Voting: 'Proportionate Reasons'

In 2004, then-Cardinal Ratzinger sent a memo to Cardinal McCarrick regarding a question about when Communion should be denied to a politician who is intentionally ignoring key teachings of the Catholic Church. In a now-famous postscript to the main text of the letter, Cardinal Ratzinger addressed the culpability of the faithful who vote for pro-abortion candidates:

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.

On Nov. 12 at the USCCB fall meeting, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput was asked for his interpretation of the key phrase "proportionate reasons" by John Allen, National Catholic Reporter's Vatican reporter (thanks to Amy Welborn's blog for highlighting this).

As you know, I have written a book [on faith and politics], and in it I write that it means a reason we could confidently explain to the Lord Jesus and the victims of abortion when we meet them at the end of our lives, and we will meet them. I think there are legitimate reasons you could vote in favor of someone who wouldn’t be where the church is on abortion, but it would have to be a reason that you could confidently explain to Jesus and the victims of abortion when you meet them at the Judgment. That’s the only criterion. It can’t be that we favor a particular party, or that we’re hostile to the war, or so on.

This is a very interesting interpretation of that phrase. Do you agree with him?

[NOTE: Archbishop Chaput's book is coming out just in time for the Democratic National Convention and should cause quite a stir. We'll give details on the release date when we hear of them.]