The Catechism confirms that it is “morally obligatory . . . to exercise the right to vote,” but with a provincial election next week and a federal election potentially looming, many feel overwhelmed by the flood of competing issues and candidate platforms.
How is a Catholic to sort through all this? The Church gives us some clear guiding principles.
There are many issues to consider in an election, but they are not all of equal moral weight. The right to life is the most foundational of human rights. While the economy, immigration, health care, racial issues, and the environment are all important, they are inconsequential if a person does not first have life.
This, in part, is why abortion, if applicable, is the primary issue to be considered in an election. Madison, Wis., Bishop Donald Hying provides an explanation that is equally applicable to Canada, noting the U.S. bishops have declared abortion “the preeminent moral issue” because there is “no other evil extolled in either party's platform or candidate's policies that matches a party's or candidate's promotion of the intrinsic evil of the direct and deliberate taking of so many human lives.”
St. John Paul II confirmed this when he said the right to health, home, work and family is “false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination” (Christifideles Laici).
He then pronounced, “by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors . . . I declare that direct abortion . . . always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.”
Pope Francis echoed this in an address to Italian pro-life leaders, saying abortion “undermines the foundations of the construction of justice, compromising the proper solution of any other human and social issue.”
In short, we can never vote for candidates or laws that maintain or increase access to abortion, which is always intrinsically evil, especially when a pro-life option is available.
But what if things are not so clear cut? What if no candidate is ideal when it comes to life? Then the Catholic principle of double effect, commonly but inaccurately known as the lesser of two evils, often comes into consideration.
While a Catholic is never free to deliberately choose evil or commit an evil act so good may come from it, an action can sometimes have both good and evil effects. We are permitted to make such a choice when the action itself is not evil, the resulting good is intended, and the evil is not intended. For example, one could conceivably vote for an imperfect candidate if it would limit the evil that a more extreme candidate would do.
This also touches on the idea of proportionality: the resulting good from the action must outweigh the associated evil.
What if you disagree with the Church’s assessment of things? Catholics must vote their conscience, right?
Sort of. Here’s a good rule of thumb I tell my children. If you truly form your conscience – reading copiously from solid Church documents, papal writings, etc. – and you still find your conscience in conflict with Church teaching, go back and form it again! Sorry to break it to you, but it is unlikely you are smarter than the Church, which is protected by the Holy Spirit’s gift of infallibility in doctrinal teachings on faith and morals.
Some argue we should not apply Christian principles to politics at all, appealing to the flawed idea of “separation of Church and state.” St. Pius X answers that for us: “That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error . . . a great injustice to God.” For a Christian, it is clear that unless Christian principles undergird our laws, they cannot be solidly grounded in truth and justice. Moral evils like abortion and euthanasia will inevitably become enshrined in unjust civil laws.
A final warning comes in 2 Kings 24:3-4, which describes God’s judgment and consequent destruction of the nation of Judah at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 B.C. Judah’s crime? The killing of thousands of infants, burned alive as sacrifices to the pagan god Molek: “This befell Judah … because of the innocent blood (King Manasseh) shed, with which he filled Jerusalem, the Lord would not forgive.”
How long do we think we can carry on as nations when we break God’s commandments and fill the world with the blood of the innocent – 50 million abortions worldwide every year, even more than the nine million who die annually from world hunger.
This is why abortion is the preeminent issue of today. No other evil in the world approaches this scale. Sadly, not only are many fighting for it as a warped “right,” they are voting for it too.