RESPONSE TO: WILL THE POPE INFLUENCE GOP CATHOLICS?

My reply to an op-ed in the Pacific Daily News:

Here's the short course in Catholic morality for anyone who cares: 

The direct and willful killing of an innocent person, born or unborn, is an "intrinsic evil" - meaning always and everywhere evil, no matter the circumstances. Catholics are obliged to completely accept this as a moral fact. There is no compromise and not even the pope can change this. 

In matters of the environment and economic systems and other matters that do not fall in the "intrinsic" or dogma category, while being required to give due consideration to a papal "view" and embrace the more universal aspects of an issue (such as a general concern for the environment and care for the poor), Catholics are NOT obliged to conform to what the pope thinks on these things. 

So whereas the pro-abortion democrats placed themselves outside the church whenever they publicly or privately supported abortion, climate-change rejecting Republicans are in no danger of doing the same and are free to oppose the pope on the matter.