This is the second post in a brief series of reflections in the weeks leading up to the U.S. election on Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the U.S. Catholic bishops’ voting guide. Posts in the series will be published about once per week.
It was November 3rd, 2020. After months of presidential campaign ads, social media battles, and everyone from celebrities to t-shirts harping on the importance of voting, the booths were open. In New Jersey, all the polls indicated that the popular and electoral votes would go blue in the presidential election, with virtually no contest as far as the state was concerned.
What wasn’t as clear was who would win the local government offices in a small NJ borough. Three seats were open for the school board, and those running included two incumbents with excellent credentials and records serving on the board. One had a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard, was a professor at NYU, and had two children in the district. He’d worked with great commitment during his last term serving. Another incumbent was a seasoned teacher in a different district, also with two children in the local schools, and had invested in the community through faithful service to the school board and running the local soccer club with his wife. While other candidates had enthusiasm, these two had professional expertise, personal interest, impeccable records, and experiential knowledge that came with having served on the board before.
What they didn’t have was good placement on the ballot. Many citizens walked into the polling place with little to no knowledge of the local issues and elections. They brought with them the benighted assumption that they were required to fill out every section of the ballot. In their haste to cast their presidential vote, many ignorantly cast votes for school board. And while New Jersey went blue as expected, the qualified and experienced school board incumbents were defeated – a great loss to the community.
As another presidential election approaches, we once again hear this call (or demand) to VOTE. As Catholics, it is a good time to review the guidance given to us by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops in their document entitled “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” with a new introduction for the 2024 election. Unlike many outspoken and celebrity Catholics – both lay and clergy – the bishops do not tell us that we must vote for a particular candidate. In fact, the document is framed in terms of conscience formation and use of prudence. The political elections invite Catholics to a particular examination of conscience as concerns our life in the Church and in society.
Here I will make three points in commentary on the USCCB document. First, while we have a responsibility to participate in the political life of our country, this is not solely identified with voting, and any and all political participation should be rooted in conscience formation, which means knowing what the Church teaches on relevant topics. Secondly, the virtue of prudence enables us to discern where political parties and candidates fall short or succeed in supporting the Catholic views that we believe will further the good of our country. Our use of prudence also helps us to focus on political acts that have greater impact and to discern among candidates and platforms based on Catholic values. Third, prudence clarifies our vision for fostering unity in the Church during a time of political elections. Those who form their consciences with Church teaching recognize how politics can rob individuals of interior peace and cause division among those who should be united in the Eucharist.
First, regarding Catholic political participation, Paragraph 13 of Part I clearly states: “In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation.”
This participation, however, has the greatest influence and potential for good when American Catholics know Church teachings and have formed their consciences in accord with these teachings – not only in knowledge but by practicing and living the faith. The new Introductory Note to the document thus states:
“It is our responsibility to learn more of Catholic teaching and tradition, to participate in Church life, to learn from trustworthy sources about the issues facing our communities, and to do our best to make wise judgments about candidates and government actions” (ix).
At Vatican II we were given the language of the “universal call to holiness,” as well as the insight that lay people are particularly called to be leaven in the world (Lumen Gentium, Chapter 5). In the priesthood of all believers, the laity serve as priests to the world, whereas ordained clergy serve as priests to the laity (Lumen Gentium, Chapters 2 and 10). Virtuous political participation depends upon this perspective; our lives of faith, hope, and love facilitate our contributions to whichever society in which we find ourselves. Perhaps this is why the bishops mention specifically that time spent in prayer or serving the poor benefits us much more than time spent reading news or on social media (“Introductory Note,” viii).
Those who know the complicated history of the term “conscience,” in moral theology might wonder at the bishops’ employing it here. Peter Cajka’s book Follow Your Conscience relates how conscience began as a concept used by Catholics to protest against the US government’s war in Vietnam but quickly shifted to defend dissent from Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae. In another post in this series, Matt Shadle writes more about conscience. The bishops’ main reason for using “conscience” in this document seems simply for Catholics to know Church teachings on a variety of relevant political topics, such that they may maintain a consistent Catholic position in the current bipartisan situation where neither party fully represents Catholic teachings.
