Dear Stealth:
As a Catholic convert, I spent the election season talking with friends, priests, and politicians, listening to Relevant Radio, trying to learn the Church's stance on issues.
I heard, hundreds of times, this idea:
"The war and the economy don't matter. Life matters."
Never once though, did they explain HOW war isn't a Life issue. And that's the part I never understood.
I thought the church was against unjustly killing anyone, be they babies or big people.
Could you please explain this to me?
Thank you! Bless you!
Idealistic in Chicago
Whew... this whole apologist thing is not quite what I expected. The questions that you people ask are tough! I was kind of hoping to get questions like:
Or
All of your questions are far too complex, and require me to do some actual research. It's getting to the point where my brain is active for more than 15 minutes per day (yes, I said more than 15 whole minutes). That being said, if you can stick to questions that require a binary response (e.g. yes or no, true or false, 1 or 0) that would be fantastic. Oh, and throw in some money for good measure.
So, Mr. Idealist in Chicago, you want to know about life eh? Rather, why so many pro-lifers within the Church seem to be adamant about the sanctity of life in regards to abortion, but ignore the destruction of life posed by modern warfare, then you have come to the right apologist.
Modern Politics and Purple Haze
The politics of today is very similar to the politics of ancient Greece. My main man in Inglewood, Socrates, brought to light the problems Athenians were facing when they put their faith in leaders who did not seek the good and the true by means of reason. Rather, politicians of Socrates' day relied on rhetoric to make their case to the people. That is, whoever could convince the crowd that they were right, whether or not their reasoning was valid, was often seen as the purveyor of social justice and good. Socrates despised this vehemently and suggested to an interlocutor, Gorgias, that rhetoric “creates a belief about the just and unjust, but gives no instruction about them.”
Modern politics seems to do just as Socrates describes. Liberals try to convince their constituents that abortion is a compassionate means of improving the quality of life for the mother, that the war in Iraq is an unnecessary waste of American lives for the sake of an unjust cause, and the economy will impact the lives of millions of Americans. Conservatives, on the other hand, generally seek to persuade the masses as to the evil involved in abortion, the necessity of the just war in Iraq, and that the economy is not as bad as many make it out to be. It's a messy fog of human emotion and fallacious reasoning.
Focus, Focus, Focus
Because of all the muddled attempts at persuasion, political issues concerning life have become blurry and skewed. People are passionate by nature, more so than they are reasonable. You don't think that is true? I'll prove it to you. What is more frightening: crossing a wide and stable wooden plank over a 2 foot deep chasm, or a 1000 foot pit using the same plank? I would confidently argue that the majority of people would find the latter scarier because of human fear and imagination. The emotional prospect of falling to their death outweighs the reasonableness of being able to walk safely on a stable plank no matter the height of the fall. If that's not proof that people are more emotionally driven than they are reasonable, then I don't know what is.
Now that I've proven that people are more emotional than reasonable (and also that we are scared wussies when it comes to walking on planks), I can finally get to the crux of your question. In order to fight the rhetoric spewing liberal media, defenders of life and Church teaching need to clear away the haze of emotion driven argument. In order to do that they tend to present their arguments in absolute terms. Sometimes, as in the case that you present, they move so far to the absolute that their arguments become hyperbolic. They are right to an extent when they say that economics and war are not life issues, but only in certain situations.
Gambling on a Loser
The recent presidential election pit two polar opposites against each other. One candidate was a relatively strong pro-life supporter, and the other was a staunch pro-abortion candidate. According the the Church, abortion is an intrinsic evil. War and bad economics, on the other hand, are not always evil. War is sometimes justified, and even necessary to prevent evil. The economy, also, is a very significant issue but doesn't carry the same moral weight as abortion or war. So, in effect, what the pro-life supporters are trying to do is show that because of the issue of the abortion (an act that is always evil), all other issues are off the table because all other issues do not carry the same moral weight. Let me put it another way: say you are in Las Vegas and you are looking to double the money you got from selling your unwanted Christmas gifts on EBAY this year. While looking for the best hotel to gamble in, you notice that one stands out among the rest. The hotel is decked out flashy lights, offers all the lobster you can eat, and lavishes you with free drinks. Emotionally, the hotel looks fantastic. However, your handy dandy Gambler's Guide to Good Gambling that you got from the Internet says that this particular hotel has a 0% chance of paying out any winnings. Would it be reasonable to invest your money in that establishment, even if it does offer free drinks and free lobster? I don't think so, because the significant loss of all of your money isn't worth the small frills. Unfortunately, Americans did just that in this last election.
Abortion is always wrong, and will never be good. Even if a politician offers to reduce war and fix our economy, but also supports abortion, they are investing the soul of our nation in something that will never payout returns of social justice (I'm trademarking that phrase right now!).
Way out of Proportion
One more reason why there is such a strong focus on abortion, which causes it to eclipses other life issues such as war is due to proportionality. The amount of innocent lives lost to abortion far outweighs those that are lost in modern warfare. In essence, the more innocent human lives lost, the more grave the issue is.
If abortion was not an issue and two candidates were up for election, war might certainly be an important life issue. If one candidate is a war monger that seeks to expand power through the use of violence, and the other candidate does not, then a Catholic would have a moral responsibility to vote for the candidate that does not seek war. In addition, if both candidates were war mongers, but one was less of a war monger, then a Catholic would be morally obliged to vote for the lesser of two evils. Anyway, you get my point: more innocents killed = more badder. (yes that's bad grammar)
In Summary
War and the economy are indeed life issues, and if we were living 100 years ago, they would have been pivotal issues in American elections. Unfortunately, because we face the potential of having leaders who support moral issues that can be nothing other than evil, war and the economy fall off the map when it comes to the Catholic vote. We no longer have the luxury of voting for candidates solely on economic and foreign relation issues as we did in the past. We are now called to elect leaders that will not destroy the most innocent among us, under the guise of compassion and justice.
Michelle from Oceanside, CA asks: 
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