"Our new president is committed to promoting and protecting with law intrinsically evil acts"

Fr. John Cihak is an adjunct professor of theology at Mount Angel Seminary (Oregon), serves as Director of Pro-Life Activities for the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, and is State Chaplain to the Knights of Columbus (Oregon). I've had the great pleasure of knowing him since the time of his ordination some 10 or 11 years ago, and have always been impressed by his keen intelligence and obvious holiness (his dissertation, defended in Rome, was on von Balthasar). Shortly after the election he wrote a letter to his parishioners that is starting to garner attention similar to that being paid to remarks made by Fr. Jay Scott Newman of South Carolina. Fr. Cihak wrote, in part:

  In my view as a priest, scholar and professor, never before has the Culture of Death been given so much power in this country. Our new president is committed to promoting and protecting with law intrinsically evil acts, acts that are never justified and should never be done by a rational person. The fruit of this conviction is that he is committed to creating and ratifying unjust laws. The clearest deed that will reveal this truth is when he signs the ‘Freedom of Choice Act’ into law, which was one of his campaign promises. This legislation will virtually abolish ANY restrictions on abortion that exist now. This legislation will result in the killing of tens of thousands of innocent children. The killing of the innocent is a sin that cries out to Heaven for justice (Gen. 4:10). Those who voted for this president will now share in the indirect responsibility and guilt for these killings. Such is the serious nature of voting.

     Those who voted for him may respond that their vote was not based on his pro-abortion stance but other social issues. The response I gave in a previous homily is that clearly and logically this election did not involve a situation of ‘proportionate reason’ mentioned in the USCCB’s Faithful Citizenship. The issues of quality of life come into play only when candidates vying for office are equal on the issues dealing with life itself.

     The ‘Freedom of Choice Act’, and other unjust legislation like it that will likely be proposed, also has the potential to force the Church out of health care. The Church, as the bearer of the Gospel of Life, will refuse to take part in committing intrinsically evil acts. The names like Providence, St. Vincent, Sacred Heart may remain on the outside of the hospitals, but their internal policies may no longer meaningfully reflect the teachings of Christ and His Church. Thus the legislation would spell disaster for the poor and will create a huge societal problem since the Church is one of the major providers of health care in the country, especially to the poor. Moreover, if the Church is not providing health care, then those with terminal illness and those who do not seem to have a sufficient ‘quality of life’ will lose their last protection from those who will want to kill them to save health care dollars - still more innocent lives lost.

And then this, which has stirred up some controversy:

And so as the pastor of your souls and as your spiritual father, I urge you to prepare yourselves spiritually, through prayer, fasting, virtuous living and most of all faith, hope and love, for what is to come. Let us recommit ourselves in joy to protect and cherish the weak and vulnerable among us. If you are one who cast your vote for our new president, I urge you to seek the mercy of Jesus through the Sacrament of Confession that you may be absolved from the great evil this president says he will do. Jesus Christ has already definitively broken the power of evil and death. He will never abandon us or the world. He may be asking the members of His Body to have a deeper share with Him in the Cross, that the world might be saved.

In an article in the Mail Tribune—based in Medford, Oregon, where Fr. Cihak lived and served as a pastor for a while—he clarified his comments:

Cihak, who was also at St. Anne Catholic Church in Grants Pass for two years, said in a phone interview Thursday he wanted to clarify the sentence urging Catholics to seek forgiveness because he has received the most comments about it.

"I never stated a vote for Obama was a formal or material cooperation with evil," he said. Also, a vote for Obama is not a mortal sin, he said.

"I didn't say anything about people refraining from Holy Communion," he said.

Cihak said the letter was written after the election, so it wasn't an attempt to influence how people vote. He said he considers the letter nonpartisan because he would have condemned any candidate who supported abortion, no matter what party he or she belonged to.

He said his views are shaped by both the teachings of the church and by the many parishioners who have come to him seeking post-abortion counseling.

"There is not only a child lost, but it has devastating effects on the mother, and the father, too," he said.

