“Choose the lesser evil,” His Holiness advised American Catholics from a distance last week.
While he did not name names at a press conference concluding his visit to southeast Asia, Francis made clear that Kamala Harris’ pro-choice politicking and Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant ideology gave colour to his comments.
“Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies. Who is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know.”
Ultimately, the Pontiff is calling us back to the hard reality that voters should not lose themselves in the fiddle-de-dee flummery which characterizes contemporary politicking. Rather, he was saying, there are primary matters of conscience that must be attended to, weighed, and balanced in the casting of a democratic vote.
His emphasis on the equivalence of evils, and the necessity to choose even the marginally more negligible one, highlights precisely how noirish the political world has become. We are not only far from being beyond good and evil, to reference the title of a famous book by a certain 19th century German philosopher. Francis’ sharp words point out that we are decidedly tilting toward the wrong side of the axis. The coincidental horror of someone picking up a weapon and seeking to assassinate former President Trump for the second time in this campaign underscores the prophetic wisdom of his observation.
As if further evidence were needed that the malaise isn’t confined to America, reports are emerging that roughly a million people have been killed or wounded in the 30 months of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Given the incomprehensible futility of that conflict, the toll of carnage approaches the demonic and, at a more earth-bound level, portends demographic nightmares for both countries because of their low birth rates before the war began. Anti-life evil named by Francis begets death in the here and now – and precludes the flowering of future lives.
So…drop everything pronto and head for the hills with others of our kind? Not so fast. For starters, as Francis made clear with his inimitable bluntness, abdication of our duty to participate in the life around us – that is, refusing to choose – is the greater of evils.
“Not voting is ugly,” he said. “You must vote. Everyone in conscience (must) think and do this.”
Thinking in conscience is the prelude to speaking, acting and choosing conscientiously even when the choices before us affront moral order to a greater or lesser degree.
That truth forms a through-line for the 14 people featured in the 12 stories of The Catholic Register’s about-to-be issued magazine, Lives Lived for Life, which comes off the press Oct. 6. Repeatedly, they express their lived commitment to the cause of life not in reckless opposition and condemnation of the “other side” but rather as a conscientious response to a heartfel vocation.
Typical is the description offered by Maria McCann of the Centre for Bioethical Reform.
“If…we come at it from an angle of saying that (abortion) is a horrible, violent act and that we want to call you to a higher truth and a higher goodness that we think you were made for, people are much more responsive to that. I think it helps people to realize that the mistakes and bad decisions of our past don’t have to define our future,” McCann says in the Lives Lived for Life feature about her.
Likewise, Amanda Achtman, the young-woman whirlwind behind the anti-euthanasia initiative Dying to Meet You, counsels that in a world of darkness, the greater good is always illuminating a path for others.
“Honestly, I could not persevere in the work if not for a hope and a gaze toward even my strongest opponents that desires the best for them,” Achtman insists.
She is reminding us, of course, that Christian perseverance is rooted in hope, which is not to be confused with that famous 19th century German philosopher’s infamous “will to power.”
As democrats, Christians, Catholics, have an advantage on that score. Our hope ever and always rests in the Lord. Choosing the lesser evil does not deny the evil but, paradoxically, becomes infinitely more possible because we know it will not lead to the evil’s victory. How can it when victory has already been won in Christ?