Secondly, with the knowledge of Church teachings, the virtue of prudence should guide the decisions we make with our well-formed consciences. Of course, we often see that committed Catholics, who seem to have taken the above call to heart, nonetheless reach different conclusions when it comes to voting. And yet, voting cannot be the sum of American Catholic political participation.
In paragraph 7 of Part I, we read the following:
“In this statement, we bishops do not intend to tell Catholics for whom or against whom to vote. Our purpose is to help Catholics form their consciences in accordance with God’s truth. We recognize that the responsibility to make choices in political life rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience, and that participation goes well beyond casting a vote in a particular election.”
Prudence is the virtue of right reason in action. The bishops quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Prudence enables us ‘to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1806)” (Part I, Paragraph 19).
Prudence allows us to see that political involvement represented by voting is important, yet it is not the sum of our participation in society. Nor is there any merit in voting as such; voting just to vote is of no value, and, as described in the opening narrative may have harmful results.
The USCCB notes that American Catholics often face difficult decisions among parties and candidates that do not consistently represent Catholic positions (Part I, Paragraph 34). They write: “Aided by the virtue of prudence in the exercise of well-formed consciences, Catholics are called to make practical judgments regarding good and evil choices in the political arena” (Part I, Paragraph 21). This requires perceiving and evaluating various moral goods (Part I, Paragraph 34).
The bishops state this clearly:
A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who favors a policy promoting an intrinsically evil act…if the voter’s intent is to support that position… At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity (Part I, Paragraph 34).
Rather, our opposition to intrinsically evil acts must also show us “our positive duty to contribute to the common good and to act in solidarity with those in need” (Part I, Paragraph 24). We are called both to oppose evil and to promote good. Thus, if we find ourselves having to vote in such a way that prioritizes one issue over another, we should be aware of this and find ways to support the Catholic view on both issues.
Finally, attention to conscience formation within the Church and making prudential decisions about voting and participation in society should foster unity in the Church and society, rather than division. One implication of this is that our identity as American Catholics should not be first and foremost rooted in any particular party.
The document states:
As citizens, we should be guided more by our moral convictions than by our attachment to a political party or interest group. When necessary, our participation should help transform the party to which we belong; we should not let the party transform us in such a way that we neglect or deny fundamental moral truths or approve intrinsically evil acts. 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 (Part I, paragraph 14).
In our current political situation, Catholics with well-formed consciences can easily recognize that neither political party platform represents Church teaching. Those who have difficulty acknowledging this point would do well to read Part III of the bishops’ document, which considers various political issues facing our country, from abortion to immigration. Catholics who want to be in accord with the Church should attend to the quotation above, and use it as an occasion for an examination of conscience: Have I let my political party transform me and my views? Has my concern for one particular issue led me to neglect another moral issue or even speak out in support of a grave evil, against the bishops’ guidance? Has my attachment to a party or a candidate become a more important part of my identity than being Catholic? Is a friend or an acquaintance more likely to know of my political positions or of my faith?
The bishops emphasize that “respect for the dignity of every person” is at the center, as “the core of Catholic moral and social teaching” (Part I, Paragraph 10). Catholics bring this view to the public square while also heeding Christ’s call to love one another. Citing Pope Benedict XVI, the document explains that charity must animate the lives of the faithful, including their political activity.
Again, we can use these thoughts to examine our consciences: Do I use prudence in communicating my voting choices to others, including on social media? Does my political activity extend beyond voting, animated by charity? Do I respect and love those (Catholic or not) who vote differently than myself? How does my life within the Church and in the political arena reflect love and respect for others? Do I cast well-informed votes with prudential consideration of the potential impact in supporting Catholic teachings?
Returning to the opening narrative, we can see the problematic tendency of the trendy imperative simply to “VOTE!” As Catholics, we recognize that voting is important, especially at the local level where school board elections can be won or lost with a handful of ballots. If we do not have time to research candidates or issues, we should abstain from voting on them. Preferably, we will be able to make well-informed decisions that result from good conscience formation and the exercise of prudence.
Yet we also recognize that our political participation extends far beyond voting into the ways we choose to live our lives rooted in the Church, which forms our very identity and views on pressing political topics. And finally, as Catholics we strive to foster unity within our Church by respecting those who judge differently than ourselves. We maintain our interior peace by focusing on growing in our own lives of faith through regular participation in the sacraments.
