According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is “a part of the Church’s mission ‘to pass moral judgments even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.’”
That means American Catholics need to vote! We need to make judgments about candidates for office and determine which would be best for our country.
Many saints and holy men and women have encouraged lay Catholics to be involved in politics. Here are a few pieces of advice from some of these Catholic luminaries!
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Ven. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
“As long as politics is politics, the Church has nothing to say. But when a state sets itself up as absolute as God…When politics ceases to be politics and begins to be a religion, when it claims supremacy over the soul of man, when it competes with religion on its own ground … then religion protests. And when it does, its protest is not against politics but against a counter-religion that is anti-religious.”
Pope St. John Paul II
“Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize … In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to “take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it.””
Cardinal Robert Sarah
“Religious liberty is not to be taken for granted, or compromised, or neglected. Threats against religious liberty take many forms. Countless martyrs continue to die for the faith around the world…but religious liberty is under threat in the West, too.”
St. Josemaria Escriva
“Politics, in the noble sense of the word, is fundamentally a service aimed at achieving the common good of the earthly City. But this good extends to a very wide sphere, and consequently it is in the political arena that the most important laws are debated and passed: those affecting marriage, the family, education, private property, and the dignity (the rights and duties) of the human person. All these matters and others too pertain in the first instance to religion, and they cannot leave a [Catholic] apostle indifferent or uninterested.”
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Capuchin Father Heribert Jone
“Voting is a civic duty which would seem to bind at least under venial sin whenever a good candidate has an unworthy opponent. It might even be a mortal sin if one’s refusal to vote would result in the election of an unworthy candidate.”
Bl. Miguel Pro
“We ought to speak, shout out against injustices, with confidence and without fear. We proclaim the principles of the Church, the reign of love, without forgetting that it is also a reign of justice.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”
Father Henry Davis, S.J.
“It is the duty of all citizens who have the right to vote, to exercise that right when the common good of the State or the good of religion and morals require their votes, and when their voting is useful.”
Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati
“Modern society is drowning in the sorrows of human passions and it is distancing itself from every ideal of love and peace. Catholics, we and you, must bring the breath of goodness that can only spring from faith in Christ.”
Still not convinced? Click here to watch our EDIFY Video on why you, and every Catholic, should vote!
