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New Catholic Cardinal: Catholics Can’t Vote for Pro-Abortion Candidates


by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com
10/27/10 4:35 PM

The Catholic leader who Pope Benedict named a new cardinal said in a new interview that faithful Catholics can’t in good conscience vote for pro-abortion candidates.

Pope Benedict XVI named Raymond Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis, as one of two Americans who will become cardinals in the Catholic Church last week.

Burke, who is the prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s “Supreme Court” gave an interview to Thomas McKenna, President of Catholic Action for Faith and Family.

“As a bishop it’s my obligation in fact, to urge the faithful to carry out their civic duty in accord with their Catholic faith,” Burke said.

“You can never vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb or the right to a procured abortion,” he added plainly.

He said his words are not meant as a criticism of how people vote, but they are “simply announcing the truth, helping people to discriminate right from wrong in terms of their own activities.”

In the 25-minute interview, Burke reminded Catholics they are bound in conscience to vote for political candidates who oppose aborting babies, embryonic stem cell experiments, and euthanasia.

McKenna responded to the interview with her own remarks applauding and affirming Burke’s.

“Millions of Catholics have no idea it’s a sin to vote for candidates who favor these grave evils, which attack the very foundations of society,” he told LifeNews.com. “This matter-of-fact, pointed interview granted to me by Archbishop Raymond Burke in Rome last week makes it very clear what the responsibility of every American Catholic will be next Tuesday.”

Burke has taught repeatedly that Catholic politicians who support abortion rights may not receive Holy Communion and that Catholics who know of the politicians’ voting record on these issues cannot vote for them and retain “a clear conscience.”

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