MARY MOTHER OF THE CHURCH

1. Do not just vote based on your political party affiliation, your earlier voting habits, or your family’s voting tradition.
   Years ago, these may have been trustworthy ways to determine whom to vote for, but today they are often not reliable. You need to look at the stands each candidate takes. This means that you may end up casting votes for candidates from more than one party.
   
   
2. Do not cast your vote based on candidates’ appearance, personality, or “media savvy.”
   Some attractive, engaging, and “sound-bite-capable” candidates endorse intrinsic evils, while other candidates, who may be plain-looking, uninspiring, and ill at ease in front of cameras, endorse legislation in accord with basic Christian principles.
   
   
3. Do not vote for candidates simply because they declare themselves to be Catholic.
   Unfortunately, many self-described Catholic candidates reject basic Catholic moral teaching.
   
   
4. Do not choose among candidates based on “What’s in it for me?”
   Make your decision based on which candidates seem most likely to promote the common good, even if you will not benefit directly or immediately from the legislation they propose.
   
   
5. Do not vote for candidates who are right on lesser issues but who will vote wrongly on key moral issues.
   This was underscored by Pope John Paul II regarding the life issues:
   “The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights-for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture-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 38). 
   One candidate may have a record of voting in line with Catholic values except, say, for euthanasia. Such a voting record is a clear signal that the candidate should not be chosen by a Catholic voter unless the other candidates have voting records even less in accord with these moral norms.
   
   From “Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics” - Catholic Answers / catholic.com

Conscience is like an alarm. It warns you when you are about to do something that you know is wrong, it does not itself determine what is right or wrong.  For your conscience to work properly it must be properly informed - that is you must inform yourself about what is right and what is wrong. Only then will your conscience be a trusted guide.

There are certain issues that we as Catholics need to recognize in forming our conscience.  A well-formed conscience will never try to contradict Catholic moral teaching.  The following issues can never be out-weighed by other, less significant issues when determining for whom we will vote.  These issues concern actions that are intrinsically evil and must never be permitted by the law.  Intrinsically evil actions are those that fundamentally conflict with the moral law and can never be performed under any circumstances.  It is a serious sin to deliberately endorse or promote any of these actions, or to vote for those who do. No candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any action contrary to these non-negotiable principles.

1. ABORTION –
   The Church teaches that, regarding a law permitting abortions, it is “never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or to vote for it.” [John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 73  (The Gospel of Life)] 
   
   Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore is a form of homicide.  The unborn child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his or her life.
   
   
2. EUTHANASIA –
   Often disguised by the name “mercy killing”, euthanasia is also a form of homicide. No person has a right the take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.  True compassion can never include the intrinsic evil of intentionally killing an elderly or ill person.
   
   
3. EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH –
   Human embryos are human beings. “Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo”.  (Pontifical Council for the Family, Charter of the Rights of the Family)  
   
   Even if there were a valid medical argument for using embryonic stem cells, it could not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.
   (Note that embryonic stem cells have yet to be sucessful in treating any disease, whereas adult stem cells have been successful in treating over 70 different diseases. There is no moral problem with using adult stem cells.)
   
   
4. HUMAN CLONING –
   “Attempts…for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through ‘twin fission’, cloning, or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union”. (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation I:6).
   
   
5. HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE –
   True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recognition of any other union as “marriage” undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in what is an objectively immoral arrangement. 
   “When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it.  To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral”. (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations regarding proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons I0).

Excerpted from “Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics” by Catholic Answers / catholic.com

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