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Saturday, September 14, 2024

MORAL CLARITY

by Julie Steiner


Photograph: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters via The Guardian


    Asked by CBS News [on Friday] what he would advise a Catholic voter forced to choose between a candidate who backs abortion rights and one who has said he would have 11 million migrants deported, the pope said: “They are both against life—the one who throws away migrants and the one who kills children.” 
     ...Asked whether there were any circumstances under which it would be morally permissible for a Catholic to vote for a candidate who does support abortion rights, Francis said when considering political morality, “one must vote.”
    "One must choose the lesser of two evils," he said. "Who is the lesser of two evils, that lady or that gentleman, I do not know." 

 
One has to vote,
declared Pope Francis with a sigh.
One has to vote.
Dilemma’s horns are at one’s throat.
Abstention’s not an option. Try.
Although both options cast a “Die,”
one has two. Vote.

Choose the lesser
evil. (Both are bad, in short.)
Choose the lesser,
quoth the pontiff at his presser:
Pick either A (Deport! Deport!)
or B (Let those who could abort
choose.) “The lesser

of two evils”
assumes they’re not equatable.
Of two evils,
which brings fewer lives upheavals?
Choose the not-as-hateable —
“And which is that?” “Debatable.” —
of two evils.


Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Besides The New Verse News, the venues in which Julie's poetry has appeared in the past year include Literary Matters, Light, and The Asses of Parnassus.