The Quadrennial Problem For Catholics

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The Perennial Problem

Did you hear the one about the corrupt bishop, accused of coercively soliciting donations, hiring cronies, and even sexual assault? Where he was removed from his diocese but permitted to remain a bishop if he provided restitution to those he robbed by his actions? (He did so through a loan). Where his superior—who nominated him based on his holiness as a youth—was accused of either being blind or complicit? Where he outright lied to the Pope when the case was heard?

You can stop your speculating over which current bishop I’m talking about, because you’re about 1600 years off. The bishop’s name was Antoninus, his superior was St. Augustine, and the Pope was St. Boniface I. We learn about this sordid affair in St. Augustine’s Letter 20*, written about AD 422.§ Even by today’s standards, the situation is startling, and reminds us that even the saints could be just as tone deaf and get things just as wrong as those shepherds the Church today.

I don’t bring this up to say, “It happened back then too… it can’t be helped.” Of course, it should always be acted on in every age. Rather, I bring this up to remind despairing Catholics that scandals in the Church are not something new, and even the greatest saints mishandled affairs out of attempted compassion to a sinner claiming to repent, of being unsure if the accusations were justified, or ignorance of all the facts.

The fact is, our Popes and bishops have always been human beings in need of salvation, with a finite knowledge of the events around them. Yes, corruption does exist in the Church and needs to be rooted out. Yes, sometimes the response to corruption is misguided. Yes, Canon 212 does give us the right to respectfully make our needs known when we think the response is unjust.  But this does not give us the excuse to disobey them when they act as successors to the Apostles. We must not rashly assume evil intention or bad will when a decision turns out to be problematic… as it sometimes will.

We should be praying for the Pope and clergy in communion with him, that they guide the Church wisely and well. We should also be careful to see if we have the proper interpretation of the facts before speaking out on an issue, and we should attempt to see if we can understand why one could have made a decision that went wrong.

This is something true regardless of the times we live in.

 

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(§) The reason for the asterisk: This letter is part of a 29-letter collection discovered after his previous collection of letters was codified. Originally thought to be forgeries, they are now believed to be authentic after analysis. Catholic University of America labels them as 1*-29* with asterisks to avoid having to renumber the 17th century numbering of the 264 letters—which would disrupt previous citations. So, citations of the Saint’s Letter 20 and Letter 20* would refer to two different things.

Exception Overload: Thoughts on a Variant of Whataboutism

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the “whataboutism” in which people point out the moral faults of others to shift the focus away from the issue where their side comes off as second best (a tu quoque fallacy). There is another version of that behavior that I have seen more frequently as we get closer to election day. That version is to list all kinds of exception clauses (“but what about…?”) that are aimed at escaping the obvious but unpopular conclusion.

When the Church specifically states that X is morally wrong, this tactic tries to argue that: while they don’t support a moral evil, they think the accumulation of hypotheticals and conditions—none of them by themselves as grave or graver than the evil under consideration—do meet the requirements of a proportionate reason to do something that enables an evil act.

This usually comes up after Catholic A points out to Catholic B that Party X is openly championing an an evil. Catholic B recites a litany of hypotheticals and conditions that he claims either outweighs the evil Party X is guilty of or reduces the culpability of Party X. Therefore, they argue, the conditions for a proportionate reason exist and they can morally justify voting for Party X.

Obviously, we do not want to force someone to act against conscience. That would mean pressuring them to do what they think is wrong. Some of the concerns are valid. Sometimes the badly formed conscience is sincere. But, in the spiritual works of mercy, we do have obligations to instruct the ignorant and admonish the sinners so they might not do wrong unknowingly or knowingly. So, if the person has formed his conscience wrongly, we do have an obligation to point out what the Church does teach and how they might have gone wrong.

