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genuinegirly · 10-28-2008, 06:12 PM

I have never heard someone directly endorse a candidate from the pulpit.

With that in mind, our parish priest has mentioned overcoming racism in every homily for the past four months.

Here's what a Catholic Voter's Guide looks like:

Quote:

Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics

Catholic Answers Action, San Diego

Nothing in this voter's guide should be construed as an endorsement of any particular candidate or political party

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The Five Non-Negotiable Issues

These five issues concern actions that are intrinsically evil and must never be promoted 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, and no candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any action contrary to the non-negotiable principles involved in these issues.
1 - Abortion
The Church teaches that, regardin glaw 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" Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II. Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide. The unborn child is always an innocenvt party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child's, who should not suffer death for others' sins.
2- Euthanasia
Often disguised by the name "mercy killing," euthanasia is also a form of homicide. No person has a right to take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person. In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed, by action or omission, out of a misplaced sense of compassions, but true compassion cannot include intentionally doing something intrinsically evil to another 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. Recent scientific advances show that medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can often be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there is no valid medical argument in favor of using embryonic stem cells. And even if there were benefits to be had from such experiments, they would not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.
4 - Human Cloning
Attempts for obtaining a human body without any connection with sexuality through 'twin fashion' cloning or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of hte conjugal union. Human cloning also involves abortion because the "rejected" or "unsuccessful" embryonic clones are destroyed, yet each clone is a human being.
5 - Homosexual "marriage"
True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recongition 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 iti. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.

How Not to Vote
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 not often reliable. You need to look at the stands each candidate takes. This means that you may end up casting votes for candidates for 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, ininspiring, and ill at ease in front of cameras, endorse legislation in accord with basic Christian principles.
3. Do not vote for candidates just because they declare themselves Catholic. Unfortunately, many self-described Catholic candidates reject basic Catholic 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 undescored 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 live, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination. 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.

When there is no "Acceptable" candidate
In some political races, each candidate takes a wrong position on one or more issues involving non-negotiable moral principles. In such a case you may vote for the candidate who takes the fewest such positions or who seems least likely to be able to advance immoral legislation, or you may choose to vote for no one.
A vote cast in such a situation is not morally the same as a positive endorsement for candidates, laws, or programs that promote intrinsic evils: Rather, it is an action aimed at limiting the evil, and an action that limits evil is good.

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