A Message to GOP Catholics

Michael Novak’s article, Catholics for Obama?, is a well-written and insightful look at Catholic political engagement and abortion. Though, I don’t disagree with what he says, there are a few criticisms I think Novak and other Catholics should at least consider—not that I think my “two cents” really count for much.

Novak is right-on when he says that many Catholics try to avoid calling abortion what it is—murder—and they will tirelessly say or do anything to justify their insatiable partisan desire to vote for Democrats. He is also right that many Catholics on the Left have an incorrect understanding of the “consistent life ethic,” and often equate other issues to abortion.

Nevertheless, Novak displays a flaw that I can’t help but notice. There is a lack of criticism of the Republican Party in Catholic circles. Yet, there is ready (and certainly warranted) criticism of Democrats particularly on the sanctity of life issues and dissenting Catholics on the left side of the political spectrum who hide behind pro-choice rhetoric. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be criticism of Democrats; I’m saying that there is a double standard.

Catholics of all political persuasions often cite the U.S. Bishops’ document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” The document provides a rich understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, but as a voting guide, it proves to be a disaster. Catholics are given a crash course of natural law morality applied to politics, told to consider a litany of issues, adhere to Christian principles, and make a judgment based on their conscience. Given all these priorities, what good Catholics ought to do is often lost in a sea of heated opinions. The Bishops, for example, clearly say that Catholics cannot vote for a candidate who advocates an intrinsic evil, e.g. abortion, if one is motivated by a desire to advance that evil. By that logic, taken in the context of considering a broad set of issues, a Catholic can come to the conclusion based on their reading that they have “room” to vote for a pro-choice candidate, if abortion is not their reason for supporting that candidate. Or at the very least, there are “proportionate” and morally grave reasons, given certain circumstances that Catholics may vote for a pro-choice candidate. The problem is that the Bishops don’t say what those reasons may be nor do they take the counter extreme of saying, in no uncertain terms, that Catholics cannot, absolutely, whatsoever vote for pro-choice candidates. Therefore, it becomes a matter of (often heated) debate.

Certainly, there are non-negotiable issues that Catholics cannot disagree on and all other issues of “prudential analysis” (like the best way to deal with immigration) permits legitimate disagreement among the faithful. It is obvious that a Catholic who adopts an unacceptable position, e.g. a pro-choice position on abortion, and advocates those policies would be in a state of mortal sin. Interestingly enough, I find, particularly among Catholic conservatives, that the issues that aren’t non-negotiable, that call for “prudential analysis” leads to a sort of relativism. The fact is “prudential analysis” only implies that such issues are not grave enough to bar a Catholic from receiving communion. It does not mean that any position on other matters is morally equal, i.e. whatever the GOP position is because they are the pro-life party nor should are these issues irrelevant. More often than not, one position is arguably more consonant with the Gospel and in fact, true social justice. I personally happen to think the Democrats are more often than not closer on a lot of those issues.

Despite the fact that I am a Democrat, I am voting against Barack Obama in November because I’m pro-life, but abortion is not the only issue in the scope of my concerns. Yet in my discourses with other Catholics, it concerns me that they don’t really care about—or are totally ignorant of—other issues besides life issues and gay marriage. The global food crisis that arose from making ethanol from the once-cheapest food on the market, corn, has disproportionately affected third world countries with rising costs of food. Is this not a pro-life concern to at least think about? Another issue is the genocide in Darfur, in which, the Bush Administration has yet to fulfill its two year old promise of intense diplomatic efforts in the region and to rally the U.N. to join them despite the nearly half a million death toll.

Another issue that is very important to me, not only as a Catholic but as an African American because it affects so many people in my family who borderline or sink below the poverty line, is the healthcare system—or medical caste system—that is direly in need of repair. Public health is dominated by consumerism and there are little safeguards ensuring public interests and respect for human dignity. The healthcare lobby, by and large, is a conservative constituency. I think it is fair to say that the GOP had an opportune time (1994-2006) to attempt to fix the broken healthcare system and provide a just system where more Americans had access to basic, quality healthcare. But rather millions of tax-payer dollars went to funding the Clinton scandal witch hunt and instead of ensuring the common good, Republicans made politics into a circus.

