By Father Gerald D. Coleman, S.S.

A South Carolina Catholic priest told his parishioners that they should not receive Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because he supports abortion. The priest added that the parishioners are “putting their souls at risk” if they receive Communion before doing penance for their vote.

This priest specifically wrote, “Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a substitute pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.”

While this priest’s letter was later sanctioned by a diocesan authority, it found a certain resonance with statements from some vocal Catholic bishops who argued during the presidential campaign and election that abortion trumped all other moral issues and that no Catholic could vote for Obama in good conscience. Many Catholics have been upset and concerned about these assertions, leaving a sense of unease about one’s standing in the Church if one voted for Obama.
To properly situate these statements, two points are important.

First, in July 2007, in response to a question from a Planned Parenthood audience, Obama declared that he would protect abortion rights by signing a Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) that was introduced in the last Congress and would outlaw any interference or restrictions in providing abortions.

FOCA would also coerce Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortion with tax dollars. Obama’s statement is worrisome indeed. But it is critical to remember that FOCA never got a hearing in the last Congress and is now subject to hearings in both the Senate and House of Representatives, and then approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate.

It is very unlikely that FOCA will ever come to the Senate floor for discussion, especially since there is a strong coalition of both Republicans and Democrats who either oppose abortion rights, or do not want to see them expanded. The pro-FOCA forces simply do not have the votes and President Obama will not have the opportunity to sign FOCA.

Second, it is imperative to properly evaluate a Catholic’s intention in voting for Obama. It is unlikely that a Catholic who voted for Obama did so solely to support his pro-choice beliefs. What is more likely is that a Catholic who voted for Obama had many reasons in mind; for example, the desire for change, hope that he will instill new energies into the current economic downslide, a conviction that his programs offer critical assistance to women who most often seek abortions in this country.

While some few critics feel that the statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” gave justification to vote for Obama, this letter in actuality presented a reasoned approach for developing one’s conscience in the 2008 election year.

The bishops pointed out that the intentional taking of innocent human life in abortion is an act so deeply flawed that it is always hostile to the authentic good of a person. “Forming Consciences…” clearly faces the evil of abortion, but also intends to remind us that there are other acts that are likewise fundamentally flawed; for example, genocide, torture, racism, trafficking of children and women into sexual abuse and slavery.

Twenty-five years ago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin presented his famous lecture at Fordham University and articulated for the first time what he referred to as the “consistent ethic of life.” This approach is a helpful reminder to all of us in this post-election period that all human life is sacred, a fact rooted in the belief that every human being is created in the image of God.

Certainly the protection of embryonic and fetal life is a critical aspect of this consistent ethic. But we equally need a single-minded commitment to the dignity and worth of every human person without exception and in every circumstance.

If one is committed to preserving life by opposing abortion and euthanasia, one should also be committed to enhancing life by supporting, for example, the quality of life of the powerless among us: the old and the young, the hungry and the homeless, the undocumented immigrant, and the employed worker.

We should not be single-issue Catholics but rather adopt an interpretive lens that sees and upholds the dignity and worth of all human persons. Our moral judgments should then be made over against this way of interpreting reality.

Is it accurate, then, to claim that a Catholic who voted for Obama did so in bad conscience because one’s vote amounted to an outright validation of Obama’s pro-choice attitudes? I believe that the answer is “no,” if one’s vote was given not with the desire to support abortion-on-demand, but rather to hope that Obama will actualize his promises to bring “change” in such a way that human dignity will be upheld and respected at every level of its existence.

It must not be forgotten that at the urging of pro-life Catholics, Obama changed the Democratic Party’s platform to endorse reducing the abortion rate specifically through policies that help women facing crisis pregnancies, such as the adoption of universal health insurance and better pre-natal and post-natal care.

Obama has made reducing the abortion rate a goal of his administration. He mentioned this in both his convention acceptance speech in August, and in his third debate with John McCain in October.

The South Carolina priest was wrong in what he said. His approach disparages the moral seriousness of voting Catholics. To assume that Catholics who voted for Obama did so to support a liberal pro-choice agenda is naïve at best, and misleading in the extreme.

(Sulpician Father Gerald Coleman is vice president for corporate ethics for the Daughters of Charity Health System and a lecturer in moral theology at Santa Clara University.)

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