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The Battle for the Catholic Vote: Election 2004
by Mary Jo Anderson
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Who will win the Catholic vote?

The media reports that the United States Catholic vote -- 25% of the eligible voters---is confused. It seems even some bishops are confused, as some indicate there is no definitive criteria Catholics must follow when choosing one candidate over another.

Clearly, if the majority of Catholics voted as a block, Catholics could make enormous changes in the culture of the nation. Yet, candidates for President, Senate and the House of Representatives who profess their Catholic faith publicly, insist that they cannot "impose" their faith on the citizens of the United States. Yet Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver explains, "...all laws and all public policies involve the 'imposition' of one set of moral convictions on the culture at large. The purpose of the democratic process is to winnow out the good ideas from the bad ones; in other words, to allow -- in fact, to encourage -- people of strong moral convictions to disagree with one another vigorously . . . and to pursue their convictions into law by every peaceful, ethical means at their disposal." Certainly politicians "impose" their judgments and beliefs on the nation. The prohibition against polygamy is but one example.

However, a theologian from a famous Catholic university was heard on a popular television talk show program insisting that Catholics are Ok when pulling a lever for the candidate of his conscience, even if that lever is pulled for a candidate that would attempt to sanctify sodomy or cannibalize human embryos.

Thus, some Catholics suppose they are free to vote for a Catholic candidate despite that candidate's support for abortion or same-sex unions. But is that so? Are there criteria that Catholics ought to apply when they enter the voting booth?

Never before in US history have the teachings of the Catholic Church figured so prominently in a national election. This is partly so because John Kerry is the first Catholic since John Kennedy in 1960 to run for president. However, more important than the professed faith of the Catholic candidate is the moral imperative that faces the United States. It is in election 2004 that Americans will choose a path for the future of their culture--a culture of life or a culture of death. Either the nation will turn away from same-sex unions, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia, or it will plummet down a dark tunnel with no light in sight.

Consider this: In each election cycle since the foundation of the United States the presidential candidates have addressed the perennial issues of economics, education and national defense. Since the depression, all candidates have had to adopt a position on health care. These issues are important, of course, but they are not crucial. Americans will see these issues again and again.

Citizens agree that jobs, education and health care are laudable goals, but they may legitimately disagree about which methods will best achieve those goals.

It is not the economy, the war, health care or jobs that will define American culture in ten years---it is the moral choices that are made in the election of 2004. And it is the "Catholic vote" that could determine whether the nation chooses life.

Every pundit, each talk show host and dozens of major newspapers frequently host or quote Catholic experts. The trouble is, the "experts" can be had on each side of the debate. Some claim Catholics may vote for a candidate who is "personally opposed" to abortion, but who in fact has voted in support of "abortion rights" while a second expert will point out that a Catholic may not cooperate with the evil of abortion in any manner. Which is correct?

Pope John PAull II wrote, "It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop." Archbishop Chaput reminds American Catholics, "As America’s bishops suggested in their 1998 pastoral statement Living the Gospel of Life , it is impossible to advance human dignity by being "right" on issues like poverty and immigration, but wrong about the most fundamental issue of all -- the right to life. "

Here is the simple test to apply. If the matter is one where the principle is good--such as education for all--but the method is in dispute, one may vote for either candidate without damage to one's conscience. But where the principle is never good, but is intrinsically evil--abortion, same-sex unions--then no method is permissible and one may not vote for a candidate that supports and enacts laws that are evil in principle. What of war? War is not intrinsically evil. Rarely, but on occasion, war is just.

Catholics in 2004 are poised at a hinge moment in United States history. If we abandon the priority of life and the sanctity of marriage, the nation travels far into the dark of a new barbarism, however clinical. The issues of education, health care and the economy will wait. Pray that Catholics will choose life.