But at other times, the arguments used are simply dishonest. For example, one argument I’ve seen claims that since it was the Supreme Court that decided Roe v. Wade, voting for a pro-abortion candidate for President is not enabling as much harm as claimed. This is dishonest because the dispute over a pro-abortion candidate in the United States is not over whether a President can overrule the Supreme Court (he can’t). It is over whether the candidate intends to harden the defenses of Roe v. Wade against attempts to overturn it, appoint judges to defend it, permit (or increase) government funding for abortion via executive order, sign laws defending abortion while vetoing laws defending life. Using whataboutism to deny this candidate is responsible for the evil of abortion in a way the Church condemns is dishonest, whether the person is sincere in believing it or just using it as an excuse§.

And, except for the most naïve, they know that this reasoning is dishonest because they do point fingers at Catholics on the other side of this political divide for using this reasoning to vote the way they want. So, we are stuck with the bizarre situation of divided Catholics that accuse the other side of making excuses for not following Church teaching on voting while not following it themselves. A Catholic leaning to support the Democrats downplays the serious nature of abortion in their voting considerations. Whether or not they intend it, the result is to ignore their own failures to oppose evil while condemning the failures of the other side. The consequence is, nothing gets done to reform the evils in our country while never considering their own part in this evil situation.

We can’t make excuses. If we know that the Church condemns a policy as evil, even if we feel we need to vote for his opponent, we have an obligation to challenge our candidate on the issues he is wrong for, not make excuses for inaction. But we seldom see that challenge made

Instead we bury the obligation in an avalanche of exceptions and hypotheticals, saying “but what about…?” And if we will do that, it will come up at the final judgment, when we desperately plead, “Lord, when did we see you….” (see Matthew 25:44).

 

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(§) Yes, this dishonesty works both ways. If it’s wrong to stack up lesser reasons or hypotheticals to claim a proportionate reason exists over abortion, it is also wrong to use these tactics to justify voting for a candidate guilty of other evils condemned by the Church. 

What is a Proportionate Reason? A Reflection

Introduction.

A reader on my blog page asked me for a clarification on what a Proportionate Reason was when it comes to moral theology and the abortion issue. It reminded me that sometimes what think is clear, the average reader might see as technical jargon. So, I apologize for not being clear and will try to explain it without sounding too technical or patronizing. (I suspect I may have to apologize in advance for not succeeding there).

Some Basic Things to Remember.

When dealing with evil and what enables it, we need to make a few basic statements. 

First. We are absolutely forbidden to do an evil act so good may come of it.

Second. To have a morally good act, the action itself must be morally good or neutral (no intrinsically evil acts [that is, the act itself is bad regardless of conditions] can ever be made good), the intention is good (doing something good or neutral for an evil reason makes the act evil), and the circumstances must be good (giving a Snickers bar to a starving child who turns out to have a peanut allergy is bad, even if no harm was intended).

Third. The conditions that make up a mortal sin require committing a serious (grave) evil, knowing it was evil and freely choosing to do it anyway.

Fourth. If it’s impossible to know something (for example, Native Americans in pre-Colombian times absolutely could not have known of the need to accept Christ) and the person acted wrongly, thinking what they did was good, God will not hold a person responsible for that ignorance, even though wrong is done. We call this invincible ignorance. But, if the ignorance was something that could have been learned if the person bothered to look but was negligent, that isn’t excusable. We call this vincible ignorance.

Fifth. The person who knows they have committed a grave sin need to go to Confession before receiving communion (Canon 916). Notorious and unrepentant sinners who choose to go receive Communion anyway can be barred (Canon 915).

So, we could sum this up and say, since we may not do an evil act so good may come of it, we have an obligation to learn what the Church teaches and live it. We are without excuse if we reject the Church teaching and do evil, and we are without excuse if we do evil through ignorance that we could have cleared up if we bothered to look. We could wind up in a state of mortal sin if all conditions are present.

We can never deliberately choose to do evil or to freely and knowingly assist in that evil. (For example, you can never have a morally good rape or a morally good lynching). Even if a Catholic should dissent from Church teaching, they are not excused from obeying it. Otherwise “I disagree” could be an iron clad defense for geocide or murder. If anybody does take part in assisting evil knowingly and willingly, they are responsible for having done evil. So, in the Ratzinger Memorandum, he mentions voting for someone because they are pro-abortion as an example of being obligated to stay away from receiving the Eucharist.

