Voting.

Enter Archbishop Chaput with some perspective:

I think there are legitimate reasons you could vote in favor of someone who wouldn’t be where the church is on abortion, but it would have to be a reason that you could confidently explain to Jesus and the victims of abortion when you meet them at the Judgment. That’s the only criterion.

Chaput's perspective respects human reason, acknowledges that politics is sometimes the art of the possible and sometimes a means of damage control and sometimes a means of expressing truth, and we get to decide which role we are called to play in any given election.  And yet Chaput's criterion takes very seriously the stakes here with respect to the culture of life.  I daresay it says that the default position is not to vote for an abortion-rights supporter.   And that we take on a great burden of reasoning if we choose to depart from that. 

My only amendment to it:  Why wait till the Judgment to explain?  We believe in the efficacy of prayer, do we not?  That the saints can hear us?  Then we can explain our thinking now.  Heck, we don't even have to wait till the election.

So some of us will be saying to those victims that Chaput references, I really thought this was the best way to help you.  Or, I believed I couldn't help you but I thought I could help some0ne else.  Or, I know my vote harmed you, but I believed I could help someone else in the fight against real evil, someone who needed it more. 

And some of us will be saying, I didn't think you mattered.  Some of us will be saying, I gave your case up as hopeless.  Some of us will be saying,  My personal likes and dislikes are more important than choosing the best way to help you.  Some of us will be saying, Thinking about you made me uncomfortable so I tried not to do it too much. 

UPDATE.  Amy Welborn takes the same quote and runs with it... required reading. 

The point is, yes, the world is complex and decisions have many implications and nuances.

But there is a simplicity at the core of it: Here we are, put here by the God who loves us.

What are we doing with this gift?

It is perfectly fine to sit a little uneasily with our answers. It is okay to re-examine that question daily. It is necessary to not rest comfortably, to not slip into self-justification, to be willing to ask, day after day, hour after hour, “When did we see you Lord?”