Yes, Joe Biden Can Support Legalized Abortion And Be Catholic, But Not Unreservedly
Joe Biden is a pro-choice Democrat, but does he believe abortion is immoral? Voters should know.
October 7, 2020 By David Marcus
I am not a person who is comfortable saying who is and isn’t really Catholic. As a very imperfect member of the Catholic Church, such questions are vastly above my theological pay grade. But with Joe Biden, a Roman Catholic vying to be the next president, his pro-abortion stances have raised familiar questions about Catholic politicians and the killing of the unborn.
Some bishops say Biden should not take communion, a holy sacrament, and others disagree. That is inside ecumenical baseball, but there is a broader question: can a practicing Catholic support legal abortion?
My personal, lay answer is a qualified yes. Catholics live in every corner of the globe, some in places with laws that hew closely to Judeo-Christian ideals, some not so much. Beyond the borders of the Vatican, Catholics do not tend to expect the government to obey church teaching — well, maybe with the exception of some dear friends of mine. But even the staunchest American Trad-Cath embraces a line between church and state.
But here is where I begin to draw a distinction. I can understand a Catholic politician, or voter for that matter, believing that the government should not ban abortion while maintaining a personal belief that it is the immoral killing of a human being. This is true, just as a Catholic can believe that homosexuality is immoral but should not be illegal. The cases are vastly different in terms of the harm they do, but the principle is simple enough to grasp. After all, a Catholic can barely walk three blocks without committing some venial sin or other; they can’t all be illegal.
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https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/07/yes-joe-biden-can-support-legalized-abortion-and-be-catholic-but-not-unreservedly/