But What About Acts that Aren’t Intrinsically Evil

So, let’s move on. Keeping the above things in mind, let’s move on to Proportionate Reasons that justify an act that is not intrinsically evil in itself, but still makes the evil act possible. 

The immediately relevant part of the Ratzinger Memorandum, the part that gets dragged out every four years, is the section on voting. Voting in itself a civic duty, not an intrinsic evil. Therefore, any sin involved comes from the intention or the consequences.

While deliberate evil in a vote exists if one deliberately chose to vote to support something the Church condemned as evil, we still need to consider the consequences of voting for something that will have an evil consequence, even if unintended. This isn’t a “moral calculus” where we decide X amount of evil is tolerable, while X+1 is not. Instead we have to consider whether the person who enabled the evil had a reason that took away culpability.

If the person knows that voting for a candidate who publicly states his support for something the Church labels evil would enable this bad result (and not being aware indicates a defect in knowledge of Church teaching or the politician’s position), the greater the evil enabled means the greater the reason is needed proportionate to the harm done (there’s where we get the term proportionate reason) is needed to justify the participation in the act.

I’ve pointed out elsewhere that the Catholic Church has (in Gaudium et Spes #27) listed abortion next to murder and genocide in talking about evils. So, we cannot simply treat abortion as one issue among many any more than we can treat murder or genocide as one issue among many. 

This is where the Catholic risks stepping into a trap. It is easy for any concerned Catholic—who has sympathies for one party at odds with the Church in some way—to confuse the reasons they dislike the other party for proportionate reasons. Since the Church does speak so strongly against abortion, unless they can offer a proportionate reason for voting for a pro-abortion candidate that they would accept if used by a Catholic trying to justify voting for murder, genocide, or torture, I honestly don’t think they can defend their vote. This is why I think the insight from Archbishop Chaput is so important: 

We sin if we support “pro-choice” candidates without a truly proportionate reason for doing so—that is, a reason grave enough to outweigh our obligation to end the killing of the unborn. And what would such a “proportionate” reason look like? It would be a reason we could, with an honest heart, expect the unborn victims of abortion to accept when we meet them and need to explain our actions—as we someday will.

Chaput, Charles J. Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (p. 230). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So, the Catholic who says “I am justified in supporting a pro-abortion candidate because of the evils in the other candidate,” must be able to face God and the victims of the policy that this evil invoked at the final judgment and say, “Yes this was more urgent.”

I would like to conclude by bringing up another issue frequently forgotten when people debate proportionate reasons. That is, the same moral obligations that bind the Catholic considering voting for a pro-abortion candidate also apply for the Catholic considering a vote for his opponent. If that Catholic votes for the other candidate because of his support of the evil position, that voter is also culpable for that evilly intended vote. And, yes, the requirement for a proportionate reason applies to his vote for the opponent with a morally wrong platform too.

None of us are exempted from the obligation of looking to the Church to understand our moral obligations in being a Christian and following them to the best of our understanding and ability to form our consciences. None of this can be set aside because “the stakes are too high” in this election. While we must not be scrupulous in seeking to do right, we must not be lax either. So, when a candidate proudly states they will support something we know is evil, we do have an obligation to oppose it in a moral way.

And, if we should ever become convinced that we have failed to do this, let us remember that we have a Sacrament that reconciles us with God and His Church. Let us avail ourselves of that Sacrament, making a firm purpose of amendment to strive to live according to God’s commandments.

Evading the Abortion Issue

The Church is very straightforward in her teachings. Yes, determining the level of culpability in an individual’s sins might be complex in discerning knowledge and freedom in the decision, But that never makes a morally bad act good, and we must oppose evil, even when we might otherwise benefit from a group that promotes it or fear consequences if that group does not gain power. The fact is, we must not choose to do evil so good may come of it, and we must make certain that any remote cooperation [i.e., not intended] with the evil is done for a reason proportionate to the evil.

