Imagine blissfully drinking your coffee on a Saturday morning. You glance out the window and note neighborhood children delightfully playing. Suddenly a car pulls up. The driver gets out with a baseball bat. He means to do harm.
Yes, you have a choice. But really, do you?
It's about where you shine the light. In the above instance, your comfort, or how nice your neighbors may or may not be, or qualities of the bat about to be wielded, may have value, but these are morally irrelevant. Similarly, elections are not an appraisal of peripherals. They're certainly not a canonization. They're about the greatest good possible. Based upon a hierarchy of goods. Yes, personality has value, but not nearly as much as policies and platforms. There is no liberty nor pursuit of happiness without life.
It's about how you're revealed in the light. The light is not a truth we can presume to create, but the Truth in whom we are created. Based on Truth, our moral choices are self-determining (Veritatis Splendor). They reveal us to be for or against God. We are responsible to form our conscience. (CCC, 1783) We are accountable. Before God, we will be judged. Not simply in how we vote, but in our moral call to proclaim the truth about the vote:
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
4 BASIC POINTS: INFORMED CONSCIENCE in ELECTION 2020
1) "THE THREAT OF ABORTION remains our preeminent priority."
~ U.S. Bishops
2) RESPECTIVE PARTIES AND CANDIDATES ARE OPPOSITIONAL with regard to protecting the unborn (Republican/Trump) or allowing/expanding their murder (Democrat/Biden).
If disputed, please consider the one candidate endorsed by every major pro-life organization (find one endorsing Biden). If that's not enough, please consider the one candidate endorsed by every pro-abortion organization (find one endorsing Trump).
3) VOTING FOR A PRO-ABORTION CANDIDATE even if for other reasons: "When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor 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.” ~ Cardinal Ratzinger
4) FILL IN THE BLANKS:
"What proportionate reasons exist in the face of the evil of abortion today? Given the extreme positions that are out there today on abortion I honestly do not know how a Catholic who has a well-formed conscience can vote for a candidate who promises to promote and widen access to abortion especially when there are candidates on that same ballot who are pro-life or more pro-life than that person." ~ Fr. Mathias Thelen, STL
NECESSARY CONCLUSION:
Not unlike the above example of playing children being threatened with their very lives, this election puts the choice of whether unborn children live or die in your hands. That's what's most relevant. Most at stake. And while there's rhetorical value in enumerating principles without drawing the logical conclusions, here's the bottom line: For faithful Catholics with rightly formed consciences...
Donald Trump is the only choice.
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