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October 8, 2020In less than a month, Americans will go to the polls to elect local, state and national leaders, including our president and vice president. This will be a consequential election no matter the outcome. There is much at stake.
Adding to the drama that every election cycle produces is the undeniable fact that this election is being conducted during a year of nearly unprecedented turmoil. We are in the midst of a global pandemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States and more than a million worldwide. It has produced economic uncertainty and loss of jobs across the land. Racial tensions have spawned protests and erupted in violence. Natural disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes have focused attention on the fragility of the environment, which is, as Pope Francis has reminded us, “our common home.” Fear, incivility and division are infecting our world through the often-toxic influence of social media.
So, how do we weigh all of these factors and many others as we prepare to exercise our precious right to vote as responsible citizens and faithful Catholics?
Every four years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issues its Faithful Citizenship document as an exercise in the bishops’ duty to teach and apply moral principles that impact and guide the choices we must make so we can approach the polls in a way that reflects not primarily our party’s interests, but especially our faith as Catholics.
In the 2020 version of the Faithful Citizenship document, the bishops write: “For all Catholics, including those seeking public office, our participation in political parties or other groups to which we may belong should be influenced by our faith, not the other way around.” Our approach to contemporary issues ought to be guided by our identity as followers of Christ and brothers and sisters to all who are created in God’s image and likeness.
There are certainly many issues that have moral weight and social importance, but they are not all equal in demanding our attention and concern. So where do we start? The bishops of the United States this year reaffirmed that “The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed.” There is simply no other issue that poses as great a threat to human life and dignity as abortion.
To date, there have been more than 60 million unborn children lost to abortion in the United States since 1973. (There were 862,000 in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute.) Direct abortion is an intrinsic evil, meaning that it is always and everywhere wrong to take the life of an innocent unborn child no matter the circumstances. The protection of innocent life is fundamental to our defense of every life, and our unborn sisters and brothers are the most innocent and most vulnerable of all. If we fail to defend the most innocent, then our defense and advocacy for the rights and dignity of every other human person is inauthentic. Certainly we have not done all we must do even when we have properly considered the impact our vote will have on the unborn child.
Respect for life must begin at conception and extend to natural death. It’s not either/or. It’s both/and. We also must be advocates for the poor and the immigrant and the marginalized in our society. We have a duty to defend the dignity of all regardless of their race, sex, ethnicity or religion, and to protect the liberty to live those beliefs outside of the four walls of a church. We have a responsibility to care for our common home and remember those who will come after us. We have to be concerned for the incarcerated and the condemned, because it is to all of these that Jesus came to proclaim Good News and with whom he identified.
As he said in speaking of the last judgment, “Whatever you do or fail to do the least of my brothers and sisters you do or fail to do to me!” (cf. Matthew 25:40,45).