Tragically, some Catholics have announced their intention to vote for pro-abortion candidates‡, arguing that the evil of the other side meets the “proportionate reason” requirement. That they reason this way is deeply troubling. In Gaudium et Spes #27, for example, the Church lists abortion next to murder, genocide, euthanasia, torture, and slavery in terms of abominable actions¥. Those Catholics who intend to vote for pro-abortion candidates announce themselves against these other evils as non-negotiable… and rightly so. But, while they would never dream of compromising and voting for a candidate who supported those evils, they are willing to vote for a candidate who supports abortion, claiming that such a candidate is “more pro-life” while condemning Catholics who won’t vote like them.

The problem is this. While the Church does indeed teach that the Right to Life is more than just opposing abortion, one cannot be pro-life without that crucial piece. So, when the Catholic who announces his or her intention to vote for a pro-abortion candidate while denouncing his fellow Catholic for neglecting other issues of Catholic Moral Teaching in the name of abortion§,  he or she needs to keep in mind Matthew 7:2. “For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.” 

This verse is important because calling out another on a moral wrong means you know that action is wrong. So, calling down judgment on Catholics for downplaying Teaching X in the name of opposing abortion, while downplaying of abortion in the name of Teaching X is also worthy of judgment†.

Don’t get into an argument over theological calculus here where you try to calculate what level of other evils is supposed to outweigh abortion (both sides do this, and calculate it in their favor). When the Church says “X is wrong,” don’t try to justify your support of the candidate who champions X by pointing to the other side’s failings. Each one of us will answer for the evils we ignore or try to explain away when the Church has called them “evil” by name.

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(‡) This has gotten so out of hand, that I have seen some Catholics attack Cardinal Paglia claiming he is out of touch with the Church for saying that Catholic politicians absolutely cannot support or defend abortion.

(¥) Yes, the Church lists more issues in that paragraph, and yes, I have cited them in previous articles. But it goes to show that those who invoke those issues cannot claim ignorance on how seriously the Church views abortion.

(§) A popular attack they use is “anti-abortion but not pro-life.”

(†) Again, before you plan to send an angry “what about…?” response, keep in mind, I have also written blogs warning against those opposing abortion being complacent or justifying their downplaying other issues.

Logical Fallacies Catholics Need to Watch Out for in Political Discussions

I’ve been discussing the Catholic attitudes in politics lately. It’s not something I particularly want to do, but it seems to be a necessity in election years. The danger I am writing about involves Catholics on both sides of our dualistic political divide pointing out the sins of others, while either ignoring or being blind to the sins they risk falling into. Because these partisan Catholics inevitably attack the Church when it speaks out against policies supporting “their” faction, I see writing about them as part of my mission to defend the teaching and authority of the Church.

One of the major problems I see in these partisan disputes is that both sides fall into the same fallacies and use the same arguments, condemning the other side for reaching a different conclusion through them. That dispute does not help the Catholic Church spread the faith throughout the world. In fact, not only does it not respect the universal§ nature of the term Catholic, it actually leads those looking at us from outside as viewing the Catholic faith as one more partisan sect (cf. Romans 2:24).

So, as we get closer to Election day (64 days as I write this), I thought I should write on some logical fallacies that Catholics use in debating over Biden vs. Trump†, as the factions claim one is a saint and the other a demon.

The first one I would like to discuss is the Fallacy of Relative Privation. This one assumes that X is worse than Y. Therefore, those concerned about Y are focused on something unimportant. So, when we face the abortion issue, half of the American Catholics argue that because of the evil of abortion, the rest of the issues are not important in comparison because “the stakes are too high.” The other half argue that because of the evil caused in the other issues, they have to vote for the pro-abortion candidate and try to end abortion through “other means” because “the stakes are too high.” 

Both these attitudes are mirror images of each other. The practical effect of this fallacy is that whatever issue the preferred party is wrong on is essentially treated as unimportant, even if the Catholic voter would deny they didn’t care if you asked them point-blank. 

The second fallacy I would like to address is the Either-Or fallacy. This fallacy assumes there are only two choices. Either Conservative or Liberal; either Democrat or Republican. If a Catholic voter should dare say that his conscience doesn’t permit him to support either, then may God have mercy on his soul because these partisan Catholics will not. Both sides will argue that the other side is aligned with the powers of darkness, and a refusal to vote for their side is an endorsement of the powers of darkness… even though the Catholic bishops have explicitly rejected that accusation.

