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In their letter, Bishop Burbidge and Bishop Knestout pointed Catholics to “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” a statement written by the U.S. bishop’s conference and posted to their website.
WASHINGTON — As election day looms, Catholic bishops throughout the country are issuing pastoral guidance on how Catholics should think about their vote, emphasizing the preeminent importance of “life issues” and Church teaching.
“I recognize that many of you feel such deep distress about this election, perhaps the most contentious in the course of our lifetime,” Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh said in a Sept. 22 letter to Catholics in his diocese.
The bishop noted that there are “problems with each of the major parties’ platforms and their endorsed candidates” and that his job as a bishop is to address “issues grounded on our faith and tradition” rather than to “endorse one or another of candidates for public office, including the office of president.”
Bishop Zubik emphasized to Catholics that they must view the act of voting “as a moral decision.”
This decision, he said, must be made with a “well-formed conscience” that is formed through prayer, Scripture, and “honestly inform(ing) yourself about the moral teaching of the Catholic Church,” he said.
Among the major problems facing the country right now are life issues, which “include the serious threats to human life and dignity, some of which are racism, the environmental crisis, human trafficking, unemployment, underemployement, appropriate medical coverage, the death penalty, religious freedom, the plight of immigrants, and poverty among others. In each and all of these, the Gospel calls for our attention.”
Bishop Zubik said while that list is but a “partial litany” of life issues, there is a “hierarchy of these issues that needs to be recognized.”
“At the forefront of ‘life issues’ is the right to be born as the right upon which all other ‘life issues’ rest,” he said.
Bishop Zubik said that the primacy of the right to life has been a “consistent Catholic teaching,” and pointed to the words of St. John Paul II, Pope Francis, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as examples of this.
“Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question,” Pope Francis wrote of abortion in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium.
Continued below.
US Bishops Emphasize Importance of Life, Church Teaching in Voting Guidances
WASHINGTON — As election day looms, Catholic bishops throughout the country are issuing pastoral guidance on how Catholics should think about their vote, emphasizing the preeminent importance of “life issues” and Church teaching.
“I recognize that many of you feel such deep distress about this election, perhaps the most contentious in the course of our lifetime,” Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh said in a Sept. 22 letter to Catholics in his diocese.
The bishop noted that there are “problems with each of the major parties’ platforms and their endorsed candidates” and that his job as a bishop is to address “issues grounded on our faith and tradition” rather than to “endorse one or another of candidates for public office, including the office of president.”
Bishop Zubik emphasized to Catholics that they must view the act of voting “as a moral decision.”
This decision, he said, must be made with a “well-formed conscience” that is formed through prayer, Scripture, and “honestly inform(ing) yourself about the moral teaching of the Catholic Church,” he said.
Among the major problems facing the country right now are life issues, which “include the serious threats to human life and dignity, some of which are racism, the environmental crisis, human trafficking, unemployment, underemployement, appropriate medical coverage, the death penalty, religious freedom, the plight of immigrants, and poverty among others. In each and all of these, the Gospel calls for our attention.”
Bishop Zubik said while that list is but a “partial litany” of life issues, there is a “hierarchy of these issues that needs to be recognized.”
“At the forefront of ‘life issues’ is the right to be born as the right upon which all other ‘life issues’ rest,” he said.
Bishop Zubik said that the primacy of the right to life has been a “consistent Catholic teaching,” and pointed to the words of St. John Paul II, Pope Francis, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as examples of this.
“Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question,” Pope Francis wrote of abortion in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium.
Continued below.
US Bishops Emphasize Importance of Life, Church Teaching in Voting Guidances