Now there are in fact Republicans who support a reform in healthcare (cf. Republicans for Single Payer), even a single-payer universal healthcare system and they demonstrate how it would not handicap the free-market economy. I believe, ultimately, this is a pro-life issue in its own respect, particularly when the current “pro-life” Republican President is vetoing bills to expand healthcare coverage to socio-economically disadvantaged children and the fact that this crisis is overlooked or dismissed by other Catholics is very problematic in my view. To have concern for these social justice issues doesn’t require you to be a Democrat or that you vote for one. It means that you are Catholic. By all means, show the GOP that its pro-life base has social justice concerns.

Moreover, the GOP does not give abortion the primacy it deserves though their rhetoric would surely have everyone think the opposite. And I’m not saying that the Democrats are the solution to that problem. Seven of the nine on the Supreme Court were nominated by Republican presidents after Roe v. Wade, yet only four are pro-life—obviously their commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade could not be as pressing as even the most die-hard pro-life Americans would like to believe. Even in the Republican-controlled Congress from 2000-2006, The Right to Life Act, The Human Life Amendment, and other pro-life bills never once made it to a vote on the floor. Not once. I honestly doubt the GOP's credibility and only the action of the party in the coming years will change or solidify my skepticism. But it remains that the credibility of the GOP at large does not change the debate over whether or not Catholics can vote for a Democrat in this election or at all.

Recently, I criticized “Roman Catholics for Obama ‘08” for the inherent flaws of their pro-Obama arguments, but even more so because they are not even critical of their candidate nor the Democratic Party. I hold the same disapproval for Catholics who turn a critical eye to the Democrats, but not to the Republicans and their failures. I contended (and still do) that those Catholics advocating Obama could gain credibility by acknowledging his terrible position on abortion and demanding change through a large-scale campaign for more pro-life policies, rather than ignoring the matter—after all, uncritical support of pro-abortion candidates will not reap any change on the Left. Other Catholics, including me, will disagree with them, but they wouldn’t seem as dubious. Nevertheless, Catholics who consistently cast their ballots for Republicans ought to expect that the GOP will take advantage of them and ignore their most pressing concerns if they expect they can do it and receive a mindless stamp of approval on all their other policies as long as they promise to be pro-life on abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research.

To another point: there is an unspoken understanding among many that no good Catholic can vote for a Democrat and we must vote for Republicans. I disagree with that assessment and I’m not endorsing the idea of campaigning for and fully supporting pro-choice candidates without so much as a blink. The current strategy, it seems, is to elect only Republicans both at the federal and state level, so they will elect anti-Roe judges so that we can position ourselves to overturn Roe v. Wade. I’m all for overturning Roe v. Wade. Yet, I’m not at all sure if that’s the best strategy. I have a negative view of one-party controlled government and particularly with President Bush’s abuse of his presidential powers and the GOP going along with it. For example, I firmly oppose the absurd notion that the United States has some right to detain people for years at a time, on the basis of “suspicion,” without any substantial and credible enough evidence to even give a reason as to why they are being detained. This is a clear violation of human rights. You don’t arrest someone and hold them for years when you have no proof that they did something, don’t tell them what they did, and won’t give them a fair trial with some means of protecting American intelligence. And it was the four “conservative” judges of the Supreme Court who disagreed with everything I just said. I’ll flip the script here and say that I’m sure they’ll hide behind the banner of “prudential analysis,” but judgment on a not-so-grave matter does not immediately equal a morally-right or even morally-neutral position. Moreover, just because other issues do not carry the same moral weight as abortion and other attacks on human life does not mean that we can call ourselves morally coherent when we put those all other concerns—all important in their own right—on the back burner or passively allow legislation that is not just, all in the name of prudential judgment.

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus paints an image of his return in glory and he separates the goats from the sheep. The sheep are those who served “the least” of His brothers: the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, strangers, those sick and in prison. The goats repeat the sin of Cain by not acknowledging we are our brother’s keeper. Catholic Democrats often cite the “consistent life ethic” as the reason why they are voting for the Democratic candidates and they often receive a lot of criticism. Those in the GOP while criticizing them (and it’s often warranted) never own up to their party's failures on the “consistent life ethic” and over-emphasize the hierarchy of issues so much that we neglect many of Jesus’ brothers and sisters despite what the Lord told us.

