Catholics advised to vote faithfully in coming election

Every four years, in conjunction with our presidential election, we bishops of the United States issue a political responsibility statement designed to articulate the major principles of Catholic social teaching and their applicability to the major issues confronting our nation and world.

Titled "Faithful Citizenship," the statement makes it clear that elections are a time for debate and decisions concerning the leaders, policies and values that will guide our country in a time of terror and war, of global insecurity and economic uncertainty, of family dysfunction and social unrest, and of disrespect for human life and human dignity. Those issues are not simply political, economic and technological; they are ethical, moral and spiritual as well.

As Catholics, we must confront those issues not purely from a personal or partisan point of view that asks, "Am I better off than four years ago?" but also from the perspective of the common good, which poses the question, "How can we -- all of us, especially the weak and vulnerable -- be better off in the years ahead?"

Major issues

In our post-9/11 era, many political analysts have opined that this is the most important presidential election since 1932, which was conducted in the depths of the Great Depression.

Forty-five million Americans lack health insurance and 35 million live below the poverty level (up over a million just this past year)...Social Security reform is a necessity if it is to meet its promises...30,000 children die every day as a result of hunger, international debt and lack of development throughout the world...many people resort to violence to solve our most difficult challenges -- abortion to deal with problem pregnancies, the death penalty to combat crimes, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide to deal with the burdens of age, illness and disability, and war to address international disputes.

Given all of that, we must weigh carefully how our participation in the public policy debate and our vote can contribute to greater respect for human life and dignity, religious tolerance and democracy, economic justice, and care for God's creation.

We must break through the cynicism of mean-spirited attack ads, deceptive sound bites and campaign hype to discern -- through the moral and spiritual lens of Catholic social teaching -- which candidate and which party are best able to lead us for the next four years.

Moral dimensions

It should be noted that, in "Faithful Citizenship," we bishops are not seeking to engage in partisan politics or to form a voting bloc. Rather, as spiritual leaders and religious teachers, we have a responsibility to speak to the moral dimensions of public life.

Also, contrary to some pundits, we have the right to raise our voices both because we are citizens in a democracy and because major public policy issues have moral dimensions that require a moral and ethical analysis.

Thus, as moral leaders, we bishops seek to form the conscience of our people in light of our faith so that we can see beyond party politics, analyze campaign rhetoric constructively and choose our political leaders according to principle, not party affiliation or mere self-interest.

Ethic of life

In doing so, we bishops do not wish to dictate how people vote by endorsing or opposing candidates. Rather, we hope Catholics will examine candidates on a full range of issues, as well as their personal integrity, philosophy and performance.

We are convinced that a consistent ethic of life should be the moral framework from which to address issues in the public arena.

Further, our Catholic moral framework does not easily fit the ideologies of liberal or conservative, nor the platform of any party. Neither are our values necessarily "politically correct."

Platforms

Our moral framework arises from the values of Scripture, and from careful and prayerful reflection upon those values through the experience of Christian living over the past 2,000 years.

For example, our Catholic moral principles may be more in accord with the platform of the Republican Party on abortion or on faith-based initiatives in the area of education, health and human services.

On the other hand, the platform of the Democrat Party on more consistent political and financial support for the United Nations and international law, or on issues of global climate change and environmental neglect may seem to be more in conformity with our Catholic moral framework than that of the Republican party.

Respect life

I can think of no better way for us Catholics to commemorate our annual Respect Life Month in October than to register to vote by Oct. 8, to read and reflect upon the values and principles outlined in "Faithful Citizenship," and to use them as the moral framework for casting our ballots.

To be faithful citizens will require:

* discipline to study the issues, and to know the candidates and their views on these matters;

* humility to listen both to those with whom we agree and disagree;

* civility in discussing the issues with others and

* courage to make faith in the common good, not party affiliation or personal self-interest, the guiding force in fulfilling the noble privilege of voting that our democracy affords us.

May we exercise this responsibility prudently and wisely so that our nation may continue to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

(For more information on "Faithful Citizenship" and how it can be utilized in a variety of personal, parish and civic settings, contact our diocesan Public Policy Committee at 453-6650. The text, which recently ran serially in The Evangelist, can be read in toto at www.usccb.org.)

"Let me cite an issue where I don't believe our Catholic position is fully understood or embraced by either political party: embryonic stem-cell research.

Stem cells are primitive "mother" cells that theoretically can be turned into any of the 200 cell types found in the human body. Some scientists (but not all) claim that only cells taken from human embryos have ideal properties for stem-cell therapy designed to address an array of illnesses ranging from Parkinson's to diabetes.

While our Catholic teaching strongly supports adult stem-cell research through agencies like the National Institutes of Health, it opposes embryonic stem-cell research because, as the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Life states: The embryo is a "human individual," thus deserving "the full respect that is due every human person....Human embryos are not subjects who can give their personal consent to experimentation that exposes them to grave risk without the benefit of any directly therapeutic effect for themselves."

Catholic teaching, then, is not unsympathetic to the need for stem-cell research, but it is opposed to "an ends justifies the means" approach of using stem cells from human embryos, even those discarded by fertility clinics.

As Kathleen Gallagher of the New York State Catholic Conference notes, "Just because embryos are going to be thrown out anyway or will die doesn't give society the right to destroy them for research purposes. It would be like researchers harvesting the organs of death row prisoners, simply because they know the prisoners are going to die anyway."

(9/30/04)