You da man!

Some people (Mark Shea for one) refer to this as an "Episcopal Spine Alert." Carrying on my phrasing that I had back on my previous journal, todays "You da man!" shoutout goes out to Archbishop John Donoghue of Atlanta...:

"'A few years ago,' he wrote, 'the Bishops of the United States wrote these words to our people, and they remain true: 'We encourage all citizens, particularly Catholics, to embrace their citizenship not merely as a duty and privilege, but as an opportunity meaningfully to participate in building the culture of life.''

'The Church holds her members to acceptance, complete acceptance of her teaching on matters of faith and morals,' Archbishop Donoghue said.

'In moral theology,' he continued, 'there are two kinds of cooperation involved in this question, and they break down as follows:

'Formal cooperation is that degree of cooperation in which my will embraces the evil object of another's will. Thus, to vote for a candidate because he favors abortion is formal cooperation in his evil political acts. However, to vote for someone in order to limit a greater evil, that is, to restrict in so far as possible the evil that another candidate might do if elected, is to have a good purpose in voting.

'The voter's will has as its object this limitation of evil and not the evil which the imperfect politician might do in his less than perfect adherence to Catholic moral principles. Such cooperation is called material, and is permitted for a serious reason, such as preventing the election of a worse candidate.' "