Catholics can and must be fully pro-life and support initiatives that produce a social and economic environment that is ultimately pro-life—a culture of life—founded upon the family. I have never understood why Catholics divided between the right and the left insist on having it one way (change the law) or the other (change the culture). This means that Catholics who consider themselves to be Republicans—and this applies not only to them—should be breathing a firestorm on the Right because if we are pro-life and pro-family, and are going to include “the least” of our Lord’s brothers in our social vision, all of them, we must oppose continual cuts in funding to education, weak maternity-leave laws that enable pregnant women—who sometimes by their socio-economic status are statistically inclined toward abortion—to lose their job and healthcare, neglecting our obligation to find innovative ways to reduce the poverty rate that doesn’t always include social programs, not finding a real solution to the healthcare problem, and the list goes on.

I believe if Catholics demanded results on abortion, more would be done by Republicans. Surely, other aspects of their agenda have been carried out with fervor—weakening the social-safety net, privatizing, deregulating, lowering the influence of labor unions, belligerent foreign policy, anti-immigration legislation—that I think the GOP, if serious about abortion, could repeatedly introduce the same bills over and over again, meet with pro-Roe Justices and talk to them about abortion, bring scientists into the debate, etc. Anything would do. Show more effort.

Ultimately, I think that the lack of Catholic criticism to the right is the source of some of the problems that we are facing today. If we demanded results on the life issues and demonstrated that other policies need to be moderated or more inclusive to the concern for the weak and vulnerable in society without handicapping the free-market economy I think it would do a number of things: (a) it would be incredible witness to dissident Catholics who put partisan politics before their moral obligations (b) the Democrats could not argue that their policy positions are more reflective of the social justice teachings of the Church and more Catholics would join the GOP without fear of other critical issues being ignored, (c) it may inspire change on the Left after a heavy loss of an already shrinking constituency.

Granted the purpose of Novak’s article was to question the legitimacy of Catholic support for Barack Obama, I still find that it unfailingly added confirmation to my conviction that there is a lack of GOP criticism by Catholics. One might get the impression that if we just vote Republican, everything will be alright. On the contrary, there is much work to be done and Catholics need to know that voting for GOP candidates still requires much more. Sure, not everyone is as skeptical as I am; I firmly believe that the GOP in large part puts on a pro-life façade every 4 years and forgets about efforts to end abortion after the elections. The fact that the pro-life voice is not on both sides of the political spectrum easily allows Republicans to make promises to the pro-life movement that it has no intentions of keeping because for many of us, this cause is so insurmountable that we will not vote for the other side under any circumstances, even if they put up a candidate like John McCain. Where else are we to go? We either sit at home or suck it up and vote to stop the pro-choice candidate from winning. Isn't that the situation Catholics are facing this election?

And because they have uncritical support of pro-lifers and coin themselves as anti-abortion, they can run the economy into the ground, implement bad foreign policy, support torture, support economic policies that are clearly an unjust distribution of resources, cut services to the poor, tell third world countries to be economically responsible for themselves while permitting America's greedy consumption of 70 to 90 percent of the world’s resources, run up our national debt from $5.63 trillion to a mind-numbing $9.5 trillion in only seven years, carry out unilateral pre-emptive wars before exhausting diplomatic efforts, ignore the health care crisis, and despite such injustices, they face absolutely no reprehension at all from their pro-life base (unless, and only if, they don’t put up a pro-life candidate), whatsoever just because they are against abortion. We just have to vote for them, throw our vote away on a third party, or don’t vote at all. This disturbs me greatly. The power they have is astonishing. They can ignore critical issues and still be protected from being held responsible for their faults.

The Democrats champion a great number of progressive positions that seem more "pro-life" to me and these positions are unpopular in the Republican Party and I think they're profoundly wrong about them. I could be wrong about them. I certainly don’t think everyone has to agree with me nor do I think all these "progressive" positions should just be legislated based only on my views. I think a key to progression is dialogue and debate over the issues. While other Catholics may disagree with me on social and economic policies, I pray that at least that we agree on principle that we must be critical of both political parties and more concerned about being Catholic than our commitment to any secular school of thought. And if this is so, it means that Catholics will have to call Republicans out on their failures with just as much concern for justice as when they criticize Democrats.

Catholic conservatives have no more hold on Catholic orthodoxy than Catholic liberals do—defending life, supporting the family, and pursuing the common good is what animates real Catholics of all political persuasions. I've often been told you can't be Catholic and a Democrat. I disagree. I’m a pro-life Catholic fighting in the trenches for the soul of the Democratic Party that has lost its natural law thinking and gone to war with its own principles of defending the most vulnerable among us. I believe that it’s a noble cause.

That’s my "two cents" for GOP Catholics. Take it as you will.