Do you hear competing voices both from outside and within the Catholic world telling you how to vote? “Good” Catholics must vote one way and “bad” Catholics are voting the other way?
While it is helpful to listen for the wisdom in others, ultimately, it is not anyone’s right to tell us how to vote. Instead, the U.S. bishops invite us to educate ourselves and form our own consciences to decide our vote.
In “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States,” the U.S. bishops call us to adopt a prayerful and reflective stance toward forming our consciences for voting. It is a call to let some of the loud voices of partisanship fade away and to let the compassionate voice of our Lord (who loves all his children with a special care for the “least of these”) enter our hearts and minds. This document is best read in its entirety, which I encourage you to do at www.usccb.org/resources/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship.
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Here are four thoughts from my reading of the document.
— Vote in a way to advance the human dignity of all people and lift up the common good.
Catholic Social Teaching and Faithful Citizenship are very clear — in every political, social and moral matter, we, as Catholics, strive to affirm the life and dignity of all people and build up a political and social order that promotes solidarity and the common good. When acting or voting in the public sphere, we are called to discern policies and politicians that best advance the vision of the Gospels and the Kingdom of God. While not all moral issues are weighted equally, neither can we ignore the breadth and depth of moral and social matters that impact the life and dignity of God’s people in various ways.
— Our faith should inform our politics; our politics should not inform our faith.
“For all Catholics, including those seeking public office, our participation in political parties or other groups to which we may belong should be influenced by our faith, not the other way around” (Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship – Introductory Letter).
Ask yourself, “What is at the center of my life? Is it my faith or my political party and beliefs?”
If we agree with every moral and social position of our political party of choice, then there is a good chance that our politics informs our faith and not that our faith informs our politics. The Catholic faith is not beholden to or guided by any particular political party. In fact, our moral and social views as Catholics make it difficult at times to neatly share space with any political party.
Let me suggest a way to help discern if our faith or our politics is at the center of our lives. If we spend more time watching our favorite news channel (including Catholic news), reading the newspaper, and/or watching videos we find on the internet than we do in reading Scripture and praying quietly, then we probably let our politics inform our faith.
We all can be guilty of this mistake. We allow our news programs and our political views to come first, which makes them in some sense our god, and then our faith must shift and change to fit in with our politics. By spending more time with the Lord and praying with the Gospels, we can better make sure that our faith guides our politics and not the other way around.
— “Form-ing” Not “Form-ed”
The title of this document is Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. Notice the “-ing” at the end of the word. That means that formation is ongoing, fluid, in the present moment, and open to conversion, new ideas and nuances. The word the U.S. bishops did not choose is “formed.” Formed suggests the process is already done — that there is nothing new to learn or way we can grow. How tempted so many of us are to be already “formed.” But how sad to be closed off to new learning and new possibilities for conversion and growth. And how dangerous it is to adopt a hardened position of being already formed. Only God is all-knowing.
— Whose conscience is each person responsible for forming?
The short answer — our own. By spending more time on educating and forming our own consciences and then adopting the civil and respectful dialogue found in Civilize It: Dignity beyond the Debate (www.wearesaltandlight.org/civilize-it), we will actually be able to better witness our deeply held beliefs in a way that may lead others to have a greater understanding of, and perhaps even a conversion to, what we believe.
Simply telling others how to vote may turn them off and make them more hardened to what we believe. Let us invite the Spirit to work through us to create a culture of encounter in which dialogue and listening to understand others will most effectively lead to changed hearts and minds to what we believe as Catholics. It will also help us to keep an open mind and may lead to our own change of heart, too.
Matthew Davis is director of Life and Justice Ministries, Diocese of Camden.
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