The 2008 campaign season is at its height, and-from voter registration drives to visits by major political figures like Gov. Sarah Palin and DNC Chairman Howard Dean-the national debate has touched Saint Louis University.
As students at a Jesuit university with a large Catholic population, some on campus wonder how their faith should affect their politics.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated that “responsible citizenship is a virtue,” and has called Catholics to inform their consciences before entering the voting booth. According to Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Deus Cartias Est, “the direct duty to work for a just ordering of society is proper to the lay faithful.”
“[The church can] bring a consistent moral framework . illuminated by scripture and the teaching of the church,” said Kathy Sullivan, a member of the Sisters of Loretto and an instructor for the department of philosophy. “[Students need to] educate themselves. … and a Jesuit university is the ideal place to form your conscience.”
Students should seek “multiple sources on both sides,” said Lisa Reiter, director of Campus Ministry. “Classes in theology, philosophy, history, economics and literature help students to learn about topics broadly.”
When considering the issues that are especially pertinent to Catholic voters, the conversation often leans toward abortion.
“Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” a document prepared by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, asserts abortion “is a mistake with grave moral consequences to treat the destruction of innocent human life merely as a matter of individual choice.”
The church is not solely concerned with abortion, however.
“Catholics are challenged to look broadly across all life issues,” Reiter said.
Catholic social teaching calls voters to consider candidates’ positions on “hot-button issues [like] abortion, to war, torture, the economy and how we treat the poor, welfare reform, immigration, the housing shortage and the grand spectrum of life,” said Campus Minister Ben Smyth.
Sullivan said Catholic students should consider what kind of “society they’re creating” when participating in the political process.
In “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizens,” the U.S. Catholic Bishops wrote that “as Catholics, we are not single-issue voters,” but say, “when a candidate is wrong on abortion, their ‘rightness’ on other issues cannot sufficiently compensate to allow a Catholic to vote for them.”
The Catholic Church’s positions on the issues do not fit exactly with the platforms of any U.S. political party. “Faithful Citizenship” states that “the themes from Catholic social teaching … [do] not easily fit ideologies of ‘right’ or ‘left,’ ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative.'”
Some consider the Democratic Party’s general support of abortion rights to be a major issue for Catholic voters.
Former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Avvenire on Tuesday, Sept. 29, that, “[at] this point the Democratic Party risks transforming itself definitely into a ‘party of death’ because of its choices on bioethical question.”
Some Catholic students support the Democratic Party, despite its position on abortion.
“I don’t feel it’s appropriate to be a one-issue voter, because there are issues beyond abortion,” said senior Courtney Laumann, who considers herself a liberal Catholic. “The leaders of our country play an important role in our lives in more than just one aspect. We need to pick the best leader over all.”
