A word of encouragement

…to those who voted Democrat in order to stop the Cult of Trump today.

The essential failure of the “prolife” movement is that the core qualification for belonging to it is not (and has not been for decades), to say “I oppose and would like to reduce the number of abortions as much as possible.”

That would be a movement open to converts and people on the way.

It would be a movement willing to build coalitions with the majority of Americans who dislike abortion but who cannot bring themselves to tell some kid in crisis what she can and cannot do.

It would be a movement capable of making common cause with those of us who detest abortion, but who also know that since Roe is not going anywhere (and that even it it did, legal abortion would not be going anywhere) other approaches reducing it have to be supported: approaches which attack demand in addition to supply.

I have been opposed to abortion since 1973. I remain opposed to it. And yet, somehow, the “prolife” movement regards me as Public Enemy #1 in Catholic circles. Why? Not because I “secretly support it”, but because I make a different prudential calculus on how to fight it. It is a calculus well within Catholic teaching.

A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.

But it is a calculus which dares to say that the GOP is, in fact, more toxic to human life on a wide spectrum than the Dems are and that the way to lessen evil is therefore to oppose the GOP.

That’s the real core issue. Not opposing abortion, which I do. But opposing the Christianist Cult of Trump, which is a visible from space enemy of human life that sees the unborn as human shields and the “prolife” movement as useful stooges.

And the Cult, which does nothing but lie, therefore smears me as “anti-life”, not because I support abortion, but because I oppose the Cult of Trump and its many, many assaults on human life and dignity.

There are lots of genuinely prolife Catholics in my position today, being smeared by a political cult of liars who have chosen to offer combox excommunications of perfectly decent Catholics making a perfectly legitimate choice we believe to be more prolife, not less. Those liars will have to face their conscience and their Lord someday.

Meanwhile, to prolife Catholics who feel not merely that it is morally permissible but morally compulsory to vote Democrat this election and all elections until the diabolical antichrist Cult of Trump is destroyed, be not afraid. Holy Church says not one word against you. It is only the false antichrist cult of Trump that denounces you. So remember the word of encouragement from Scripture as you obey your conscience:

For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing abuse for him. ‡ For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come. (Heb 13:11–14).