He said abortion is "intrinsically evil" and as a priest he said he feels obligated to speak to his parishioners on the subject. He said the number of abortions in this country is alarming.

Even more helpful, I think, are remarks made by Fr. Cihak in this October 29, 2008, homily:

 Through this logic, the logic of reason and the logic of faith, the first sieve would eliminate pro-abortion candidates from our consideration. Their position would not make it through the first sieve because these non-negotiable issues have to do with intrinsically evil acts. Abortion is always the direct killing of innocent human life. It is the defining issue for a rational person who understands the natural law; it is the defining issue for a Catholic who knows Jesus Christ and His revealed law. Certain acts and political positions are always wrong, and no one may deliberately vote in favor of them. Those with a direct vote (legislators) may not support these evils in legislation or programs. Those who elect politicians (citizens) indirectly support these evils if they vote in favor of candidates who propose to advance them. Abortion is the taking of innocent human life, and to support that and to vote for those who support it and promote it means that one takes at least indirect responsibility in the deaths of those children.

      Back in the last election in 2004, our own Archbishop Vlazny also clarified the issue of pro-abortion candidates and the reception of Holy Communion. He writes, “Let me say this. Catholics who publicly disagree with serious church teaching on such matters as abortion or same sex marriage should refrain from receiving Holy Communion. These women and men need to understand that what the reception of a sacrament means in the life of the church. The reception of Holy Communion is a sign that a person not only seeks union with God but also desires to live in communion with the church. Such communion is clearly violated when one publicly opposes serious church teaching.  Reception of Holy Communion by such public dissenters betrays a blatant disregard for the serious meaning and purpose of the reception of the Eucharist.” If you are struggling with these words, pray for illumination; pray for conversion.

      So we have our two basic “sieves of logic” to help us sort through this election and every election. We are rational persons who can know and follow the natural law, and we are Catholics who know, love and strive to follow the Lord Jesus. We have our rational combine to cut through and sort the political landscape. Jesus tells us today that it doesn’t matter whether we come to the harvest at the very beginning or in the twilight of the day. He wants us working there nonetheless, and will reward us with the “daily wage” he longs to give us, eternal life.

      I think we now live in a time when we have to choose. We have to choose between being a Catholic in communion with Christ and His Church and supporting a pro-abortion position. This I know is difficult for some people because some Catholics have never before been explicitly asked to choose. But now we have to choose between those two. We cannot adhere to both. St. Paul tells us that there is nothing in common between Christ and Belial. Now the request that we choose is an invitation to conversion. I don’t know about you, but the pro-choice position will not bring me to heaven. Jesus Christ will bring me to heaven. When we go to vote in November, I would ask that you think of final judgment that will determine our eternal destiny. We will be judged according to our deeds in this life. How do I want to stand before God and the millions of little children in His arms? I know when push comes to shove, I want to be where Jesus Christ is because for me “For me life is Christ.” 

Not surprisingly, some Catholics are upset by Fr. Cihak's recent remarks, as the Mail Tribune reports:

Zon said he was surprised that Cihak had written the letter to his parishioners.

"He didn't come across to be that sort of a priest," Zon said. "I was quite disturbed about him making that remark."

Zon, who voted for Obama, personally doesn't approve of abortions, but he also feels it's a woman's right to choose what she wants to do with her body.

He said the church should do more to encourage women to find ways to avoid abortions.

But, apparently, Zon doesn't think a priest telling people that abortion is a grave evil is part of the work of lessening the number of abortions. It is, I think, just one example of the "let's have it both ways" approach taken by many Catholics. There is lots of fussing about "avoiding abortions" (as though they are like acne or black ice on a winter highway), along with defiant talk of supporting a woman's "right to choose". So, what is more sacred: the right to life or the right to choose to end the life of the unborn? It's that simple; there really are some things in this world that are black and white, cut and dried, and non-negotiable.

