The November elections are right around the corner and candidates are courting a wide variety of voting blocs. 24.5% of United States citizens identify as Catholic—and so, the Catholic voting bloc is sure to be critical in the upcoming election. Not only do the candidates recognize the importance of the Catholic voting bloc, Catholic organizations also realize the importance of getting their message out to Catholic voters. So, many Catholic organizations have produced voter guides to educate Catholics about their idea of what Catholic values should be considering when determining your vote. These voter guides are not all alike. There is a huge spectrum of Catholic Voter Guides from the most conservative to quite liberal. Below I have highlighted just a few of these guides and put them into three categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good: Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns’ voter guide is called U.S. Elections 2008: Loving our Neighbor in a Shrinking World. This guide offers the perspective of Maryknoll missioners who have witnessed the global reality around the following issues: climate change, economy, immigration, HIV/AIDS, peace and sustainable security. They state: “We hope this information will help voters identify those values that matter most for our life in our shrinking world. We encourage candidates to make explicit their commitment to the global common good.”
The Bad: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops put out its regular guide entitled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States. This guide is quite lengthy at 42 pages. They set forth ten policy goals for voters to consider ranging from abortion to same-sex marriage to immigration reform to war. However, they add this caveat: “Not all issues are equal, these ten goals address matters of different moral weight and urgency. Some involve matters of intrinsic evil and can never be supported. Others involve affirmative actions to seek the common good.”
The Ugly: Priests for “Life” has created a voter guide entitled a Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics. In this guide, they present what they call “Five Non-Negotiable Issues.” These are: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and same-sex marriage. The guide states, “It is a serious sin to deliberately endorse or promote any of these actions, and no candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any action contrary to the non-negotiable principles involved in these issues.”
While each of these voter guides present very different ideas of what a Catholic voter should consider when they pull the lever in November, each makes a common assertion—that they are working towards the common good. So, leaving debate of the actual Catholic teachings aside, I must ask: What does is the Catholic idea of the common good? Does it advance the common good to vote based solely or cheifly on abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, cloning, and same-sex marriage as Priests for Life and the Bishops assert? Or does it advance the common good to look at the whole of Catholic Social Teaching—not just a few issues—while deciding your vote?
