Election Day is coming soon, and this has particular relevance to us as Catholics. As Catholics, we are obliged to participate in public life, and that includes voting. Indeed, there are many in this world who are denied this basic right, and so we who live in a free country should take our civic duty to vote very seriously. At the same time, we know that voting can be difficult because we do not find candidates who conform perfectly (or even mostly) to our beliefs as Catholics. This can create a lot of anxiety for conscientious Catholic voters.
The U.S. Bishops understand this, and at every election, they remind us that there are resources available to help Catholics (and all people, really) form their consciences properly as they prepare to vote. In particular, I recommend that each and every Catholic voter read Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship-title), which is a great resource to help Catholic voters form their consciences before Election Day. The Bishops have added a new introduction to this document for the 2024 elections, and I’ve included that as an insert to this weekend’s bulletin. I highly encourage all of you to read this introduction — and the entire document — word for word, as it addresses a lot of the questions with which Catholic voters wrestle as we try to let our faith guide our civic duty.
The title of this document is very telling when it comes to how we should approach this election. The Church never tells us which candidates to vote for; that’s a matter for each individual’s conscience. However, the document calls us to remember what “conscience” is, and what it is not. While the world around us treats conscience as a mere feeling — our self-determination about what’s right and wrong — Christians understand that conscience is “a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1778). In other words, it’s not about us determining what’s right and wrong. Rather, it’s about us using our God-given intellect to recognize what’s right and wrong in the eyes of the Lord.
This is not a quick and simplistic process, and it certainly doesn’t fit in with the soundbites and arguments that characterize much of the news coverage that we see. Therefore, it’s up to us to dig deeply into our faith in order to be good citizens of our nation, and these documents are a great way to get started. I hope and pray that God’s will be done in this election, so that His will may be manifested in the leaders we elect.
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