The Forbidden and the Inevitable: Remarks on Wolfe

Catholics may often have to tolerate compromise in regard even to fundamental principles. For example, in our pluralistic (and increasingly secular) society, any attempt in the foreseeable future to abolish completely divorce or even (God forgives us) abortion seems to me impractical, and Catholics may have to fight for compromises that can be justified only as a toleration of evil necessary to avoid yet greater evils.

Christopher Wolfe penned the above in an enlightening study of Catholic morality in American politics. (See C. Wolfe, Can a Catholic Be Elected President? in Catholicism in Crisis/ May 1983, pp. 6, 7) But Wolfe’s argument, as stated here raises at least two questions: Did he say what he meant, and did he mean what he said?

Wolfe’s point centers, of course, on an age-old problem of political prudence: At what point do the ideal and the possible meet, or, in another light, where do the forbidden and the inevitable collide? Questions of political prudence, it seems, far more often involve the latter problem than the former.

Divorce and feticide (a more accurate term than “abortion”) are flatly prohibited by Catholic teaching. Yet both, by any reasonable assessment, appear firmly entrenched in American politics. As such, Wolfe’s point that Catholics may have to tolerate (my emphasis) compromise on these fundamental issues is arguably correct. But the first question is raised when Wolfe goes on to state that Catholics may actually have to fight for (Wolfe’s emphasis) compromises on these questions.

Now, to tolerate something is quite different from fighting for it. While God does not command the impossible (thus opening the way for toleration) he roundly forbids the immoral (thus prohibiting our fighting for it). Thus, I am not sure just what Wolfe is saying when he says that Catholics may have to tolerate compromises on matters of fundamental principle, but goes on to say that we may have to fight for those very compromises.

Example: Right now, Catholics are in, as Ann O’Donnell recently put it, the profoundly sad position of having to tolerate feticide, up to the moment of birth, for any reason, in every State of the Union. It is a compromise of the vilest sort, but one which, short of emigration or revolution, Catholics must at present tolerate. Yet, at the same time, one would be hard put to find a young academic who would argue against such a terrible state more forcefully than Christopher Wolfe. Thus the idea that he is calling for us to fight for such a compromise (which he appears to do once) as opposed merely to admitting the necessity of tolerating the situation (which he does, rightfully, twice) is simply silly.

However, there have been over the years several proposals for limiting the bloody impact of Roe and Doe, proposals which — strictly in terms of dead bodies — would compromise the abortionists’s supremacy and reduce the death count, but which may themselves include some compromise of fundamental principle. Thus we come to the second question raised, perhaps inadvertently, by Wolfe, but repeated often enough by others: May a Catholic fight for these types of compromises?

Suppose, for example, legislation is introduced which would ban feticide in all pregnancies except those resulting from verifiable rape or incest. As numerous studies have shown, such pregnancies are extremely rare. Thus the death toll under such legislation would fall dramatically.

If, as we have suggested, a Catholic may tolerate the current situation of an unbridled right to commit feticide, he may certainly tolerate a situation which permits feticide in rare cases. But, I suggest, a Catholic may not fight for such a compromise. If he fights at all (and I for one do not think it incumbent upon every Catholic to enter into this particular battle with the world) he must fight for a complete ban on feticide. Only later, if necessary, may he tolerate a lesser ban.

The law is a teacher. Is there any doubt that a law which prohibited religious persecution except in cases of Jews and Mormons would teach that religious persecution of Jews and Mormons was acceptable? Would not then a law which prohibited feticide except in cases of verifiable rape or incest teach that feticide in those cases was acceptable? Or, taking other proposed laws as examples, that it was acceptable to commit feticide up to the third month of gestation, or in States which elect not to ban feticide within their borders?

A law which allows license to feticide, for any reason, at any time, in any locality, is to that extent repugnant to the laws of God. A Catholic — no matter how terrible the present situation may be — may never fight for such a law; one may not do evil in an attempt to accomplish good. At the most, a Catholic may, as we have said, tolerate such a law.

The prudential question is not whether Catholics may fight for such compromises — they emphatically may not — but whether the proposed law actually does compromise the concerned principle.

Easy cases would be the following: “Feticide shall be permitted in cases of verifiable rape or incest.” Such a law, explicitly stating a right to commit feticide, is repugnant to the laws of God, and may never be supported by a Catholic. Again: “Feticide shall be prohibited.” Such a law, flatly prohibiting feticide, is consistent with God’s law, and may be supported by a Catholic.

The more difficult case would be as follows: “Feticide shall be prohibited, except in cases of verifiable rape or incest.” The first part of this law passes moral muster; but does the second part — which allows an exception to the prohibition, but without explicit approval — necessarily fail? Although it may not be immediately evident, I think it does fail, and fails as a result of the principle of contradiction: Something cannot be and not be at the same time.

An act (when rigorously defined) is either prohibited or permitted. There is no middle ground possible. Here, one is either prohibited from committing feticide in cases of rape or incest, or one is permitted to commit the feticide in those cases. Thus, if a law removes the prohibition against feticide, it necessarily permits the act to be committed, at least in those circumstances. Recalling our earlier premise, a law which permits feticide in any circumstances is repugnant to the laws of God, and as such, a Catholic may not work for its enactment.

We have not broached here, not differed with, Aquinas’ observation that not every evil must be prohibited by the State. We assert only that if a State chooses to legislate on a topic, it must do so responsibly, and never in such a manner as to contradict God’s laws.

If this analysis is correct (and I heartily request critical review of my argument) then it appears that those organizations supporting legislation which admits exceptions to the ban on feticide, or, like the body of American Bishops, would allow individual states to exercise their legislative powers in a less than complete ban of feticide, have not only made a politically inexpedient move, but — as in the case of Archbishop May of St. Louis, who called for Catholics to pray for the passage of the Hatch-Eagleton Amendment — have even called upon Catholics to work for a compromise for which they, precisely as Catholics, cannot work.

To conclude: Catholics may, in cases of necessity, tolerate a compromise of fundamental principle. They may not, however, consent to, let alone work for, such compromises, even in an attempt to reduce a greater evil, or achieve a greater good.

Author

  • Edward Peters

    Edward Peters has held the Edmund Cardinal Szoka Chair at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit since 2005. He earned a J.D. from the University of Missouri at Columbia (1982) and a J.C.D. from the Catholic University of America (1991). In 2010, he was appointed a Referendary of the Apostolic Signatura by Pope Benedict XVI.

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