Exhibit A
October 24, 2012 § 7 Comments
I wasn’t planning on posting this, because it was just a combox thing until the moderator stepped in. I commented on Bishop Paprocki’s column. For whatever reason, the moderator edited out the link to the video advertisement from Candidate Romney below. So I am posting it here.
Point:
So what about the Republicans? I have read the Republican Party Platform and there is nothing in it that supports or promotes an intrinsic evil or a serious sin.
Counterpoint:
The ad appears to be authentic, and is certainly believable given Romney’s expressed positions.
It seems to me that the good Bishop’s assertion may be technically true, but quite deceptive when it comes to evaluating a candidate’s support for intrinsic (and other grave) evils. I haven’t read the Republican platform and consider it of only tertiary importance, since the candidates themselves tell you what they support, as above. So I can’t say for sure that the claim is technically true; but I leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide just how relevant and/or misdirecting it is, if true.
The good Bishop does tell us that:
… a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.
Obviously that includes Candidate Romney.
I agree with the good Bishop’s assessment of the Democrats. I also think the filter through which he publicly evaluates the Republican party illustrates the point that choosing your political team has morally important effects which are independent of whether or not your team ultimately wins.
UPDATE: I just retrieved the following message from my SPAM folder, which addresses the question of why the link to the Romney ad was not posted:
Dear Zippy,
Thank you for reading our news and for taking the time to comment on our articles! I read your comment asking about why the advertisement you linked to was not included in your original post, and I wanted to take a moment to make sure you have read our disclaimer at the bottom of every article that we post:
The number of messages that can be online is limited. CNA reserves the right to edit messages for content and tone. Comments and opinions expressed by users do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of CNA. CNA will not publish comments with abusive language, insults or links to other pages.As stated above, CNA does not post links to other pages, so that is most likely why the ad was taken out. Some people who want to post a link will post it as such: www(dot)mittromney(dot)com, or whatever their link may be, and those usually are usually left in the comments since they do not link directly. However, our moderators do check out the pages to ensure the content, and sometimes the links will be taken out if the link leads to something questionable or potentially misleading, although I’m sure this was not the case with your link.
I hope this is helpful to you.
God bless,
Zippy Catholic 
There is a pertinent article up at Crisis today
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/i-was-right-for-the-wrong-reason
An excerpt:
The document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship put out by the USCCB states:
A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil.
a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.
Wouldn’t that be true for a party whose platform eschews intrinsic evils, yet nominates a man who promotes them?
Re vishmehr’s comment: “…if the voter’s intent is to support that position”
So most voters simply tell themselves that they do not support that position, when their vote is in fact doing precisely that, and can do nothing else.
The Republican argument has been a shape shifter since Bush vs Gore: it is all about non negotiables, until the time comes to negotiate on behalf of the GOP candidate.
The reality is that most people formally cooperate with evil when they vote. A small minority of Catholics understand the situation enough to avoid formal cooperation. But if I’m right in how I’ve broken down proportionate reason, most or all of the material cooperators do not, in fact, have a proportionate reason.
So we have a mass public ritual in which almost everyone sins, and even those who don’t actually sin commit non culpable evil. Gosh, who might have designed such a ritual?
Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
I absolutely adore your whole ‘you only think you know what the bishops should really mean.’ Especially when written to a bishop. You must get yourself ordained. Set these bishops in their places.
[This comment violates my policy about paraphrasing. However, it did result in me getting your email and web site addresses, and finding out about your personal situation. Expect a message, and check your SPAM folder if you don’t get one. – Z]
FWIW, I don’t think I was paraphrasing. It was meant to be my take on what you had said to the bishop. If you aren’t, however, subtly suggesting there is only one acceptable approach to the topic at hand, I admit my error.
On the other hand, didn’t find a comment on the blog or the spam. BTB, I thought you might see the link. That’s one reason I decided to post.
I sent you email. Look for it.