Monday, March 31, 2008
Catholic Voters and the Presidential Election
"Trying to Vote in Good Conscience
ELIZABETH F. BROWN, University of
St. Thomas, St. Paul/Minneapolis, MN - School of Law
Email: [email protected]
[ABSTRACT:] In November 2007, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued "Forming
Consciences for Faithful Citizenship - A Call to Political Responsibility from
the Catholic Bishops of the United States." This statement by the American
Catholic Bishops provides guidance to Catholic voters on how to execute their
responsibilities in accord with Catholic social teaching.
Despite some
flaws, "Forming Consciences" has three major virtues that will aid American
Catholics as they try to vote in good conscience. First, it reaffirms the need
for American Catholics become more familiar with and to apply the broad range of
Catholic social teachings when voting and exercising their other civic duties.
Second, it explicitly rejects the notion that Catholics should be single issue
voters. Third, Forming Consciences encourages, but certainly does not require,
American Catholics to adopt a holistic ethical approach when evaluating
candidates and issues. Such a holistic approach tends to provide better
solutions, certainly on economic and environmental issues, than the narrow
definition of issues and problems currently used in politics.
This essay
comments on how useful the document is in actually helping the average American
Catholic, who is not already an expert in Catholic social teachings, discern how
to vote. As part of this assessment, it focuses on how much weight Catholics
should give to economic and environmental issues based upon the guidance
provided by the Bishops' statement. These issues were chosen because they are a
growing areas of concern both for Americans and for the Vatican.
This
essay was written for the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies Symposium issue on
"Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship - A Call to Political
Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States."
[To download/read the paper, click here.]
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2008/03/catholic-voters.html