggested that 
Catholics who voted for pro-choice pols were sinning find themselves 
out on a limb -- and bishops don't like to be out on limbs, 
particularly if they'd like to become archbishops or cardinals.  The 
bishops' conference statement makes it much easier for practicing 
Catholics to justify a vote for Kerry and other pro-choice Democrats. 
This also will be a relief to priests and nuns who don't want to have 
to preach against Democrats.  And your Catholic friends might have 
voted Democratic anyway, but now your friends' parents and 
grandparents can continue to vote Democratic and not have to worry 
about it being a sin.

Also, once the bishops come to make a statement like this they 
usually are loathe to revisit the issue for a while. So I score this 
as a major loss for the Republicans who forced the issue. Their wedge 
into the Catholic vote just got a lot smaller.  And I believe 
evangelicals are outnumbered by Catholics, who amount to nearly a 
quarter of the electorate, and form a greater percentage in some of 
the Northeastern and Midwestern swing states, as well as the growing 
Latino vote in the Southwest.

-- Jim Cullen


>Isn't the Pope just a little behind the curve on this one? I do not 
>currently and have never known any Catholics who gave the abortion 
>issue serious weight in their voting considerations. Not that none 
>of then didn't care about the issue, they just were not inclined to 
>make it THE choice in selecting a candidate. That seems like a 
>tactic generally reserved for evangelical protestants. That domain 
>is obviously not theirs exclusively but I believe they far outnumber 
>the Catholics in that camp.
>
>John Thornton
>
>>http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/001780.shtml#001780
>>
>>Vatican: Okay to Vote for Pro-Abortion Politician
>>
>>But possibly the most fascinating fact is that Vatican officials clearly
>>told the Bishops that voters are free to support pro-abortion politicans
>>without sinning, if they support them for other policies:
>
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