Catholics have a grave responsibility to do whatever they can to promote the cause of life, both by voting accordingly and by their participation in the public life of society.

In this article I would like to articulate the Church’s basic teaching on the formation of conscience in relation to the choice of a candidate in an election. I will use a question-and-answer format to develop these ideas.

1. Does the Catholic Church tell its members whom to vote for?

No, it does not. The Catholic Church is concerned with the formation of the conscience of her members according to the principles of the Gospel as illuminated by the teaching of the Magisterium. It is a properly enlightened conscience that is the primary concern of the Church, not the promotion of this candidate or that.

2. Does the Catholic Church try to impose its beliefs and ethical teachings on society at large?

Although accused of this in some circles, the Church does not wish to impose her beliefs on others.

The bearing witness to our Catholic Faith comes under the domain of freedom of religion in society, in which the Church wishes only to have the right, along with other faiths, to appeal to the freedom of those she addresses.

However, in matters of ethics, the insights of the Church, based on divine revelation, deal not so much with articles of the Creed, but with the reality and the dignity of the human person.

It is this reality of the human person as image of God that is at the core of all Catholic teaching on ethical questions, and it is the firm teaching of the Church that Catholics have a fundamental and necessary contribution to make to the questions of our day.

3. Is there a fundamental issue in ethics that takes primacy over all other issues?

The foundational issue is the right to life itself, based on the infinite value of each person as image of God. Or as Pope John Paul II says at the beginning of The Gospel of Life: "The Gospel of Life is at the heart of Jesus’ message."

Any human activity that directly attacks innocent life is a desecration of the human person, and in effect, an assault on the image of God in the world that the human person represents.

It is the Lord Jesus himself who taught us that the assault against innocent human beings is also an attack on his own person (see Matt 26: 31 ff, Acts 9: 5).

4. What are examples of intrinsically evil acts against the human person?

Examples of acts that are always evil and opposed to the law of God include the direct taking of human lives by abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research, and cloning.

Other activities that are intrinsically evil and are also known in our day include genocide, torture, racism, the targeting of non-combatants in acts of war, or terrorism, and the selling of children and women as sex slaves.

So called homosexual marriage, representing as it does an attack on the very nature of marriage and the human family, is also intrinsically evil and opposed to Church teaching.

5. What is the likelihood of a political candidate in Canada or the United States supporting any of these policies?

Here we face one of the terrible tragedies of the modern political landscape.

While it is obvious to all that no one should support such activities as genocide, torture, racism, the targeting of non-combatants, and the slave sex-trade—and therefore you will never find a candidate in North America who would publicly do so—many see nothing wrong with supporting and even actively promoting abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage.

6. Can a Catholic vote for a candidate who is in favor of intrinsically evil activity and will promote same with the power of the government?

A Catholic may never support a candidate because he or she is in favor of these activities. This is called "formal cooperation" in the evil action, and it is always morally wrong. To vote for a candidate because they favor abortion or euthanasia, etc., is to cooperate with the evil activity oneself and is gravely immoral.

7. What is a Catholic to do when both (or all) candidates support intrinsically evil moral acts (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, etc.)?

According to Catholic teaching, it is conceivable that, in certain cases, it might be possible to vote for a candidate who supports intrinsically evil moral acts when the election of his or her opponent(s) would entail a substantially greater and even more disastrous scope for evil.

Clearly, one cannot vote for any candidate because they favor intrinsically evil acts; in this exceptional instance, one is voting not to support evil but to prevent a substantially greater evil from being inflicted on society.

Making such a decision is an extremely arduous and difficult process, and its detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this article. However, the Church also recognizes that many Catholics may not be able to vote, in conscience, for any candidates favoring intrinsically evil acts.

This, too, represents a painful dilemma for those taking their participating in the public square—mandated by the Church itself—seriously.

In such instances, it may be possible to vote for a write-in candidate, or even to spoil a ballot in protest. If enough people are so moved, this will be like a voice "crying in the wilderness." May that voice one day be heard in our lands!

8. If there are two candidates, and one supports intrinsically evil acts and the other does not, is one always obligated to vote for the "pro-life" candidate (who is opposed to abortion, euthanasia, etc.)?

Church documents never claim that Catholics are a one-issue people (for example, abortion), because there are many areas of legitimate moral concern.

However, given the magnitude of evil represented by abortion (1.2 million/year in the US alone) and other direct attacks on innocent life at its most vulnerable stages, it is hard to imagine any issue or combination of issues that compares with evils of this scope.

Therefore, it does not seem possible for a Catholic to support a pro-choice candidate when there is the option to vote for someone who is "pro-life."

However, there may also be other grave reasons why one conceivably might not be able to vote in conscience for a so-called pro-life candidate (compromised moral stance on other issues). In that case, one might not vote for either candidate.

9. What about other issues of grave moral concern?

Church documents speak continually of other areas that would be considered "life issues" in the broad sense and are also of serious consideration in any election.

These include: rights to housing and education, issues of immigration, poverty in general, labor rights, fighting disease and providing medical care, ecological matters, capital punishment, and questions surrounding just war.

All of these are also within the scope of the concerned and passionately engaged Catholic citizen, and influence whom he or she will vote for.

10. How do these latter issues "compare" with the life issues listed earlier?

All of these issues are important in the creation of a just society and in the cultivation of a culture of life.

A passionate example of this concern is found in The Gospel of Life, #10, which concludes with these words: "What of the spreading of death caused by reckless tampering with the world’s ecological balance, by the criminal spread of drugs, or by the promotion of certain kinds of sexual activity, which, besides being morally unacceptable, also involve grave risks to life?

"It is impossible to catalogue completely the vast array of threats to human life, so many are their forms, whether explicit or hidden, in which they appear today!"

However, those acts which directly attack human dignity and life at its very beginning and end (see Question #4 above) carry a "weight" that surpasses other issues.

The pope continues in the same document, #11: "Here, though, we shall concentrate particular attention on another category of attacks, affecting life in its earliest and final stages, attacks which present new characteristics with respect to the past and which raise questions of extraordinary seriousness.

"It is not only that in generalized opinion these attacks tend no longer to be considered as ‘crime;’ paradoxically, they assume the nature of ‘rights,’ to the point that the State is called upon to give them legal recognition and to make them available through the free services of health-care personnel."

Whenever a society chooses to legitimize such activities, Catholics have an obligation to make a stand for the truth, both by how they vote and by how they live. It is the Resurrection of Christ himself that assures us that such choices will never be made in vain.