A group of progressive Catholic activists have written an “Open Letter to Catholic Voters” urging them to vote for Joe Biden because “President (Donald) Trump flouts core values at the heart of Catholic social teaching.”
“This presidential election is the most consequential of our lifetime,” states the letter, signed by a number of priests, nuns, and social justice advocates, who insist that the Trump presidency has been defined by a “consistent pattern of racism, sexism, and nativism.”
The letter accuses Trump of “encouraging white backlash against legitimate calls to address racism and police violence” in reference to the president’s vocal opposition to the Marxist-inspired Black Lives Matter movement.
The president “boasts about his ‘pro-life’ record,” the letter states. “There is nothing pro-life about spreading disinformation about COVID-19, sending refugees and asylum-seekers back to certain death, re-instituting the federal death penalty, policies that worsen climate change, and exploiting racism for political advantage.”
Joe Biden does not boast about his pro-life record and the letter tiptoes gingerly around the abortion issue, while completely ignoring religious liberty, school choice, and freedom of conscience.
It does note that Pope Francis has reminded Catholics that the lives of the poor and the lives of migrants, are “equally sacred” as life in the womb, but it fails to mention that the poor and migrants are not being legally rounded up and executed at the rate of 2,500 per day, as unborn babies are in the case of abortion, which would cause an immediate and formidable outcry.
The letter chooses its papal citations carefully, avoiding those that would compromise the signers’ position.
“Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as ‘unnecessary,’” Pope Francis said in 2014. “For example, it is frightful even to think there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day.”
The pope has called abortion a “scourge” and a “horrendous crime,” famously comparing abortion to hiring a “hit man” to take someone out of the way.
Often the killing of human life in the womb is defended “in the name of safeguarding other rights,” the pope told crowds in 2018. “But how can an act that suppresses innocent and helpless life in its beginnings be therapeutic, civil, or even human?”
“I ask you,” the pope continued, “is it right to ‘bump off’ a human life to solve a problem? Is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem? You cannot, it is not right to ‘bump off’ a human being, no matter how small, to solve a problem.”
“It is like hiring a hitman to solve a problem,” he repeated.
In their letter on the political responsibility of Catholics, Faithful Citizenship, the U.S. bishops indicate that abortion is not just one more policy issue among many, but carries a singular weight because of its gravity.
“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,” the bishops declare.
For its part, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
Abortion “is gravely contrary to the moral law,” the Catechism declares, and, therefore, a person who procures an abortion incurs excommunication from the Church “by the very commission of the offense.”
For his part, Biden has reiterated his absolute support for abortion on demand and has promised to work to repeal the Hyde and Helms Amendments that ban the federal government from funding abortions.
In the 2016 presidential election, Trump won the Catholic vote in the United States by a 7-point margin, taking 52 percent compared to then-Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s 45 percent. Catholics voted for Trump by a greater margin than for any other Republican candidate in the five elections of the new millennium.
A poll conducted last December to gauge the attitudes of Catholic voters revealed a divide between the “most active” Catholics — defined as those who say they accept all or most Church teachings — and nominal Catholics whose faith has less impact on their lives.
Regarding November’s election, a combined total of 53 percent of “active Catholics” said at the time that either they are sure to vote for Trump (43 percent) or that there is a “good chance they will do so” (12 percent).
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