Catholics should brush up on church teachings before the upcoming presidential election.
This is according to a document the U.S. bishops approved Wednesday during their annual fall meeting in Baltimore.
The document, titled “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” does not mention specific laws or candidates, but does provide church teachings on evocative election issues such as abortion; euthanasia; same-sex marriages; the death penalty; military force, including weapons of mass destruction; and embryonic stem cell research. Every four years since 1976, the bishops have issued a statement. This year marks the first time the full body of bishops wrote the statement.
“A candidate?s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support,” the bishops? report says.
Catholics? political choices affect general peace and prosperity and may also affect an individual voter?s salvation, according to the document.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who presented a draft of the document to the bishops, said the material “is not a voter?s guide.”
However, he also said the document “challenges and disappoints those seeking excuses to ignore fundamental moral issues or to simply vote their private interests or partisan allegiances.”
The document, posted online and expected to reach parishes across the country as church bulletin inserts, does “not tell people how to vote or whom to vote for or against,” said DiMarzio, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Policy. “It offers a basic moral framework on what it means to be a Catholic and American, a believer and a voter in this coming election year.”
The document “addresses issues that come as no surprise to Democrats or Republicans,” Baltimore?s Archbishop Edwin O?Brien said. “Over and over again we say we are not speaking to just Democrats or just Republicans. We?re speaking about the value of human life. We have to take that at face value because Catholics onboth sides of the fence are very much pro-life. … We?re asking that people face the issue and be consistent.”
