American Catholics should vote their conscience in the presidential election, Pope Francis said during a Sunday news conference.
The leader of the Catholic Church said he would never interfere in electoral politics as “the people are sovereign,” but gave some general advice for the faithful who may be struggling to choose between Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
“I’ll just say this: Study the proposals well, pray, and choose in conscience,” he told reporters on his way back from a recent visit to Azerbaijan.
American Catholics, many of whom are Hispanic, are considered a key voting bloc since they tend to support the winning candidate at the polls. This election cycle is particularly challenging to the faithful as they find the policy positions of each of the major party candidates do not necessarily reflect their values.
Though the pope said he was speaking about a “fictional situation,” he said a poor candidate selection can be an indication that the “political culture” of a country may be in turmoil.
“When in any country there are two, three or four candidates who don’t satisfy everyone, it means that perhaps the political life of that country has become too politicized and that it does not have much political culture,” he said. “People say ‘I’m from this party’ or ‘I’m from that party,’ but effectively, they don’t have clear thoughts about the basics, about proposals.”