What every American Catholic voter needs to keep in mind is that both parties are at odds with Catholic teaching in a serious way. When trying to do good and oppose evil, we cannot use our persona preferences as our guide. We must look to the Church for guidance, and then vote according to what our conscience demands.

Unfortunately, that leads us to a third fallacy we need to beware—the fallacy of equivocation. Some words have more than one meaning (equivocal words). If we use a word differently than intended, we will fall into error over the intended meaning. When the Church refers to conscience, she does not mean an infallible voice that makes what we want to do right. Conscience says “I must do X; I must not do Y.” It doesn’t say “Meh, I don’t feel anything about this.” Also, conscience must be formed through the teaching of the Church and those entrusted to lead it. If we—upon hearing the teaching of the Pope or bishop—immediately accuse him of being left- or right-wing, we are not letting our consciences be formed by the Church, and we have no excuse for it.

The thing is, if the Church speaks out on an act as evil, we cannot support it, and we cannot enthusiastically support the party that accepts it or calls it good. We have a serious obligation to ask, “what am I going to do about that evil, now and in the future?” We should be lamenting the difficult choices we have in voting as a Christian. If we don’t, if we just assume our party is automatically right, we’re just as guilty as the other guy we’re pointing our finger at.

None of this should be interpreted as moral relativism. Are some evils worse than others? Yes. But arguing that X is worse than Y doesn’t solve the evils of Y, does it? The truth is, we can’t use some bizarre moral calculus that sets out to justify how we were going to vote anyway. The moment we write off a moral teaching as something we need to “sacrifice” because “the stakes are too high,” we are making ourselves complicit in the sins of omission.

This leads to a fourth logical fallacy, the tu quoque. This fallacy responds to an accusation by pointing out a flaw in the opponent, real or not. So, if Catholic A points out a moral failing in a political party, pointing out the flaws in the party he favors is not a refutation. So, the Catholic intending to vote for a party favoring abortion often points to the sins of a party that opposes abortion, and vice versa. But the sins of another doesn’t change the fact that our own party also supports evil… whether intrinsic, in intention, or in consequence. 

Catholics need to stop using fallacies in their thinking and arguments, because they lead us into becoming obstinate in what we were going to do anyway. It’s not enough to see the evils of the other side. We need to be aware of and oppose the evils on our own side too. Otherwise, the outsider will look at us and see just another group of partisan hypocrites, and not the Church established by Christ, while we will look at others as either enemies deserving our contempt because of their evils or allies whom we turn a blind eye to their wrongs.

 

 

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(§) From the Greek καθολικός (Katholikos—universal).

(†) As always, when it comes to comparing and contrasting opposed factions, I try to alphabetize them to avoid appearances of bias.

Thoughts on the Misuse of the Ratzinger Referendum in 2020

Everybody has talking points they use to promote their position and refute their opponent’s. Sometimes these talking points have merit to them. At other times, they are merely rattled off like an incantation intended to ward off an opponent’s challenge, but with no real understanding of what it actually means. 

Unfortunately, in 2020, we are seeing a very nuanced document—commonly known as the Ratzinger Memorandum—turned into an incantation by both sides, each conveniently reading it in a way to attack the other side, with no attempt to apply it to their own. This memorandum (which can be read HERE) was written in response to a question by the disgraced and defrocked McCarrick on whether one would be unworthy to receive Communion if they held a position in opposition to Church teaching. Only two points ever get cited by partisan Catholics. Section #3 and the bracketed Nota Bene. For convenience, they are reproduced here:

3. 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.

* * *

[N.B. A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour 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.]

Those who intend to vote for a pro-abortion candidate cite the nota bene and argue (dubiously at best) that the candidate’s other positions or the positions of the other candidate, become a “proportionate reason.” Those who support another candidate who is not pro-abortion candidate but is also morally bad in other areas emphasize Section #3 and say there is nothing wrong with voting for a candidate who supports those things. Both are misinterpreting the matter.

