The issue of abortion in the United States has been a political hot-button for some four decades since the debate leading up the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, which allowed for the legal procurement of abortion as a medical procedure.  Even though you do not mention the word abortion in your question, the nomenclature of pro-life and pro-choice have been burned into our common social psyche as a way of dividing both political camps.  I do not find these terms particularly helpful since their lack of precision clouds up the issue.  Now, since these terms are so ambiguous, I may not understand your question completely to begin with.  But, allow me to explain what I think is the heart of the issue and then address your question of one’s Catholicity vis á vis one’s political belief.

            Let me begin with a quote by Karl Rahner (an influential German theologian of the 20^th century) on the topic of abortion: “The direct killing of the fetus is objectively against God’s law and against the dignity of the person—a dignity which also cannot be taken away from a fetus.  It is an entirely different question whether the state should criminally prosecute such an objective offense against the Christian moral law.  I believe that often the bishops have not kept these two questions sufficiently separate.  The question of the moral judgment about abortion and the question about penal prosecution of abortion are two entirely different things.” (from “Contemporary Christian Life,” a 1983 interview in Munich, in Faith in a Wintry Season, p. 98.)

            As I have highlighted above, Rahner differentiates two questions: the moral question of abortion, which is clear.  It is the direct taking of human life and against the dignity of the human person (NB: See the nuance here in that Rahner does not equate the first stages of life (ie, fetus, embryo) with philosophical personhood.  This is a nuance lost in most modern debates as well, but one we will also see in later quotes from the Catechism, mostly taken from the 1987 encyclical, Donum Vitae.  In regards philosophical personhood, it states: “The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature, but it constantly reaffirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion.”).  So, first off, it must be said that Catholics of good faith must believe that abortion is a moral evil as the direct taking of a human life.  As Donum Vitae goes on to say, this moral judgment on abortion has been unchanged and is unchangeable.  If one were to dissent from the moral judgment of the Church, then one would be dissenting from a clear, major, moral teaching.

            But what Rahner does not answer is the political question.  Given the fact that we Catholics believe that abortion is a grave moral evil, should we have laws which outlaw such a grave moral evil?  For example, we also hold that acts of adultery are also grave moral evils.  But I know of no civil laws which outlaw adultery nor do I know of any political movement advocating the criminalization of adultery, making any adulterous act a criminal offense (although, I would like to think that, with modern house arrest and ankle bracelets, the state could support marriage by forcing couples to work out differences and keeping paramours a safe distance away from the offending spouse a without needing more prisons).  Granted, this is an issue of sexual morality which presumes the more basic right to life, which is what abortion centers on.  My point here is that there are some areas where Catholic moral teaching and civil law do NOT overlap; and I would suspect that the more debated and contested topics of our time will be those issues where people argue whether the moral law and civil law should overlap and be in agreement.  Abortion is such an issue.

            With all of that said, I would frame your question as such: Can someone be a Catholic and be against the criminalization of abortion?  I frame it this way, because I know of no one who says that abortion is a moral good, that abortion is good for everybody, and that one way to express one’s love for God is through the moral good of abortion.  No one says that; and no one ever will (except, perhaps, a crazy person).  I do believe that most people—when addressing the simple morality—would agree that abortion, as ending a human life, is wrong.  The political question of making abortion a criminally punishable act is the heart of the debate, as I see it.  And regarding this question of criminalization, the Catechism answers this with a clear “yes,” abortion must be a criminally punishable act.  When you read the articles under the 5^th commandment (aa. 2270-2275), you will see that the Catechism is for the penal prosecution of abortion.  Specifically, article 2273 makes clear that the “right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:……the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of a child’s rights.”  The latter part of that quote comes from John Paul II’s encyclical, Donum Vitae.  It is worth noting that this writing came some four years after the Karl Rahner interview I quote above.  Whereas Rahner felt that the moral question of abortion (which, again, is clear—abortion is a grave moral evil) could be separated from the legal question of criminality (and himself does not answer the latter question of criminality), Pope John Paul II claims that the right to life is an essential part of any country’s legislation and that abortion should be criminalized with appropriate penal sanctions.

            Does this settle the question?  Your real question was what constitutes membership in the Catholic Church, given differing views on the criminalization of abortion (I will presume, as I do above, that most (if not all) people judge abortion to be morally wrong.).  Here, we are dealing with the issue of “dissent” from official church teaching.  And this begs the question of how much and what kind of dissent places one outside the Catholic Communion.  Independent of both the moral issue of abortion (which is clear—abortion is the intentional taking of a human life and is grave moral evil) and the issue of its criminalization (which has been debated, as evidenced by my brief looks at the reflections of both Karl Rahner and John Paul II), the larger issue is what makes one a Catholic, given our two millennium tradition of councils and teachings.

