By Father Kyle Seyler
As some of you know, I preached a pro-life sermon two weekends ago, a sermon specifically focused on the issue of abortion. I was very encouraged by how many people approached me after the Masses and beyond, enthusiastically thanking me for preaching it, because it was great to hear that there are many people in our parish who are passionately pro-life in the face of the culture of death in which we sadly live. After one of those Sunday Masses, a man came up to me and voiced a very honest, interior struggle he was having in regard to what I had preached about being pro-life in the way we vote. He accepted the content of my sermon, but I also appreciated his openness in asking about how we can vote in difficult circumstances, which has prompted me to share with all of you what I shared with him that day.
Let me be very clear from the start that it is not my place, or the Church’s place, to tell you who to vote for, and I am certainly not going to break that rule in this reflection, lest anyone wrongly think or assume that I am endorsing a political party or candidate in the upcoming presidential election. That being said, I do think that I, as a representative of the Church and an American citizen who loves and cares about our great nation, need to speak about how we should vote in any and every election, whether it is on the national, state, or local level.
If you haven’t noticed, we are living in a society where logic and reason are being undermined by emotion. There is so much anger and animosity in our culture, which is peddled in large part by the mainstream media, social media (like Facebook), and Hollywood, and such hatred and division can often be witnessed in our families, among friends, and in the workplace. Politics has become a taboo topic of discussion, one that has literally been tearing relationships apart, and it should not be that way. The fact that it is proves my point about people being ruled by their emotions, and this reality shapes the way many people vote. I am very much convinced that many people in our country are voting based on how they feel about a candidate. “I’m voting for this candidate because I can’t stand the person running against him or her.” I hear this type of talk all the time, and it’s quite disturbing if you think about it. It’s evident that many people are driven to vote based on the candidates’ personalities, and while personality is not insignificant, it is not and should not be the deciding factor. Rather, policy and record should be the focus. What do the candidates stand for, and what have they done in the areas of governance and legislation? That is more important than personality because we are not voting for a celebrity or a figurehead; we are voting for a mayor, a Congressman or Congresswoman, a governor, a president – in short, a leader. We are not voting for the person who looks the best or sounds the best; we are voting for someone who will do the best, who will be a good, effective leader who helps our country improve and thrive.
We Catholic Christians should be voting according to a good conscience that is formed well by the teachings and principles of our Catholic faith, doing our homework in researching where the candidates stand on the various issues, and praying for guidance in choosing the one who will do more to make our country better. To be clear, there is no “Catholic candidate,” someone who perfectly conforms to Catholic moral teaching, just as there is no perfectly pro-life candidate. In our two-party system, we should be setting a good example for our fellow Americans by voting for the better of two options, for the person who will do a better job in promoting what is good, right, and true and will give our society more to build upon, especially with regard to issues that are foundational to human civilization (i.e. the dignity ofallhuman life from the womb to the tomb and the dignity of human sexuality and marriage – protecting and promoting the family as God has designed it, the family which is the basic unit of any society). We should also be giving special attention to the issue of our basic liberties, as specified in our country’s constitution, particularly the first amendment, which includes freedom of religion. Despite contradictory statements sometimes made to gain political points, the difference in positions on nearly every issue between the two main candidates in this upcoming presidential election is night and day. As I said before, it is not for me to tell you who to vote for but be responsible and do your research on the candidates’ positions and their parties’ platforms before you cast your vote. And do cast your vote; don’t give into the temptation to stand on the sidelines. We have a duty and responsibility to be faithful Catholics and faithful American citizens, and part of that means participating in the electoral process. If we don’t vote, then how can we expect to have good leaders? How can we expect our country to get better and not worse? Sometimes it is not easy to discern which is the overall better choice, but we need to work at figuring it out, voting not like gullible sheep, but like wise shepherds.
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