archives

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

During the early phases of planning for Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the United States, some voices advised against visiting America in the middle of the 2008 election, given the inevitable risk of being drawn into partisan politics. One senior Vatican official dismissed those fears with the quip: “When is it not campaign season in the United States these days?”

Really Protecting Innocent Life - not just symbolically

Direct abortion is intrinsically evil and can never be morally justified and is not a matter of prudential judgment.

In solidarity with all catholics, we can unequivocally hold to the church's moral teachings and earnestly embrace its culture of life ethic, similarly measuring the moral weight of competing values, sharing the same ends and goals, even while, at the same time, recognizing a legitimate diversity of opinion regarding the ways and means and strategies for most effectively realizing the very same values, ends and goals. That is why the proportionate reason matter is a prudential one involving contingent and conjectural elements, which are rather complex realities.