Dallas, Texas, Oct 17, 2008 / 21:33 pm
The Bishop of Dallas Kevin Farrell and the Bishop of Fort Worth Kevin Vann have issued a joint document concerning Catholics’ political responsibilities, receiving significant reaction for insisting that there are no “truly grave” or “proportionate” moral reasons to vote for a pro-abortion rights candidate that can outweigh the intrinsic evil of the millions killed by legal abortion each year.
The bishops’ October 8 letter noted the observance of Respect Life Month, which they said takes on a “more profound meaning” in an election year in which “the protection of human life itself, particularly that of the unborn, is very much at stake.”
Citing the U.S. bishops’ 2007 document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” Bishops Farrell and Vann noted that not all issues have moral equivalence, some of them being “intrinsic evils” that can never be justified. The bishops labeled as such evils legalized abortion, the promotion of same sex unions and "marriages," repression of religious liberty, and public policies permitting euthanasia, racial discrimination or destructive human embryonic stem cell research.
“The destruction of the most innocent of human life through abortion and embryonic stem cell research not only undercuts the basic human right to life, but it also subverts and distorts the common good,” the bishops wrote. “We cannot make more clear the seriousness of the overriding issue of abortion.”