Week 5: ‘Pray, Learn, Act as Faithful Citizens’

Compiled by the archdiocesan Office of Human Life and Dignity and Catholic Charities-Social Concerns
 

The Office of Human Life and Dignity and Catholic Charities-Social Concerns are collaborating to offer the fifth of seven weeks of prayer, study and action as we prepare for upcoming elections.

This week, we will read together “Part III—Goals for Political Life: Challenges for citizens, candidates and public officials,” the final section of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ teaching document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” which seeks to provide “guidance for all who seek to exercise their rights and duties as citizens.”

Pray

Embracing Father, you grace each of us with equal measure in your love. Let us learn to love our neighbors more deeply, so that we can create peaceful and just communities. Inspire us to use our creative energies to build the structures we need to overcome the obstacles of intolerance and indifference. May Jesus provide us the example needed and send the Spirit to warm our hearts for the journey. Amen.

—from “Being Neighbor: The Catechism and Social Justice”

Learn

“As Catholics, we are led to raise questions for political life other than those that concentrate on individual, material well-being. Our focus is not on party affiliation, ideology, economics, or even competence and capacity to perform duties, as important as such issues are. Rather, we focus on what protects or threatens the dignity of every human life.

“Catholic teaching challenges voters and candidates, citizens and elected officials, to consider the moral and ethical dimensions of public policy issues. In light of ethical principles, we bishops offer the following policy goals that we hope will guide Catholics as they form their consciences and reflect on the moral dimensions of their public choices. Not all issues are equal; these 10 goals address matters of different moral weight and urgency. Some involve intrinsically evil acts, which can never be approved. Others involve affirmative obligations to seek the common good. These and similar goals can help voters and candidates act on ethical principles rather than particular interests and partisan allegiances. We hope Catholics will ask candidates how they intend to help our nation pursue these important goals:

• Address the pre-eminent requirement to protect the weakest in our midst—innocent unborn children—by restricting and bringing to an end the destruction of unborn children through abortion and providing women in crisis pregnancies the supports they need to make a decision for life.
• Keep our nation from turning to violence to address fundamental problems—a million abortions each year to deal with unwanted pregnancies, euthanasia and assisted suicide to deal with the burdens of illness and disability, the destruction of human embryos in the name of research, the use of the death penalty to combat crime, and imprudent resort to war to address international disputes.
• Protect the fundamental understanding of marriage as the lifelong and faithful union of one man and one woman and as the central institution of society; promote the complementarity of the sexes and reject false ‘gender’ ideologies; and provide better support for family life morally, socially, and economically, so that our nation helps parents raise their children with respect for life, sound moral values, and an ethic of stewardship and responsibility.
• Achieve comprehensive immigration reform that offers a path to citizenship, treats immigrant workers fairly, prevents the separation of families, maintains the integrity of our borders, respects the rule of law, and addresses the factors that compel people to leave their own countries.
• Help families and children overcome poverty: ensuring access to and choice in education, as well as decent work at fair, living wages and adequate assistance for the vulnerable in our nation, while also helping to overcome widespread hunger and poverty around the world, especially in the areas of development assistance, debt relief, and international trade.
• Provide health care while respecting human life, human dignity, and religious freedom in our health care system.
• Continue to oppose policies that reflect prejudice, hostility toward immigrants, religious bigotry, and other forms of unjust discrimination.
• Encourage families, community groups, economic structures, and government to work together to overcome poverty, pursue the common good, and care for creation, with full respect for individuals and groups and their right to address social needs in accord with their basic moral and religious convictions.
• Establish and comply with moral limits on the use of military force—examining for what purposes it may be used, under what authority, and at what human cost—with a special view to seeking a responsible and effective response for ending the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East and other parts of the world.
• Join with others around the world to pursue peace, protect human rights and religious liberty, and advance economic justice and care for creation.”

Act

Set boundaries for yourself. Decide how much time you will spend a day or week consuming news media. Then, stick to it. Set a timer if you need to. Can you commit to spending the same amount of time reading Scripture or in prayer? While in prayer, can you pray for the candidates you have chosen not to vote for? Can you pray for all those who will vote differently than you will? Each of those people is made in the image and likeness of God, each is our brother or sister.

(To view each of the previous weeks of “Civilize It” articles, go to cutt.ly/FaithfulCitizenResources. The documents for weeks three and beyond contain text in both English and Spanish. The website also offers other resources specific to “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” including English and Spanish versions of the document.) †