13 October 2002
By
Fr. Michael Dolan
As I told you last week, I am continuing to address recurrent comments concerning Catholic participation in the political process made to me by people who are not only Catholic, but also good friends. This week I want to address the comment, “My conscience is against abortion, but I will not vote against it” or perhaps more familiarly “I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don’t want to force my beliefs on another.”
Last week I was listening to a presentation by persons who were desperately trying to get the nations of the worlds to condemn land mines, both producing them and planting them. One of the speakers made a very poignant statement. She said, “tears without action are irrelevant!” It caused me to think of the subject of this column. As clearly as I can state it, not to act is moral hypocrisy. A Christian is absolutely bound by one’s conscience. It cannot be gilded over. It cannot be ignored. It cannot be negotiated. It cannot be rationalized to some other behavior.
I recall a particularly egregious example when a well known Catholic politician voted against his conscience and for abortion saying I don’t want to force my belief on others. He then he voted against a popular demand for capital punishment because it was against his conscience. Interestingly enough, despite this glaringly hypocritical performance, he received a medal from one of our Catholic institutions of higher learning (?)!
To be a Catholic and a politician is not always easy, because it demands the courage of one’s convictions as dictated by a right conscience. O yes, it is appropriate to say one must be given freedom to act, to choose, but options that are established by judicial or legal fiat and are morally reprehensible must never be supported. Catholics who want to hide behind that façade and say they are not for abortion but for choice might, in another generation, have said they were not for genocides, but concede that the people and/ or government have the right to choose genocide. If Christ, our savior and model, had a vote, do you think under the circumstances that he would vote “choice” knowing that thereby he was supporting abortion as a readily available option. Yet we are Christians, Christ’s followers!
The absolute interdiction against acting contrary to one’s conscience applies to us in the voting booth. You cannot, you are forbidden, to behave in a way that divorces conscience from action. Some time ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. put it well:
“Cowardice asks is it safe? Expedience asks is it politic? Vanity asks is it popular?
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”
As it has been said, “It’s the age of struggle, the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other.” Our mandate, our directive is to follow our conscience.
Father Mike
Next Week: “What about party loyalty (Pt. 1) or loyalty to a candidate (Pt. II)?”