Shortly after the announcement of Kaine's candidacy, Bishop Francis DiLorenzo of Richmond issued a statement saying, "The Catholic Church makes its position very clear as it pertains to the protection of human life, social justice initiatives, and the importance of family life."
"From the very beginning, Catholic teaching informs us that every human life is sacred from conception until natural death. The right to life is a fundamental, human right for the unborn and any law denying the unborn the right to life is unequivocally unjust."
A Catholic cannot be "personally opposed" to abortion while allowing its public practice, Deacon Fournier told CNA.
Because "the dignity of every human person" is the "most important" part of public policy, he continued, to support the taking of innocent life in the womb is a gravely wrong position that undermines all other areas of public policy.
"If we do not recognize the dignity of every human life, everything else falls," he said. "The entire structure of human rights falls."
"It's the very reason why we care for the poor and the needy and the migrant, and people in prison cells," he continued. "It's the very reason that we care for all of these horrible divisions that are beginning to once again manifest themselves in our midst, when we're seeing people as less than us and less than others, or using them as products and instruments rather than receiving them as gifts."
Christina Healy, a student at Case Western School of Medicine who works with the pro-life group Life Matters Journal, told CNA that when evaluated through the lens of a "consistent-life ethic," Kaine misses the mark as a vice presidential candidate.
"Tim Kaine likes to claim that he is Catholic, that he's a devout Catholic at that," she said. "But I think that it's very anti-Catholic to not be in favor of and live out the consistent life ethic."
"He says that he is personally pro-life. I think is a very poor excuse to try to gain some pro-life voters. It's not going to work on me. I don't think it's going to work on very many people," she added.
Gov. Pence, meanwhile, had a strong pro-life record as a congressman, having a 100 percent rating from the group National Right to Life for almost his entire time in Washington. Multiple pro-life leaders hailed his vice presidential candidacy, especially after they publicly expressed their reservations about GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
"Gov. Pence has proven to be a pro-life champion both during his time in Congress and as Governor of Indiana," Marjorie Dannelfelser, head of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, stated of Pence being chosen for the vice presidential slot. "Mike Pence is a pro-life trailblazer and Mr. Trump could not have made a better choice."
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Pence has strongly supported traditional marriage – he favored passage of a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Last year, however, his initial support of – and subsequent amendment to – Indiana's religious freedom law drew the ire of both liberals and conservatives.
Indiana's version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act would have established legal protections for all those who conscientiously support traditional marriage and wish to live out their beliefs: a baker would not be hit with a discrimination lawsuit for respectfully declining to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding out of conscience, for example.
After a national uproar over the law's perceived intolerance, Pence signed an amended version, one that Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation argued effectively gutted religious freedom protections for entities other than non-profits. In conflicts involving sexual orientation and gender identity, the law only protected non-profits and their extensions.
As governor, Pence stated his public support for the death penalty in a 2014 interview, saying that "justice demands it in our most heinous cases."
Pence also had a public disagreement with the Archbishop of Indianapolis Joseph Tobin last fall, over the archdiocese's role in resettling Syrian refugees.
After it was alleged that a terrorist posing as a Syrian refugee was responsible in part for the Paris terror attacks last November, the governor asked for a temporary halt to resettlement programs in the state for Syrians.