A Catholic Dialogue on Voting

Yesterday, the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy sponsored a forum at the University of St. Thomas School of Law entitled, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic DIalogue on Voting.  The two speakers for the program, which I was privileged to moderate, were MOJ'ers Amy Uelmen and Michael Scaperlanda.

The dialogue was enriching for all of us who have been struggling with questions relating to how to exercise faithful citizenship in the context of the upcoming election.  In a media world that tends to eschew nuance, both Amy and Michael approached the issue with deliberation, fairness and nuance.  Amy devoted the first part of her talk to the "elephant in the room," the question of whether a Catholic voter could vote for a pro-choice president.  Once she got past the easy (or easier) portion of the answer - i.e., no if the voter's intent is to promote abortion and probably yes if all of the candidates are pro-choice - she offered a range of questions that one must ask in order to determine if one could vote for a pro-choice candidates if the race included at least one pro-life candidates.

The second part of Amy's talk was a broader discussion of what faithful citizenship entails, an important subject that is often lost because of the focus on the narrower questions.  Here she emphasized a couple of things.  First, the need for a commitment on the part of Catholics to speak up in an evenhanded way and to challenge both parties for being insufficiently mindful of the broad range of principle of Catholic Social Thought that should guide decisions about social policy.  Second, the need for Catholics to take active steps to buils a culture of life and to contribute to the common good.  this includes the need to open ourselves to how much we need each other and to listen to each other in love.

Michael Scaperlanda's talk addressed the general role politics plays in the life of a Catholic as well as the particular issues the Church asks us to take seriously as Catholics.  Regarding the first, he started by talking about the importance of being models of civility and of the need to help end the divisions of red state/blue state, etc.  The starting question for Michael is: do we believe Jesus Christ is our Savior, that the Gospel is the Word of God and that the Church is the true Church founded by Jesus.  If the answer is yes, than the Gospel is the organizing principle of our lives; if we believe Jesus is Lord, our primary commitment is to relationship, not ideology.  He also talked about the need to confront squarely the question whether we (as a country) should retain our fundamental Judeo-Christian culture, suggesting that if the answer to that is no, difficult questions arise as to what we replace it with and by what standard will we judge what is right and what is wrong.  Michael then moved to a discussion of the need for a consistent ethic of life, at the same time stressing that not all issues are equal.  He suggested that although single-issue voting is not appropriate, a candidate could disqualify himself from consideration on the basis of a single issue.

Following Amy and Michael's talk, there was some back and forth between the two of them and then some thoughful questions from the audience.  It was, all in all, a terrific program.

As with any gathering the brings together members of our "community" (which I broadly define to include the intersecting universes of the MOJ folk and the members of the Conference  of Catholic Legal Thought), for me a significant part of the joy of the day was time to visit with Amy and Michael over lunch, dinner and informal discussions that went on over the course of the day.  We look forward to welcoming them and others back to UST at opportunities arise.