A Catholic critique of Tim Kaine

In last week’s vice presidential debate, Democratic candidate Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he personally opposed abortion but believed his private convictions should not determine public policy. In other words, he was personally pro-life but politically pro-abortion. I talked with Chad Pecknold, professor of historical and systematic theology at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., about his impressions of Kaine, who also is Catholic.

What did you think of Tim Kaine’s comments on abortion during the debate last week? Tim Kaine rolled out a line which we’ve heard from Catholic Democrats before: “personally opposed and politically supportive.” Imagine saying you’re personally opposed to racism but politically supportive of it. No one would let it fly. We’d all see that it’s a grave injustice personally as well as politically. But abortion kills a human being in the womb. It’s not just a racial prejudice but a kind of murder. … [It] sounds terribly dishonest. If you’ve got a well-formed conscience telling you it’s personally unjust, then it’s politically unjust, as well.

Are there certain “non-negotiables” for faithful Catholics? The right to live is certainly a non-negotiable. The commitment to the dignity of every human being is non-negotiable. A commitment to the common good is non-negotiable. Care for the poor is non-negotiable. Some of the non-negotiables admit different policy solutions. We can all imagine how Republicans and Democrats might have different policy recommendations to help the poor. Everyone could be committed to the same non-negotiable in different ways. …

But when it comes to intrinsic evils like abortion, opposition to it demands policies which … reduce abortion with the goal of abolishing it. It’s the non-negotiables like this—these intrinsic evil non-negotiables—that the Catholic church is most committed to in politics. These most directly embody the Catholic church’s teaching on the dignity of the human person above all and also the person as the purpose of a just political order. People don’t serve politics, but politics should serve the human person.

Mike Pence alluded to Jeremiah 1:5, saying God knew each of us before we were formed in our mother’s womb. But Kaine made no mention of babies in defining his position. What do you make of that? It’s so disappointing. Pence is actually pro-life and Kaine is pro-death and pro-abortion. People asked me when Kaine was made Hillary Clinton’s running mate, “Aren’t you happy Hillary Clinton chose a Catholic running mate?” And my response is always that it doesn’t seem that being Catholic matters to Kaine. What most matters to Kaine is becoming vice president.

You have strongly criticized Donald Trump, who insists he is now pro-life and will appoint pro-life judges. Are you not buying it? I’ve always thought of Trump as a protest candidate, and I’ve been sympathetic to the complex reasons why some of my fellow citizens are protesting and supporting Trump. But Trump, in my view, is the worst kind of person for the pro-life cause. People say he’s an unknown quantity and that we’ve got a chance with him to help the pro-life cause, and I’m not buying that. We know him all too well. What we know about him is that he’s always been a sexual predator. Even when he suddenly declared last year that he’d evolved and was now pro-life, he immediately praised Planned Parenthood for all the good work they do. … His pro-life stance stands side-by-side with his support for Planned Parenthood. Everyone, I think, was appalled, especially, when Trump said women who abort their babies should go to prison. That’s never been the view of the pro-life movement. … Trump’s unfamiliarity with pro-life arguments has given a lot of pro-lifers pause to think, is he just collecting pro-life votes, or is he really committed? And my view is, he’s just collecting pro-life votes.

How have the teachings of the church shaped the political practice and ethos of Western civilization? One of the main things Christianity introduces into the Western political dynamic is the view that politics isn’t the highest thing. There are pre-political goods such as the human person, the family, community. There’s things which transcend politics. … We’re committed to the common good because it points us to the highest good, which is God. That’s what America most needs right now. It needs God. We need to be a repentant people. Our election is telling us that right now. We need to ask for God’s mercy in helping us to return to Him.

Listen to Mary Reichard’s complete conversation with Chad Pecknold on the Oct. 11, 2016, episode of The World and Everything in It.