ARTICLES

A Father of Victory

Did Catholic Answer's Voter's Guide Affect the Elections?

BY JAMES MCCOY

Victory has a hundred fathers, while defeat is an orphan. How then to gage the impact of El Cajon-based Catholic Answers' voter's guide on President Bush's re-election?

The nonprofit, charitable organization, which specializes in defending and spreading the Catholic faith through radio, publishing, and telephone apologetics, easily exceeded its goal to distribute three million copies of the Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics in the months leading up to the election. By the middle of October, millions more voters across the U.S. had had the chance to read the text of the "Serious" guide in full-page ads in USA Today.

In Missouri, Archbishop Raymond Burke ordered that the Catholic Answers voter's guide be distributed throughout the St. Louis archdiocese. Ironically, it was banned in Burke's former diocese of La Crosse, Wisc. After the "Serious" guide was also banned in San Bernardino, Catholic World News reported that the diocesan attorney counseling the ban had made financial contributions to pro-choice politicians such as Sen. Barbara Boxer, while the diocesan official promulgating it had donated to an anti-Bush political action committee.

As the longstanding editor of Catholic World News service and Catholic World Report magazine, Phil Lawler is a trustworthy guide through the labyrinthine interstices where American and ecclesiastical politics meet. So when Catholic Answers declined to talk to News Notes (as it has with other local news outlets), I called Lawler at his Massachusetts home.

McCoy: Since 1976, the U.S. bishops have dolloped out a "Faithful Citizenship" guide before each presidential election. How was Catholic Answers' guide this year different from it?

Lawler: It was more accurate and it was more emphatic in what we could legitimately expect from Catholic politicians. The traditional [i.e., the bishops'] voter's guide, I think, quite purposely watered down the Church's stance on dignity of life issues by surrounding them with issues on which Catholics can legitimately disagree.

There are issues on which intelligent, loyal Catholics can have different opinions because they make different prudential judgments ... [for example] issues about welfare policy, foreign policy and about war and peace. And then there are issues on which you can't really disagree without violating the Church's precepts. If you put the two of them on one list it leaves people thoroughly confused.

McCoy: The Catholic Answers voter's guide listed five current "actions that are intrinsically evil and must never be promoted by law" — abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, homosexual "marriage" — adding that "legislators, who have a direct vote, may not support these evils in legislation or programs." Would you add or subtract any?

Lawler: I thought it was quite good in choosing the ones that were non-negotiable. I mean there are lots of other issues that can be raised.... Just to take the most obvious one: Whether or not the war in Iraq is a just war. It's a very serious issue; but — again — it's one on which Catholics can disagree, and did.

McCoy: Catholics for a Free Choice, a nonprofit, oxymoronic organization, has complained to the IRS that Catholic Answers' tax-exempt status should be revoked because its guide "targets at least one specific candidate: Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry. Karl Keating's E-Letter of April 13, 2004 states that Kerry 'flunks ... on all five "non-negotiable" issues listed there.'" How would you answer such a complaint?

Lawler: [I would say] "Point to one of those issues where the stance taken by Catholic Answers isn't well-buttressed by the magisterium." Or "Find me another [non-negotiable] issue which makes Bush look bad."

McCoy: Didn't Pope John Paul II condemn the war in Iraq?

Lawler: He was definitely against starting the war. The issues in front of you in November 2004 are a different set of issues. I think that if you decided that the war was clearly unjust, then, you're right back in the soup. I mean, a war is about as serious a political issue as you get. If you privately reach the decision in conscience that it's an unjust war, that's a very serious thing.

McCoy: So the last presidential election boiled down to the choice between the lesser of two evils?

Lawler: A lot of Catholics thought so and I'm one of them.

McCoy: If pro-choice Catholics can charge a voter's guide with being anti-Kerry because of its short list, then doesn't the U.S. bishops' long laundry list amount to a Kerry endorsement?

Lawler: I think it's very hard to reach any other conclusion. Because, you know, really, Why would you be in the business as putative leaders of the Catholic Church telling people how to vote on issues that really don't involve Catholic teaching?

McCoy: What impact did the Catholic Answers voter's guide have on the last election?

Lawler: You know, I'm not sure; they certainly did a heck of job getting it into a lot of hands; its circulation, I'm sure, was many, many times all the bishops' statements put together. I'm sure it had an impact. It's certainly hard to figure out [on] what specific things ... But with the Catholic vote going for Bush, you should certainly sit up and take notice.

McCoy: Being nonpartisan, Catholic Answers will of course deny any paternity, but do you think its voter's guide was one of victory's hundred fathers?

Lawler: At least.

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