Bishop Cupich from South Dakota wrote a piece for the Catholic News Service. One of the provacative things he wrote in this article is this:
“Some have argued — misleadingly — that our moral obligation to defend innocent human life means that it is never morally permissible for a Catholic to vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights,” the editors wrote. “Given the specific choices facing voters, disqualification of pro-choice candidates is neither automatic nor universal.”
I’m not sure that statement is true based on the Catechism of the Church. If life is sacred from conception to natural death (as the Church teaches) than voting for someone who supports abortion is voting for a murderer by definition, isn’t it? It seems Biblical that even if a little crap is in a sandwich with otherwise wonderful ingredients, it’s still a crap sandwich (a little leaven leaves the whole lump). I could vote for a pro-life Catholic Democrat that supports amnesty because – hey – I don’t like avocado on my sandwich but the rest of it is good. I’ll pick off the avocado. But if any ingredient can be categorized as crap, being pro-choice has got to be one of them. You don’t pick that stuff off and still take a bite. The sandwich is ruined.
If both candidates are pro-choice with no good third party option – that’s where it gets hard…
