Voting With a Clear Conscience

As Americans and Canadians prepare to vote in their respective elections, many of us are striving to inform ourselves on the issues, and also to inform our conscience on what should be our priorities in voting.

I'm grateful for a booklet put together by Father Frank Pavone, entitled “Voting with a Clear Conscience”. There's a Catholic version and an Interdenominational version. (h/t Dawn Patrol)

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. …While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia." (Letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, to Cardinal McCarrick, July 2004)