How to Vote like a Catholic

It's opening day of election season and I thought I'd mark the occasion by posting some helpful information to rouse our collective conscience.  The Catholic Advocate is an excellent site (so are National Arizona Right to Life and the Susan B. Anthony List) for obtaining vital information on each candidate and where they stand on the issues nearest and dearest to our hearts.  From the site...

How to Vote Catholic – In Brief:

Catholics should be guided by a few basic principles when considering their participation in politics. Catholics are obliged to participate in politics by voting. Their legislators are elected to serve and protect the common good, human dignity, and rights of human persons.  As voters, they should have a clear understanding of the principles of Catholic moral and social teaching, and they should understand that life issues are dominant in the hierarchy of issues for the Catholic voter.

Prudential judgment is the application of principle to concrete situations, such as those a Catholic might encounter on a routine basis in the political sphere. Catholic principles apply to all political issues. In many cases, however, Catholic principles do not lead prudentially to one acceptable Catholic position, so on certain matters, Catholics of good conscience may disagree. The bishops’ teachings on faith and morals are binding; their prudential judgments on policy guide us but do not bind us.

Each individual Catholic is called to bear public witness to their faith. Faith is not a private matter. The Christian Faith cannot be restricted to oneself and one’s family. Such an attitude would render it impossible to “love one’s neighbor.” Additionally, the political order cannot be separated from the divine order revealed by faith. (Gaudium et Spes, 74). Politics and government need the public witness of what faith teaches about the common good, human rights, and human dignity.

Then you can go to their site at http://catholicadvocate.com/?page_id=8 and select from a comprehensive list of issues to review the Catholic position on each:

•                Abortion

•                Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

•                Bioethics

•                Population

•                The Death Penalty

•                War

•                Defense & Terrorism

•                Judicial Issues

•                Marriage & the Family

•                Education

•                Economic Issues

•                Taxation

•                Poverty

•                Health Care

•                Religious Liberty

•                Immigration

•                The Environment

Eight weeks from today, your vote will have counted....for something.