There is something else at work, however, that I've been pondering of late, which is the nearly sacred character of voting, as understood by many Americans. It has gotten to the point where you'll hear people say, "It doesn't matter who you vote for; what matters is that you vote," as though the act of voting is somehow an exercise in existential affirmation: I vote, there I am! And part of the quasi-sacred nature of voting is that no one has the right to tell me about the likely consequences of my vote. Notice that I didn't say "no one has the right to tell me how to vote." That, of course, is how it is put, but that also avoids the truth of the matter.

Let's imagine that a president of the United States created a new cabinet position: Secretary of Reproductive Justice. The person appointed has these goals: to make abortion as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, with the monetary support of tax dollars. All hospitals, including Catholic hospitals, will be required to provide every sort of "reproductive health" service. Would it then be offensive for a priest or bishop to say: "This new position is evil; it is contrary to Catholic teaching." And so forth. Would people react the same way? Perhaps. But I think (and maybe I'm delusional on this point; I'm open to that criticism) that less Catholics would be upset. In other words, because voting does have this quasi-sacred quality—and because clergy and religious groups aren't supposed to support a specific candidate or party—it would be viewed differently.

But what, in the end, is the difference? Without putting words in his mouth, I think this is part of what Fr. Cihak is getting at. It's as though we must treat political candidates with a different set of critical criteria since, whatever else we do, we must not tread too closely near "My Sacred Right to Vote However I Like!" And although Fr. Cihak's remark about going to confession could have been expressed with more precision, I took it to mean, at the very least, that voting for a candidate involves a certain amount of responsibility for the candidate's actions—especially when they are keeping with what is known about the candidate prior to his election. As Fr. Cihak noted in his October homily, "As thinking Catholics we approach a political scene which does not completely reflect the Catholic position." I think almost all Catholics would agree with that remark. The question, of course, is how do Catholics maneuver through the minefields of political engagement? That debate, in certain ways, is beginning anew.

Comments

[g]

I'm curious if this priest's chancery threw him under the bus the way Fr Newman's did. It makes it very difficult for a diocesan priest (I am the mother of one) to stand up for the self-evident fact that voting for someone as radically pro-abortion as O is aiding in serious sin when the diocesan powers-that-be simply cut the branch you're standing on.

[BillyHW]

But Carl, he's promised to end poverty and war.

You've got to take the good with the bad.

[Mike]

People need to checkout World Net Daily website there are articles in there talking about the Supreme Court on December 5th holding a conference on Barack Obama's birth certificate or should I say lack of. There are cases all over the country asking for electorial voters to hold off from voting on December 15th until Barack Obama shows his legal orginal birth certificate. One case is filed in California by Alan Keyes!

[Dr John James]

End war? He's about to start a war, the war on the helpless!
This priest's comments, however, do raise a very important question about how the Church ought to respond to those running for public office, who state they are Catholic but espouse and defend the 'right' to kill the unborn and who misrepresent the Church's teaching, confusing further an already very confused Faithful. What happened, if anything, to Biden and Pelosi?
In my country, Australia, which has a Westminster system of government and is a constitutional monarchy, our Opposition leader is Catholic but defends the 'right" to kill the unborn.
I really believe the Church should consider formal excommunication for these people if, after being given clear private advice, by a suitable person, that their public policy position and their public profession of their 'Catholicism' are contradictory, they persist in their adherence to this idea that the unborn can have their life taken from them by those with power over them.

[LJ]

Zon is a classic case. Anyone who promotes the right to choose, on whatever grounds (usually some variation of the privacy argument) has already accepted the premise that killing an unborn is not a premeditated killing or even killing at all. Those people do not have the right to call themselves pro-life, whether "personally" or otherwise, and we should not let them get away with that kind of sophistry.

I have heard the argument recently as well, that arose from the stand of BO in the Illinois Senate on the Born Alive Protection Act, that abortion law allows the mother to terminate the pregnancy but not explicitly to terminate the life of the baby. If the first is accomplished without the second as the consequence, the BAPA law should not even be necessary, but the true mindset of the abortion proponents and practitioners becomes obvious when the death of the child is presumed as included in the intent of the mother. It seems clear at that point that the choice has less to do with privacy and the health of the woman than simple extermination.