When it comes to the issue of abortion, we need to remember that the Catholic Church equates it with other barbarities. In Gaudium et Spes #14, we read:

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.

So, the candidate who supports abortion cannot be simply excused for it in the name of the other positions he might support any more than a candidate who supports genocide can be excused. This isn’t a rhetorical appeal. The Catholic Church calls these things infamies. So, when you have a Democrat who supports some of the infamies listed and a Republican who supports others on the list of infamies, you cannot say that voting for them is morally good. Nor can you claim that the issues your candidate is wrong on (if it’s on the list) is unimportant.

With this in mind, the Catholic who says they are enthusiastic supporters of the candidate who announces his intent to promote and/or defend these infamies have—at best—grossly misunderstood Church teaching. Since both major party candidates in 2020 are at odds with some items on this list, the only appropriate attitude for a Catholic who believes he or she must vote for one of them must be an attitude of sorrow and reluctance… a sense that both are terrible, but one will do less damage to the moral good than the other. Such an attitude cannot say that “Well, issue X is more important, so we’ll fight Issue Y ‘later.’”

No. It seems to me that Catholics belonging to a major party must vote in the primaries against a candidate who supports one or more of the infamies. If said candidate makes it to the national election, we had better (to build on something said by Archbishop Chaput§) make sure our reasons are going to be justifiable before God and the victims of our vote at the final judgment. If we act as if the issue our party is wrong on is “less important,” then let’s stop the pretense that we will fight for the other issue “later.” We should be fighting now to reform whatever party we identify with so they might be less inclined to nominate a similar candidate next time. That fight doesn’t end on Wednesday, November 4th 2020.

If we truly think that the candidate we vote for is the lesser of two evils† and he gets elected, the Catholics who voted for him had better take a “You broke it, you bought it” attitude when it comes to the evils they identified as “lesser.” The Catholics who voted for his opponent had better work to eliminate those evils within their own party. Unfortunately, this never seems to happen.

I would like to address another error Catholics commit in citing the Ratzinger Memorandum against the US Bishops on the Death Penalty. It is true that Benedict XVI (then-Cardinal Ratzinger) did point out that support of the death penalty was morally tolerable. But we need to remember that this was written in 2004. It is superseded by what Pope Francis wrote in 2018, amending the Catechism on the Death Penalty. Benedict XVI was not in error in 2004, because the teaching was not yet refined. But those Catholics who think they can treat the 2018 teaching as if the 2004 memorandum outranked it have fallen into a dangerous error. There is no more permissible “legitimate diversity” of opinion here.

But, before those Catholics who already opposed the death penalty get too smug, let them remember this: If they recognize that Catholics who treat the death penalty as a “lesser issue” are wrong, then they are utterly without excuse if they treat abortion the same way. It is true we can easily defend Pope Francis’ change on the grounds that self defense requires the minimum force required and in modern times, the death penalty is no longer the minimum force required. However, the supporter of a pro-abortion candidate can’t escape the fact that abortion can never be justified. As long as Christianity existed, abortion was condemned as murder… which is an infamy. So if Catholics who support a candidate who is in favor of the death penalty are wrong, where does it leave the Catholics who support a pro-abortion candidate?‡

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(§) What he said was: ‘And what would such a “proportionate” reason look like? It would be a reason we could, with an honest heart, expect the unborn victims of abortion to accept when we meet them and need to explain our actions—as we someday will.’ (Chaput, Charles J. Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (p. 230). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I believe we can logically extrapolate from this and apply it to all issues that the Catholic Church describes as Infamies.

(†) One of the propaganda pieces used by some Catholics is “voting for the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.” The irony is, it tends to be used by Catholics who enthusiastically intend to vote for a different candidate (hopefully in spite of) who still supports an infamy against a Catholic who reluctantly plans to vote for the other. It overlooks the possibility of a Catholic voter seeking to reduce damage as much as possible (much like accepting the consequences of a side swipe to avoid a head-on collision). 

(‡) Please don’t argue that you are “eliminating the need for abortion.” That doesn’t work for the other infamies listed in Gaudium et Spes, and it doesn’t work here either.