            In short, what makes us Catholic is our faith, our faith as laid out in the Creed (Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed).  That, I would suggest, is what makes anyone a Catholic: the faith into which we were baptized and one’s commitment to live out that baptismal faith.  And you will note that no moral issue is directly treated by the Creed; however, since we proclaim the Holy Spirit, as the “Lord, the giver of life,” we do, because of our belief, take the moral issues that deal with human life and and its protection very seriously.  Abortion would be one such issue; but, one step removed from the clear moral judgment that all directly intended abortion is morally wrong (to muddle the issue even more, there is a rare case of indirectly intended abortion which is morally permissible in our tradition) is the issue of criminalization of abortion.  The second Vatican Council spoke of a “hierarchy of truths” in our faith without ever clearly demarcating that hierarchy; as I have reflected on this hierarchy, I would place the ancient creeds are at the top of the hierarchy.  Clear moral teaching, like the one on abortion, would be right next to the top, flowing directly from our belief; lastly, issues of how civil law should reflect our moral beliefs would be another step down the hierarchy.

            I think this is a good way to understand why there are so-called “pro-choice” Catholic politicians who are still members of the Church.  Now, the bishops of our day have challenged them on their views, but it is at this third level (as I see it)—about the criminalization of abortion—not on any issues of belief in the Creed nor on the clear moral teaching of abortion.  To my knowledge, no bishop has formally excommunicated any Catholic politician for his/her stand on the specific issue of the criminalization of abortion.  The most they have done is to ask that they voluntarily refrain from receiving communion at mass.  How are we to understand this?  Let me offer an analogy: the difference between an on/off button and a dimmer switch.

            If being Catholic was like an on/off button—you either are or are not—and being “on” means agreeing with all the teachings in our 2000 year old church with no dissent, then I think there would be very few Catholics (just the numbers who dissent from the prescription against birth control would wipe out two-thirds).  Here, I use the on/off switch to symbolize complete assent to every teaching of the Church.  The main problem with this is that no human being can read every Church document and conciliar pronouncement in a lifetime, aside from coming to agreement with them all.  But if one sees one’s baptismal journey as an on-going enlightenment in the faith—like a dimmer switch that can grow brighter or dimmer—then one can be a Catholic committed to coming to terms with the fullness of Truth as outlined in the creed and lived in the Church’s tradition.  Here, I find Catechism articles 1783-1794—on the formation of conscience and dealing with erroneous conscience—most helpful.  As I read them, they allow for dissent as one struggles with Church teaching on the path of forming one’s conscience in conformity with the will of God.  But it presumes that one struggle (even until death) with forming one’s conscience in those areas where one is conscious of dissent.

            As applied to the specific issue of abortion, I can see how a person of good faith can believe in the moral wrong of abortion but that criminalizing the action will not solve the problem at its root.  But I don’t believe this is “pro-choice” in the way that term has come to be understood, which usually leads to policies which increases the number of abortions.  I think that Catholics against the criminalization of abortion would work, rather, for ways to decrease the number of abortions and to help build a culture of life that can sustain life better than any abstract law. (NB: Given the fact that Nadya Suleman—the infamous “Octomom”—received death threats for bringing 8 children into the world, we may correctly judge that our culture does not prize life as much as it should). 

Cardinal Rigali has recently published a pamphlet from the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities entitled, “Where Do We Go From Here?—The challenge of building a culture of life.”  In it, he stresses that any pro-life activity begin with prayer and that the ultimate task of is the changing of hearts and minds, including our own (what I would call continued conscience formation, alluded to above).  Practically, Cardinal Rigali notes that there are many things we can do to change the law to foster a culture of life: not promoting or increasing abortion (as the FOCA bill tried), working for the rights of conscience of health care workers who don’t want to be party to abortion, access to prenatal care for all women, and the “Pregnant Woman Support Act,” which “will provide a wide range of assistance so women can bring their children to live birth and receive a helping hand as they parent the child or make an adoption plan.”

So, can a Catholic be “pro-choice” in that s/he is against the criminalization of abortion?  With all of the above said, I think one can say yes, but with a condition.  One must be biased in that, because abortion is a moral evil, we Catholics are always for the choice that the mother choose to bring her child to term.  And it is that choice we always support, independent of what the civil law allows.

I understand that this answer is fairly lengthy and may be even more confusing for the teen readers here.  However, I see no way around such a controversial issue, one which I have hardly given justice to in all of its complications but have only tried to lay out the salient points regarding abortion, its morality, the question of its criminalization, and Church membership regarding one’s personal beliefs on these complicated issues.  I can only sum up by re-iterating, as I have many times throughout this answer, that directly intended abortion is a grave moral evil—this moral teaching has been unchanged and remains unchangeable.  The question of how the civil law incorporates this moral belief will probably be debated until the Kingdom comes in its fullness.

I do hope this helps provide some understanding for a very sensitive and complicated issue in our country and our times.

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Chris

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