Catechism Corner: The lie of ‘Catholic Choice’

By Marco Roman, Ph.D.

Director of Communications

The following questions and answers are offered to address a serious confusion in public life: the claim that abortion can be defended as freedom or compassion while remaining faithful to Christ and the Church He builds, protects and sustains.

The Church teaches that human life is sacred from the first moment of conception, and Pope Saint John Paul II warned that Catholics in public office or in the media can cause “confusion and even scandal” when they advance positions contrary to Church teaching.

Presented in a clear and charitable way, the following exchange is meant to help form conscience according to the truth of the Gospel and the Church’s magisterium, so that Catholics may live and vote in this November’s midterm election in a manner consistent with the dignity of every human person.

The pivotal ballot item, as Catholics, is called Proposition 1. If successful, it would circumvent Idaho’s current pro-life laws and dismantle decades of legislative work.

What does the Catholic Church teach about the unborn child?

The Church teaches that human life is sacred from conception. The Compendium of the Catechism states that human life “must be respected because it is sacred,” and that “it is not lawful for anyone directly to destroy an innocent human being.” The Compendium of Social Doctrine goes further: the right to life “from the first moment of conception” is a constitutive element of civil society, and when the state fails to protect the unborn, it undermines the foundations of justice itself.

Can a practicing Catholic support abortion as “personal choice” or “true liberation”?

No.

The Church teaches that direct abortion is always a grave moral disorder.

John Paul II taught that procured abortion is “the deliberate and direct killing” of a human being and that “no circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit.” The bishops likewise teach that the intentional taking of innocent human life is intrinsically evil and must never be supported or condoned.

Authentic Catholic freedom is not freedom from truth.

The Vatican teaches that publicly recognized freedom is always limited by the rights of others, and John Paul II warned that the false notion of freedom “exalts the isolated individual in an absolute way” and leaves no place for solidarity, openness to others, or service. Abortion is not liberation; it is the taking of innocent life while calling the act by a softer name.

Why is abortion not true love, freedom or justice for women?

Because true solidarity with women does not offer abortion as a solution; it confronts the causes that make a child unwanted and provides real support.

John Paul II said that “a radical solidarity with women requires that the underlying causes which make a child unwanted be addressed,” and he added that there will never be justice, equality, development, or peace unless there is a firm resolve to “respect, protect, love and serve life — every human life, at every stage and in every situation.”

The U.S. bishops also make the moral point sharply: offering abortion as the answer is not “choice” but coercion, because it tells a mother in crisis that there is no hope for her or her child.

The Church’s social doctrine is clear that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of any just society, and that the right to life is the first human right and the condition for every other right. A society that sacrifices the unborn in the name of freedom has not advanced justice; it has corrupted it.

Is this only about abortion, or does it reveal a broader distortion of conscience?

This reveals a broader distortion of conscience.

Dignitas infinita warns that the acceptance of abortion in law and public opinion is a sign of “an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense,” a condition in which people become less able to distinguish good from evil.

The same document says that the Church must have the courage to “call things by their proper name” and not yield to “the temptation of self-deception.”

That is exactly the language needed here: when evil is renamed as liberation, conscience has been bent by secular morality rather than formed by Catholic truth.

This distortion rarely remains confined to one issue. The bishops also name as contrary to human dignity the attempt to “redefin[e] marriage to deny its essential meaning.”

Once conscience stops submitting to the objective moral order, it begins to select which teachings of the Church to keep and which to discard, and that is no longer Catholic moral vision in any full sense.

What is the Catholic responsibility at the ballot box, especially regarding Prop 1?

Catholics have a duty to vote in a way that serves the common good and protects the vulnerable.

The U.S. bishops teach that abortion is never morally acceptable, that laws legitimizing it are “profoundly unjust and immoral,” and that Catholics must support laws and policies that protect human life “to the maximum degree possible.”

The Compendium of Social Doctrine affirms that, as stated earlier, the right to life from conception is the first right and the condition for all others.

For Idaho Catholics, that means a measure that expands or legitimizes abortion cannot be treated as a morally neutral proposal.

It is a direct challenge to the first right of the human person, and a Catholic conscience cannot honestly support what the Church identifies as intrinsically evil.

Bottom line

Abortion is not liberation. It is the deliberate destruction of innocent human life, and no Catholic conscience can call evil good and remain faithful to Christ and His Gospel and subsequently to the Church’s moral truth.

We are humble and obedient recipients of Jesus and His teachings. We cannot selectively and independently re-create the Church’s teachings to fit our own desires.

Rather, we unite ourselves to Christ and, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, embrace with joy and conviction the truth that sets humanity free from the slavery of sin and death.