The election is over, but the politics continue

The B.C. Catholic’s provincial voter’s guide last month was made possible by the dedicated work of Catholic Conscience, the Catholic civic action organization that helped us so much during last year’s federal election. This time, Catholic Conscience quickly jumped into action when B.C.’s snap election was called . . . despite already having its hands full working on the Saskatchewan election taking place two days after B.C.’s.

Working with The B.C. Catholic and with veteran journalist Terry O’Neill as our liaison, Catholic Conscience identified major election issues of interest to Catholics that weren’t likely to be covered by the mainstream media.

The result was a comprehensive and detailed assessment of where the top six parties stood on topics ranging from life issues and religious freedom, to poverty and subsidiarity.

We received a lot of positive response to the guide, although it wasn’t universal. One reader felt the Church was trying to tell Catholics how to vote. We were asked to cancel their subscription. Another was disappointed that the guide didn’t advise which party to vote for.

In an election post-mortem, Terry O’Neill discussed the initiative and Catholic involvement in politics with Catholic Conscience president Matthew Marquardt.

Terry O’Neill: Do you think our election coverage make a difference?

Matthew Marquardt: I think it will always be inherently difficult to measure the impact. I think that really the only way we are going to be able to tell if it has an effect is over the course of two or three or four elections, seeing if there is a change in the tone and the content of political conversations. 

Anecdotally, a friend tells me that he read every word of our voters guide, but left frustrated because there was no assessment. Were you tempted to compare the parties’ platforms and make an assessment of which lines up best with Catholic teaching?

No. There are party policies that probably felt better to me personally than others. But remember, our organization is devoted only to bringing the Gospel and social teaching of the Church into the centre of civic discourse.

I think there is wide agreement that none of the B.C. parties this election had a perfectly Catholic platform, and it’s possible, perhaps likely, that none of them ever will. But I think it’s also possible that all of them could end up having very good Catholic platforms. One of the reasons we can’t tell what impact we have in the election is that none of the parties is perfect, yet none of them is entirely opposed to all the teaching of the Church. There’s room for conversation. There’s room for respectful discourse. So I think that over time there’s certainly room for improvement.

What would you say to people who want us to make a political endorsement, or recommend how to vote? 

I could see how that might be something people could legitimately hope for. But we have deliberately barred ourselves, even in our corporate documents, from taking sides or promoting one candidate or party over the other. We don’t do that, and we’re never going to do that. Even if the Pope was running against Satan, I don’t think we would, although the conclusion might be easier to draw!

That’s one of the reasons we provide materials on how to inform one’s individual vote. None of us knows what God’s plan is. We point out on our website that God sometimes allows very bad things to happen in order to bring great good out of it. And so, we are never going to get into playing God and say this is the person who should be elected.

Instead, what we would really like every individual to do is what your friend did and read every word, or at least enough to get a proper sense of where the parties are. And then pray about what God wants. And I suspect that, in many cases, God is not going to want us all to make the same decision. I think God wants conversation and continuing discourse.

So I think if we do what we can to figure out what sounds best to us, in light of what the Church says, and pray on it, it’s fair for us to hope and expect that the Holy Spirit will guide us to vote in the direction that God wants. I don’t think we can always expect that everybody will vote in exactly the same way that we do, even under that premise.

What would you like to see next among Catholics?

In addition to informing ourselves, praying, and voting, a critical part of the Catholic civic process involves staying involved between elections: speaking with those who were elected, and with those who were not elected, to explain parts of their policies that we approve of and are thankful for, and others that might perhaps need some fresh thought in view of the Church’s teachings. Explain the effects of those policies on our voting choices.

It also involves talking with those around us at home, at work, at church, everywhere – and always respectfully – to share our ideas and listen to those of others, always reflecting on how they fit into the Church’s teachings.

Only by staying respectfully involved between elections can we hope to speed the injection of Gospel and Church teachings into public discourse.

In recent years, civic action organizations such as the B.C.-based Christian Civic Affairs Committees of Canada have sprung up to inform Catholics and encourage them to participate in the political process. Catholic Conscience continues to work with dioceses across the country to help inform local Catholics about issues of particular relevance. We encourage you to support these organizations. — Editor