By Jonathan Liedl/National Catholic Register
For many Catholics, Election Day can be a daunting experience.
Imperfect candidates, a multitude of issues, and the high value the Church puts on faithfully casting a ballot can create a pressure-filled experience at the ballot box.
But fear not — voting like a Catholic need not be a heavy burden or an impossible task.
Here are some steps you can take before, on and after Election Day to help live out your call to faithful citizenship.
Put on ‘the mind of Christ.’
As Catholics, our faith informs everything we do. So it’s unsurprising that when it comes to voting and forming positions on the issues, our perspective should be different from what we come across on mainstream news shows or social media.
In the 2024 edition of “Forming Guidance for Faithful Citizenship,” the U.S. bishops urge Catholic voters to put on “the mind of Christ” as they prepare for Election Day.
“Take time away from social media and spend time with Holy Scripture and the Blessed Sacrament,” they say. “Turn off the TV and the podcast, and listen in silence. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, a crisis pregnancy center. Serve the poor, the needy, the outcast. Pray often, letting faith inform your political participation.”
Prayer, as the bishops say, “is essential to discern the will of God.” Pre-Election Day prayers could be for humility to receive the Church’s teaching with openness, prudence to discern how to best vote or zeal to embrace voting as a part of our Christian witness — or for all of the above.
Review how voting is part of our Christian duty.
Because voting is such a temporal, practical thing, it’s easy to think it isn’t called for by our faith. We might be tempted to avoid political engagement as an unnecessary involvement in worldly affairs.
But that’s not how our Church describes getting involved in politics. “In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation,” say the U.S. bishops in “Faithful Citizenship.”
This is because, as the bishops teach, “we are called to bring together our principles and our political choices, our values and our votes, to help build a civilization of truth and love.”
Voting obviously isn’t the only — or even the most important — way we can build a “civilization of truth and love” and promote the common good. But as Americans, it is a right afforded to us and is a critical way that we carry out our Christian duty to love our neighbor and make society more just.
Growing in conviction about this truth is an important step to preparing ourselves to vote like a Catholic on Election Day. Reading the first section of the U.S. bishops’ “Faithful Citizenship” or the relevant section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church are good places to start.
Study Church teaching on the issues.
As Catholics, we’re called to vote with a purpose: to promote the common good and protect human life and dignity.
Therefore, it’s important that we study how our faith’s teachings about the human person and society apply to the relevant issues of the day, from how we treat unborn life to how we handle newcomers at our borders; from how we protect religious freedom to how we steward our natural resources; from how we factor the poor into our economic policies to the vision of family life we promote.
Part II of “Forming Consciences” applies Catholic teaching to these critical issues. The Register’s 2024 Voter’s Guide also provides important summaries of relevant Church teaching.
Some important elements to highlight: As we form our consciences, we are not allowed to ignore Church teaching on any of these issues. In fact, the bishops warn against dismissing some areas of teaching as “optional concerns.” The Church’s moral principles are never negotiable.
At the same time, the Church also teaches that some issues carry more weight than others — especially those that directly destroy human life. For instance, the bishops continue to describe the threat of abortion as “our preeminent priority because it directly attacks our most vulnerable and voiceless brothers and sisters and destroys more than a million lives per year in our country alone.”
This both/and approach — factoring in every issue, while also recognizing that some have greater weight than others — is required to form the kind of integrated, Catholic conscience needed for voting.
Review the candidates’ positions, character and effectiveness.
After adequately forming one’s conscience according to the teachings of the Church, the next step is to evaluate the candidates accordingly.
For instance, when it comes to the top presidential contenders, visiting Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’ campaign websites is an important step, as is paying attention to what the candidates say in interviews and debates. Again, the Register’s Voter’s Guide is a handy resource in this area.
The bishops encourage Catholic voters to “take into account a candidate’s commitments, character, integrity and ability to influence a given issue.” Given what you know about the candidates, how will they influence the common good and affect human dignity if elected? That’s the kind of question to ask when evaluating a candidate through the lens of Church teaching.
Make a judgment — and vote accordingly!
Now that you’ve formed your conscience and evaluated the candidates, there’s one thing left to do: Vote!
To do this well, we need to exercise the virtue of prudence, which the bishops say “shapes and informs our ability to deliberate over available alternatives, to determine what is most fitting to a specific context, and to act decisively.”
A few important things to keep in mind.
When voting, you’re not canonizing a candidate or saying you agree with him or her on every issue. Instead, after prudent discernment, you think that, among the options, that person is the best possibility.
When multiple candidates support intrinsic evils, the bishops say that voters “may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic goods” — or a voter may decide “to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate.” Catholic voters are also not bound to vote for one of the two major parties.
In the end, while voting is an important duty, it’s best not to overthink things. If you’ve faithfully formed your conscience, evaluated the candidates, and prayed for God’s guidance, you’re in a good position to form a judgment, and cast your ballot accordingly. To paraphrase St. Augustine, “Love God and vote as you will.”
Don’t stop on Election Day.
Forming our consciences to faithfully vote may seem like a lot of effort for just one day. But the good news is that the process has relevance well beyond Election Day.
By studying the Church’s social teaching and applying it to contemporary issues, you’ve prepared yourself to be a faithful citizen in multiple contexts beyond Nov. 5. So why stop there? Get involved in local politics; creatively serve the poor and the homeless; run for a spot on your local your school board; volunteer at a pregnancy-resource center; write letters to the editor on important community issues. The possibilities are endless.