[Karen Hall]

Someone needs to explain this to "Zon" (and to 54% of Catholic voters): no one is telling a woman she can't do what she wants with HER body. It's that OTHER body that is the problem.

[Mary Ellen]

A small ray of hope here, may be that the president-elect has been thusfar busy BREAKING most of his campaign promises. Change we can believe in seems to be reinventing the Clinton wheel, and for all of the obama zombies on the left thinking that the one would end all war -- well good luck with that, especially with Hillary as Sec of State. All of the blacks, the hispanics, the asians, the left that thought O was promising to fill his cabinet with their people are reeling in the reality of what the one is actually doing. What upset me most about this guy from the beginning is that he had no resume, and the one thing that he proved over and over again is that he lies - consistently, often and about almost anything. (I never trust a person who has to change their name from the humble name to the grandiose name.) When it was convenient he played the blacks, or the whites, or the left, or the libs, etc. The only proveable fact about Obama is that he is, has been and always will be for Obama. This ability of Obama's to throw all of his promises under the bus, (where he conveniently threw his grandmother and his mentor), and the fact that the problems with the economy are likely to be catastrophic, long-lasting and all-consuming, are giving me some hope that he will not act on what he promised in re: changing the abortion laws. Let us hope -- and pray.

[Dan Deeny]

Thank you for this information on the abortion business. I hope Sen. Obama reads this and learns from it. But what about Sen. Biden? He is a Catholic and knows the rules. I don't think Sen. Obama is the principal problem: after all, if you had listened to Rev. Wright for twenty years, you would be troubled and confused too. But Sen. Biden has listened to Catholic priests and taken Catholic instruction all his life. And he has done this. And what about all the rest of us?

[joanne]

Dan, are you asking who is more at fault, the idol or the idolaters? Interesting question when the idol is human. It's similar to the question of whether sins of commission are worse than sins of omission, and whether an abortionist who is ignorant of the faith is more guilty than teachers of the faith who fail to instruct the faithful about the plight of the unborn, the disabled and the elderly. And whether deliberate but remote cooperation in intrinsic evil is worse than unintentional, direct evil actions.
Quite frighteningly, though, Jesus says that those who neglect the needy (and who is needier than the child in the womb?) will "go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life." Mt 25:46.
Neglect. A sin of omission, right? So, whatever happens to those who knowingly and directly kill, (how can the penalty be worse than eternal punishment?) there is no excuse for any Christian to have voted for a pro-abortion candidate.
Given that, it seems to me that those pastors who have urged voters to seek reconciliation have offered them the wonderful gift of God's mercy. Rather than say "never mind, we didn't really mean it" it would be awesome if they made the offer again and explained why. When the sheep are all done bleating, they will come to terms with the truth, receive forgiveness, and be reconciled to the Church.
Our response to being urged to confess our sins (and no doubt we are all guilty of cooperating with abortion in some way, by our sins) is almost as alarming as the outcome of the election.

[yes, that Honor]

I'm thrilled to bits that so many members of the clergy have been making press on abortion and assisted suicide this election cycle, but I have to say, as an active pro-lifer since 1970 (Washington state Referendum 20 that year, allowing abortion in the 1st trimester), WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN WAITING FOR?! We've been praying and pleading for our clergy to step up to the plate, and though good men have done so, most have been silent for more than a generation, or watered down the message by throwing war and capital punishment into the mix. I want to ask those who have been silent all these years: Were Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton not pro-abortion enough to get your attention? Were the first 1 million, or 10 million, or 20 million dead babies a tolerable number? I see pictures of the liberation of the death camps of WWII, shown often so we will "never forget", but I remember all those who said pictures of aborted babies were "distasteful" and "alienating". Why the double standard? We Catholics gave the election to Obama because the clergy has failed to evangelize effectively for two generations, and now have spoken too little, too late. The average-joe Catholic no longer feels compelled to listen to the authoritative voice of the magisterium, after such a prolonged silence on this deadly serious issue. Perhaps they can turn it around in another generation. . .I'll keep praying; we must ALL keep praying.