The United States is just a few weeks away from the presidential election, and things just keep getting more depressing. Each of the leading candidates has endorsed intrinsic evils, including Donald Trump, who wants to fund IVF procedures. Many Catholics might ask in response, “What should I do in the face of these choices?”
One choice is to vote for a minor candidate who doesn’t endorse intrinsic evils.
You might vote for Peter Sonski, the 2024 presidential nominee of the American Solidarity Party. This party describes itself as “upholding a vision of the common good of all and of each individual informed by Christian tradition.” They oppose abortion, euthanasia, and even in vitro fertilization.
But in the last election, the American Solidarity Candidate received only about 40,000 votes, or 0.026 percent of votes. So it’s safe to say they won’t win and voting for them is more about sending a message. Other people send a message about the political process by not voting at all.
Can Catholics vote for a minor candidate or not vote at all? Yes, they can.
In “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” the United States Conference of Catholic bishops recognizes a Catholic’s right not to vote when every viable candidate in a race endorses an intrinsic evil. It says, “When all candidates hold a position that promotes an intrinsically evil act, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate” (36).
But just as it isn’t sinful not to vote or to vote for a minor candidate, it isn’t always sinful to vote for a major candidate who endorses an intrinsic evil. It is sinful to vote for a law that expands an evil like abortion or to vote for a candidate because you agree with his support for an intrinsic evil. This is called formal cooperation with evil. However, in some cases, you can vote for a flawed candidate if you have other good reasons to justify it.
Cardinal Ratzinger said, “When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says, “Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil” (35).
This means you can vote for a candidate who endorses grave evils, but you need a proportionate or really good reason to justify such a vote. What might that be? Typically it would be that this candidate represents the lesser of two evils. Pope Francis weighed in on that recently, saying that both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are “against life.” He told reporters on a recent flight that Trump’s stance on deporting illegal aliens is against life and that turning away migrants is “a grave sin.” He also likened abortion to assassination. He said: “One must choose the lesser of two evils. Who is the lesser of two evils? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know.”
I find little way to make sense of the Pope’s prudential judgment on this matter.
The Church teaches that direct abortion is always illegal and that the state has a duty to protect the life of unborn children. Pope St. John Paul II said in Evangelium Vitae,
Civil law must ensure that all members of society enjoy respect for certain fundamental rights which innately belong to the person, rights which every positive law must recognize and guarantee. First and fundamental among these is the inviolable right to life of every innocent human being (71).
Church teaching on immigration is not as absolute. The Catechism’s position is that people have a natural right to migrate, but, in service of the common good, the state may make “the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions” (2241). Presumably, this would include penalties for those who violate these juridical conditions, including deportation.
I have addressed how deportation is not intrinsically evil, and Pope Francis has on numerous occasions said it can be legitimate to “send back” people who try to enter a country illegally. He recognizes that it can be justified, and Harris has claimed that she will “secure the border,” which involves what Pope Francis calls the grave sin of “turning migrants away.” And at one point, the Biden-Harris administration deported more people than the Trump administration did.
But when it comes to abortion, Trump wants to make it possible for states to legally protect the unborn, and Harris wants to make it impossible by codifying Roe v. Wade at the federal level. This would result in tens of thousands more deaths of unborn children every year in America. How is one candidate being more inclined to non-violently deport people a greater offense against human life?
A pro-lifer who votes for Trump might also point out that Trump is more likely to nominate judges who are friendly to pro-lifers, whereas Harris has repeatedly targeted pro-lifers through the U.S. Justice Department and even when she was a California prosecutor, such as in her campaign against David Daleiden for his undercover work exposing Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in fetal body parts.
In response, some people say the president can’t affect the issue, since Roe is overturned, so you’re justified in voting for anyone who might bring the abortion rate down, even if he’s totally pro-abortion. But even left-leaning sites like Snopes have rated as false the claim that “abortion rates drop during Democratic presidencies and rise during Republican administrations.”
It’s not obvious that Democratic economic policies dramatically decrease abortion rates. Sweden has generous welfare and maternity care policies, but its abortion rate is higher than the United States’. However, it should be obvious that if the next president codifies Roe v. Wade into federal law and overturns state bans or allows Medicaid to fully cover abortions, this will result in children being killed who otherwise would have lived.
Abortion is a moral problem, not a money problem. Like the moral problem of stealing, abortion can be exacerbated by poverty, but poverty is not the root cause of abortion, since many moral poor people don’t kill their own children and many evil wealthy people do get abortions.
So even if a candidate advocates for intrinsic evils, you could still licitly vote for him if, as the USCCB says, he is “less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods.” Or you could, in an act of protest to demand better candidates, withhold your vote. Both options are licit, though one might debate which one is more prudent.
Finally, we shouldn’t be naïve about the importance of the political process, but we also shouldn’t idolize it. There is a reason the Psalmist said, “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help. When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish” (Ps. 146:3-4).
Choosing elected leaders is important, but we can’t trust in them for our salvation even in this life. That’s because it is God who providentially arranges everything for good for those who believe in him (Rom. 8:28), which includes the institution of earthly rulers (13:1). So let’s trust in God and use our best judgment when it comes to electing civic leaders. And whoever does end up being elected, let’s follow St. Paul’s exhortation that
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:1-4).