Render Unto Caesar

Yesterday’s Gospel invites us to consider the interplay between Caesar and God, between religion and our nation. As Catholics, we have a duty to be involved in the civil government of our country, because Catholics — and indeed, all persons of good will — ought to work for the common good of society. Certainly during this election year, there is an added significance to our task. But how can we see voting and the political process through the lens of our Catholic Faith?

First, let us examine how our faith should impact our support of candidates. Regardless of what you think of the person running for office, we should vote mainly on the issues at stake. There are many pertinent issues at stake in this election: healthcare, the economy, foreign policy. But some issues are more fundamental than others.

The right to life is indeed the preeminent issue, as our Church teaches. Listen to the words of this year’s document called “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” from the USCCB:

“Abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human life and dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental good and the condition for all others. Abortion, the deliberate killing of a human being before birth, is never morally acceptable and must always be opposed.”

This is not to say that other issues are unimportant. But people of good will can disagree with how to end poverty, or the best way to welcome immigrants, or how to provide accessible healthcare to all. There can be differing opinions on these issues.

But people of good will cannot justify legal murder, which results in the death of over a million human beings each year. We shut down the entire country because of two hundred thousand deaths from coronavirus, but have tragically enshrined in law the evil of abortion which kills five times more people every year.

But is it a sin for a Catholic, then, to vote for a pro-choice candidate? We turn to moral theology for the answer. In moral theology, there are three different ways to cooperate in evil.

There is “formal cooperation”, which means that you intend the evil being committed. An example of that would be someone who drives the getaway car for a bank robber. He clearly intends to participate in the evil itself — and Christians may never formally cooperate in evil.

But there is also “remote material cooperation” in evil — that means that a person participates in evil but doesn’t know about it, or it’s so remote that it’s completely out of their control. For example, if a man uses a knife to stab someone, the knife manufacturer technically cooperated in evil by making the knife and knowing it was dangerous, but they clearly did not intend or foresee it being used so violently. In that case, the knife manufacturer is blameless.

But there is a third type of cooperation called “proximate material cooperation” which means that even if you don’t intend the evil, you still know about it and enable it. For example, someone who sells a man a knife knowing full well that he plans to murder someone with it, even if the seller is personally opposed to murder, would be guilty because he aided and assisted the murderer with full awareness.

This would be the case for someone voting for a candidate who has very publicly said that they would continue to enable the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children. Even if a voter says, “Well, yes, but I like his other policies” — but the Church says that abortion has “preeminent priority”.

After all, if a candidate was excellent on everything else but said, “I am planning to bring back slavery” — wouldn’t that alone disqualify that candidate? If a candidate agreed with everything good but wanted to reinstate the Holocaust, that would certainly be an issue that supersedes all others.

In the same way, while other issues are supremely important, there is one that can disqualify someone for public office, and that is their support for legalized abortion. If I can’t trust a politician to protect the most fundamental right (life) in the most vulnerable population (the unborn), then how can I trust them to protect other rights or help other groups of people? Their credibility would be shot!

Now, with that said, there is more than one pro-life candidate for Presidency. One of the great failures of our current country is that there are only two main political parties — but Catholics are not obligated only to vote for one of the two major parties. Yes, it’s true that they likely will not win this election — but it is a lie to say that they will never win! There was a time when our nation had more than two legitimate choices for President — that time can return if we, as Catholics, stay involved in the political life and raise up political parties that more completely reflect our Catholic values.

Finally, we must always remember that the real problems in our nation are spiritual, not political. Regardless of who wins the election on November 3, there will still be hundreds of millions of people who support abortion. Regardless of who is occupying the Oval Office, there is still tremendous greed in the capitalists who make their money off the backs of the poor.

Despite the election, there is still an epidemic of broken families and poverty and irreligion and addictions and mental health crises… all of which point to a deeper struggle. America needs to return to God, and that won’t be solved by an election. It will be solved when you and I start living our faith, praying intensely, and becoming saints.

As they said about Supreme Court nominee Amy Barrett, may they say about you and me: that the “dogma lives loudly” within us. Archbishop Charles Chaput once said,

“The only people who truly change the world are saints.”

In the constant tension between Caesar and God, God will always win. We need to remember that when November 3rd comes around.

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Originally published at The Cross Stands While the World Turns.
Photo: Element5 Digital, Pexels / PD-US