{"id":3452,"date":"2007-11-14T18:23:11","date_gmt":"2007-11-14T23:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2007\/11\/14\/does-it-matter-anyway\/"},"modified":"2012-11-01T17:14:11","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T21:14:11","slug":"does-it-matter-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2007\/11\/does-it-matter-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"Does it matter anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an interview with Archbishop Chaput
\nby John Allen Jr. he gives the
\nbest definition of proportionate reasons ever in regards to voting for
\na pro-abortion politician (via <\/span>Rich Leonardi<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

[I]t means a reason we could
\nconfidently explain to the Lord Jesus and
\nthe victims of abortion when we meet them at the end of our lives, and
\nwe will meet them. … That’s the only criterion.<\/p>\n



\nOf course this is really only the only
\ncriterion in all of our moral
\ndecisions.<\/span>

\n

\nMany <\/span>such
\nas Deal Hudson<\/a> see the new
\nFaithful Citizenship document as more of the same.<\/span>
\n
<\/p>\n

The document contains the same
\nconscience-trumps-principle loophole that has bedeviled Catholic moral
\ntheology since Vatican II:<\/p>\n

“In the end this is a decision to be made by each individual Catholic
\nguided by a conscience formed by Catholic moral teaching.”<\/p>\n

Though I wouldn’t go that far.
\n I think a conscience formed by Catholic moral teaching to be
\na fairly decent phrase and better address to the issue of the
\nconscience than seen in previous years when this document is produced.
\n The document in the introduction talks about a “properly
\nformed conscience” and contains a section on a well-formed conscience
\nthat goes on to quote the Catechism. <\/span>

\n

\nSure people can find loopholes, but
\nthey do the same with Holy Scripture and somebody that just wants an
\nexcuse to vote for a pro-abortion Culture of Death Eater and the
\ncandidates that must not be named, they will find one.<\/span>
\n

\nIn many ways this document is an
\nimprovement on the same document issued in years past.  Though
\nis is not without problems.  For one it is way too long and
\nwordy and repeats itself over and over on the same topic. This document
\ndoes handle moral issues that are intrinsically evil much better and it
\nis also much clearer what they are compared to other issues.
\n The pro-life focus is quite evident throughout.  It
\nwas of course mentioned in previous years, but there was much more
\nconfusion  in regards to lesser moral issues.  Last
\ntime around they even mentioned supporting Affirmative Action which I
\ndon’t see is consistent in Catholic teaching by correcting one evil by
\nusing the same evil to racially discriminate against others.
\n The first section of the document is fairly decent, but it
\ndemonstrates why documents written by committee are seldom very good.
\n The last third though made me think that someone I had
\naccidentally clicked onto a link and landed on a Democratic Party
\ntalking points page.  All problems seemed to have a government
\nsolution (and Federal at that) and while subsidiarity is mentioned at
\nthe front of the document it is noticeably missing in essence in the
\nrest of it. While many of the responses to these issues are prudential
\nones they are consistently ones championed by Democrats except perhaps
\non school choice.<\/span>

\n

\nThe real question though is does the
\ndocument really matter?  What was the last time to saw any
\nBishop’s document at your parish and how likely will it be that many if
\nthey saw this semi-large document would read through it in the first
\nplace.  The Bishop’s conference wrote some quite good
\ndocuments last year on subjects such as contraception, but does anybody
\nthink this has had any impact on the life of the Church.  I
\nget the feeling that the only people who are likely to read these
\nvoting guides are people that likely don’t need them in the first place
\nor have already made up their mind anyway.  It seems to me
\nthat pundits and those already active within the church are much more
\nlikely to read them (and comment on them) than Joe six-pack in the pews.<\/span>
\n

\nYou can read the <\/span>PDF version of this document<\/a> on the Bishop’s site.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deal Hudson has revised his opinion of the document here<\/a>. He was nice enough to leave a comment on thius post crediting me for this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an interview with Archbishop Chaput by John Allen Jr. he gives the best definition of proportionate reasons ever in regards to voting for a pro-abortion politician (via Rich Leonardi).…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13294,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452\/revisions\/13294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}