Next Tuesday, Nov. 4, is General Election Day. Although an increasing number of voters are casting early ballots, the majority still vote on Election Day. If you have not yet voted, please spend some time over this weekend reviewing the Nebraska Catholic Conference’s Candidate Survey and other election information online at necatholic.org.
The NCC survey was sent to all candidates for Governor and for State Legislature. Unfortunately, nearly half of the candidates did not respond to the survey, despite being mailed three reminder notices. Nonetheless, I urge Catholics to go to the website and if a candidate you seek to assess did not respond to the survey, call or email the candidate and question him/her directly. The NCC questions can be seen by clicking on any link where a candidate did respond to the survey.
It should be made clear that neither the Nebraska Catholic Conference nor the Archdiocese of Omaha, the Diocese of Lincoln, or the Diocese of Grand Island, endorses or opposes any candidate for public office. The NCC survey merely provides voters with the positions and views of the candidates for Governor and State Legislature on a variety of important issues.
This survey is the last component to the Nebraska Catholic Conference’s Voter Education Project that began weeks ago. The project’s objective has been to provide Catholics with information helpful in forming consciences according to Catholic moral principles and applying these principles to our evaluation and selection of candidates for public office.
As the U.S. Bishops acknowledge in the document “Faithful Citizenship,” Catholics often face difficult choices about how to vote because few candidates fully embody the Church’s social doctrine. “This is why it is so important to vote according to a well-formed conscience that perceives the proper relationship among moral goods,” the bishops advise.
In another document, Living the Gospel of Life (#22, #33), the U.S. Bishops provide important guidance on the “proper relationship among moral goods.” I pray that this guidance resonates in the minds and hearts of voters as they exercise the very serious civic and moral responsibility of voting.
“Adopting a consistent ethic of life, the Catholic Church promotes a broad spectrum of issues ‘seeking to protect human life and promote human dignity from the inception of life to its final moment.’ Opposition to abortion and euthanasia does not excuse indifference to those who suffer from poverty, violence and injustice… Therefore, Catholics should eagerly involve themselves as advocates for the weak and marginalized in all these areas.
“Catholic public officials are obliged to address each of these issues as they seek to build consistent policies which promote respect for the human person at all stages of life. But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community.
“If we understand the human person as the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’—the living house of God—then these latter issues fall logically into place as the crossbeams and walls of that house. All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the house’s foundation. These directly and immediately violate the human person’s most fundamental right—the right to life. Neglect of these issues is the equivalent of building our house on sand. Such attacks cannot help but lull the social conscience in ways ultimately destructive of other human rights.”
“We encourage all citizens, particularly Catholics, to embrace their citizenship not merely as a duty and privilege, but as an opportunity meaningfully to participate in building the culture of life. Every voice matters in the public forum. Every vote counts. Every act of responsible citizenship is an exercise of significant individual power.
We must exercise that power in ways that defend human life, especially those of God’s children who are unborn, disabled or otherwise vulnerable. We get the public officials we deserve. Their virtue—or lack thereof—is a judgment not only on them, but on us. Because of this, we urge our fellow citizens to see beyond party politics, to analyze campaign rhetoric critically, and to choose their political leaders according to principle, not party affiliation or mere self-interest.”
