Some years ago, during a presidential election year when a school student asked me which candidate I was going to vote for. One of the other students said, “He’s a priest. He has to vote for…” It turned out to be the candidate I was planning on voting for, but I didn’t answer the question. I was encouraged, however, that the student thought that my faith would influence my vote, even if he was simply echoing what his parents had said.
The truth is that I rarely like to talk about politics. I hope that my Catholic faith and values would inform my decision on whom to vote for. On the other hand, people who share common values and hopes may honestly disagree on the best way to accomplish those goals. I do not like today’s political arguments, which have become so much mudslinging, so I generally avoid political discussions. In addition, I do not want to make it appear that I am speaking “for the Church” in any official way that would count as a Catholic endorsement of any candidate.
This year, I am afraid, the choice is harder than ever. Every candidate for President (including Libertarian and Green Party candidates) is, in some way or another, deeply flawed. But one of these candidates will be the next President of the United States. So unless we plan to write in Abraham Lincoln or Harold Stassen, we have a choice to make. I would like to offer some of the thoughts of Bishop James Conley, Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, who was in his last year at Mount St. Mary Seminary in my first year. Bishop Conley writes, “On some issues the moral obligations of Catholics, and the demands of the common good, are abundantly clear. For example, no Catholic can vote in good conscience to expand legal protection for abortion, or to support the killing of unborn children… Abortion is a grave, unconscionable, and intolerable evil, and we cannot support it in the voting booth.” He adds, “In good conscience, some Catholics might choose to vote for a candidate who, with some degree of probability, would be most likely to do some good, and the least amount of harm, on the foundational issues: life, family, conscience rights and religious liberty. Or, in good conscience, some might choose the candidate who best represents a Christian vision of society, regardless of the probability of winning. Or, in good conscience, some might choose not to vote for any candidate at all in a particular office.”
In addition, I would like to add the words of Bishop Robert Barron, who warns against seeing a politician as “Messianic” in the sense that this person, once elected, will solve all our problems. He offers as our attitude, “I don’t care how good and impressive a politician is, and they might be. They might be very bright, very gifted, very capable, but they’re not the Messiah. And the minute we think they are, then we are on a short road to disaster. So I think that’s something that biblical people are very, very legitimately reticent about is any move in that kind of apotheosizing of political leaders.”
Father H
