Some Political Issues Should Be More Important Than Others for Catholics

How can someone consistently prolife hold some life issues to be more important than others? The answer is simple. Some threats to human life are more immediate, more far-reaching, and graver than other threats.

protecting the right to life has a practical priority over the right to a certain condition or standard of life, even though the latter is also important. Why? Because unless you’re alive, we can’t talk meaningfully about the conditions of your life. Unless you have the right to life, it’s nonsense to talk about having other rights. Pope John Paul II put it this way:

The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture—is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination (Christifideles Laici, no. 38). [my emphasis, LRS]

Catholics have an obligation to form their consciences according to the teaching of the Church. That teaching allows a wide range of conscientious judgments on a number of important, political issues. Abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell experimentation, human cloning, and same-sex marriage are not among those issues. On these subjects there is but a single legitimate “Catholic position.” When it comes to legal support for these issues, one can be Catholic or “prochoice,” but not Catholic and “prochoice.”

This is an excellent article by Mark Brumley to help explain the hierarchy of issues to others.

Link.