GOD AND POLITICS: What’s a Catholic to do?

 

Every four years the Catholic Bishops of the U.S. issue a statement prior to our national elections offering guidelines on how Catholics should make their decisions regarding the various candidates and issues on which they are asked to vote.  The bishops may not tell us which candidate or party for whom to vote but they can, and do, provide guidance from a moral perspective.

 

When the 2008 document is officially released, it will be available to all Catholics through their parishes.  In the meantime we do have some indication from the draft document as to its focus.  Its title, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility” argues that all Catholics have a moral obligation to participate in political life.  As in previous documents, the bishops list “intrinsically evil actions such as abortion, euthanasia, human cloning and the destruction of human embryos.”  However, the statement concludes that “While the prohibition on the direct and intentional taking of an innocent human life may occupy a privileged position in moral decision-making, this privilege may not be invoked as a justification for ignoring the church’s teachings on other matters such as war, torture, the death penalty and economic justice.”

 

An article by Sister Joan Chittister (NCR) ) maintains that perhaps the most important focus of the document is that it recognizes the primacy of the individual conscience, stressing the importance of each person to form his/her  conscience carefully.  It also acknowledges the complexity of moral decision-making in a pluralistic society and the need for discernment. In other words, persons coming from the same moral perspective may arrive at different conclusions on candidates and issues. 

 

Let us take to heart the bishops’ recommendation that we “study Scripture and church teaching, examine the facts and contexts of various public policy choices, and then prayerfully reflect in order to ‘discern the will of God.’”

 

 

 

Sister Marie, O.P.