Not single-issue, but certain ones take precedence

Not single-issue, but certain ones take precedence

It amazes me that even a man who has been a priest for 45 years can get the teachings of the faith so wrong. In this case, it’s an opinion column about voting. Specifically, this retired priest says that Catholics should not be “single-issue” voters even on abortion or euthanasia, but should consider the whole range of moral issues, i.e. the “seamless garment” of Cardinal Bernardin. Sadly, he misunderstands the Church’s teaching and thus leads people astray.

The root of his problem is the assumption that all moral issues are equal, that the protection of innocent life is equal to education policy. It also ignores the fact that while some moral issues have one correct implementatione single one that should determine how Catholic citizens vote.

This is a straw-man argument. No single issue does determine how a Catholic should vote, but some issues should disqualify a candidate from consideration.

Suppose we had a candidate who supported all the right issues, according to Father Hogan>John Allen of NCR gives his insider’s view of what happened over the Pope’s comments about The Passion. From what he describes as the original event, I can see how someone might have been confused about what the Pope said or whether it was for attribution. But regardless of how it originally happened, I still think the actions of Vatican officials in their denial phase look really bad.

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