The Weight of Moral Issues

From no less an authority than the present pope, here is an excerpt from a letter flowing from the pen of then-Cardinal Ratzinger in 2004 to the US bishops. I've posted this before but it bears repeated notice as memories often prove selective. The airwaves and cyberspace are abuzz with election news and the issues that drive voters to vote this way or that. How are Catholics to vote? Are all questions of "social justice," such as the fight against poverty, illiteracy, the death penalty, crime and the prevention of war to be gauged on equal footing with abortion and embryonic stem-cell research? If a candidate is pro-abortion, but against war and seems to care more about redressing the plight of the underprivileged, does support for x and y cancel out support for z? Those answering in the affirmative (many on the left, I must say) ignore the fundamental distinction between acts that are intrinsically evil and those acts whose moral character hinges on questions of circumstance. Here's what the pope has to say on the matter:

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

The problem is that those inclined to turn a blind eye to the nefarious deed of abortion are similarly inclined to give short shrift to authoritative statements from the Church. Relativism rears its ugly head once more. It's a laborious chore to debate with those predisposed to the selective application of principle and reason to the field of ethics.