Opinion

Catholic view on abortion is absolute

Posted July 11, 2020 1:00 am

John Brennan left out some very important information and made some key errors in his Op-Ed on abortion and the Catholic voter (Opinion, Friday, June 26).

He is flat wrong in saying "the Catholic ban on abortion has never been absolute."

The Catholic Catechism, when explaining the 5th Commandment on page 548, paragraph 2271, states "Since the First Century, the church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable." Bishop Thomas Paprocki, Springfield Diocese, in his very scholarly decree issued on June 2, 2019 describes in great detail how the church's long and extremely well-documented history prohibits giving holy communion to public officials "because of their public support for abortion."

Brennan's quoting from the 2015 United States Conference of Catholic Bishop's "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" is unfortunately incomplete and not up-top-date. This document, mainly the Introductory Letter, was updated in November 2019 by the entire USCCB and although it adopts most of its 2015 document, there were some significant changes.

With respect to abortion, the 2019 Introductory Letter states "The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family and because of the number of lives destroyed."

In Brennan's piece he quotes from the 2015 document "Catholics are to use their judgment and follow their consciences as they apply the teachings of the (the Church) ... in the voting booth." This makes it appear that Catholic voters are free to just use their conscience in making voting decisions. That is misleading and frankly untrue. It tends to ignore the whole compendium of Catholic issues referred to in the USCCB document.

When a Catholic makes a voting decision based in large measure, but certainly not entirely, on these Catholic issues, including abortion, the decisions are relatively easy.

Roland G. Ley

Arlington Heights

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