Catholics are urged to follow their faith at the polls
BALTIMORE - Proclaiming a sense of new energy and empowerment, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops Wednesday instructed Catholic voters their eternal salvation could be at stake when they cast ballots.
Bishops emphasized that voters must consider the church’s teachings on abortion and other moral issues when they select a candidate for the White House or any other office. If they don’t, bishops said, it’s not clergy who will judge them but God.
“It is important to be clear that the political choices faced by citizens have an impact on general peace and prosperity and also the individual’s salvation,” the bishops said in the document, “Faithful Citizenship.”
“Similarly, the kinds of laws and policies supported by public officials affect their spiritual well-being.”
Bishops have drafted a similar document every four years since the 1976 presidential election, when concerns centered on Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe and recovery from the Watergate scandal. But the guidelines issued Wednesday for the first time spelled out possible consequences and gave more nuanced instruction to the Catholic electorate than in the past.
Voters are implored not to seek pro-choice political candidates but also advised that views on abortion should not be the sole factor. Catholics also should weigh church teaching on such issues as immigration, just war and poverty, the bishops said.
Bishops meeting in Baltimore hailed the document as fulfilling their imperative to enforce church teaching and integrate it into daily life. It also embodies the Catholic mandate to serve as a public witness for the common good.
The document does not tell voters which candidates or party to favor. It also does not address whether priests should deny Communion to Catholic politicians who stray from church teaching. Cardinal Francis George, the newly elected president of the conference, said bishops probably would discuss the issue this week behind closed doors.
George has not threatened to deny the sacrament. He said he’s “primarily concerned that worship remains worship and isn’t manipulated.”
The voting guidelines followed a letter issued by departing President Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, calling for a responsible transition in Iraq.
“Our nation must focus on the ethics of exit than on the ethics of intervention,” Skylstad wrote. “The morally and politically demanding but carefully limited goal of responsible transition should aim to reduce further loss of life and address the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, the refugee crisis in the region, the need to help rebuild the country and human rights, especially religious freedom.”
The Catholic electorate tends to be diverse ethnically, politically and religiously, noted Gregory Smith, a research fellow at the Pew Institute on Religion and Public Life.