Catholics and Abortion

Faithful America writes: “More and more right-wing Catholic priests are falsely claiming it’s a sin to vote for Joe Biden. This isn’t just bad policy — it’s bad theology, and a distortion of both the Gospel and Catholic teaching.”

One prominent voice is Wisconsin’s Fr. James Altman, whose angry homily “You cannot be Catholic & a Democrat. Period,” has 280,000 views on YouTube and the endorsement of at least one bishop.

Unfortunately many priests are woefully lacking in theology. It is true that the Catholic Church teaches that it’s wrong to support abortion, as well as unjust wars, capital punishment, and racism — and that all persons should have the means of livelihood including shelter, nourishment, income, work, wages, and civil rights.

I am a raised Catholic with many years of Catholic theology and totally versed in Catholic social teaching. I, with other Catholic politicians and social activists, oppose abortion as a violent intervention to the human body. Unnecessary violence I believe can never be justified as right for humanity. All acts of violence belong not in the “space of freedom,” or the “kingdom of God,” or the “beloved community” towards which we believe that humans achieve our fulfillment.

Nevertheless, in our human condition we are also subject to the realm of necessity; acts of violence are sometimes necessary for saving life and moving towards the full actualization of the human person in nature and in community. Catholic teaching even allows for, but does not approve of, the violence of war and permits violence under certain conditions, that is, for the sake of a just peace and order for all persons. The realm of necessity must always be subordinated to the realm of freedom, the beloved community in Martin Luther Kings words, the reign of God in Jesus’ language.

So in Catholic teaching, violence is to be limited, avoided, made unnecessary even when necessary. We act for a place where no violence is necessary; yet we accept our human condition where violence is sometimes necessary. Violence should never be glorified as an end-in-itself. The end-in-itself is a just peace in non-violence.

And so it is with abortion. It should be made unecessary. That is what the “Right to Life” movement and the faithful of all religious creeds should be about.

But “who decides?” is the question. In regards to war and public health and the economy, it is the nation, the full community, who decides. In regards to a private act of self-defense, it is the person who decides within the boundaries of public law. That holds for all violence to one’s body including all medical procedures and including an attack by a criminal. And those rights, though well-regulated by public law, should also be guaranteed by public law — yes, even the second amendment. So it is for an addict or sex-worker or .

And so it is for the pregnant woman. She, as a private citizen, not the State, has the right to make that decision, and the State has the duty to guarantee that she can make that decision. In her own conscience with whatever tools she has in making that decision. And, this is fundamental, the State has no right to push a religious dogma or myth to constrain that decision.

The Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and all other religions may call abortion a sin or, more constructively, may remove the conditions that make the decision necessary to the woman making it. But she decides. And good Christians, like Jesus and the prophets, support her in that decision and its consequences, and do not judge or stone her.

I am deeply sorry that Father Altman and others priests and deacons of the Catholic Church have not had the theology to think this through. I am deeply grateful that many Catholic leaders in the Church and in the Government have had the courage to confront the clerics who are destroying the Church and making it difficult for thinking Catholics to participate.