Your Right and Responsibility to Vote 2024

YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT!

PLEASE VOTE ON OR BEFORE
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2024

OPENING PRAYER

God, forgive us for the times we’ve failed to
treat each other as Your creation.

Forgive us for celebrating unloving behavior
in our candidates and our leaders.

Call our leaders and political candidates
to a new level of respect and civility.

Remind them that You are sovereign
and that the wisest choice we can make
is to serve You and serve others.

May there be a new movement of collaboration and respect
in our nation’s capital and throughout the country.

Give Your people the strength to lead by example
with radical, world-changing love.
Amen.

Source: Worldvision.org

"OUR RIGHT AND RESPONSIBILITY TO VOTE"

"Let us not see each other in the divisive light of Democrat or Republican or any other political party, but rather, let us see the face of Christ in our neighbors, especially the suffering or those with whom we may disagree.”

—Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville

Pope Francis teaches,

An authentic faith . . . always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better than we found it. We love this magnificent planet on which God has put us, and we love the human family which dwells here, with all its tragedies and struggles, its hopes and aspirations, its strengths and weaknesses. The earth is our common home and all of us are brothers and sisters. If indeed “the just ordering of society and of the state is a central responsibility of politics,” the Church, “cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.” (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 183)

There are many people who do much good but, due to the emphasis on the negative as “news,” such acts often are not publicized. There are important and difficult issues facing our country and the world today, such as the disregard of human dignity, intolerance, lack of civility, denigration of families, education, abortion, poverty, hunger, homelessness, crime, violence, corruption, unfair wages and working conditions, immigration, the pandemic, sickness, inadequate and unaffordable health care and housing, threats against freedoms such as speech, the press, and religious tolerance, sexual trafficking, terrorism, nuclear and military proliferation, the war in Ukraine and the threat of other wars, refugees, unfair trade, racism, sexism, inflation, excessive and expanding debt, consumerism, income inequality, corporate irresponsibility, ecological destruction, genetic engineering, and many other important issues.

Citizens are given the sacred right to vote to elect people to represent them in their governments to work together with others to try to resolve these issues. We also have the corresponding duty to exercise that right. To do this we must equip and educate ourselves to understand and analyze the issues presented, and the candidates’ reasoned views on how to best resolve these issues. Not all issues may be of equivalent importance in the current context of our lives, nor should we decide based on only a couple of issues, nor on ads playing to our knee-jerk emotions.

As Catholics we are called to vote with an informed conscience and prayer for the common good, and

to use Catholic teaching to examine candidates’ positions on issues and should consider candidates’ integrity, philosophy, and performance. It is important for all citizens “to see beyond party politics, to analyze campaign rhetoric critically, and to choose their political leaders according to principle, not party affiliation or mere self-interest” (USCCB, Living the Gospel of Life, no. 33).

PLEASE VOTE!

VIDEOS

"Faithful Citizens Work with Christ as He Builds His Kingdom"

"Voting Catholic" (Busted Halo)

"Conscience and Moralty" (Bishop Robert Barron)

"Why What You Believe Matters" (Bishop Robert Barron)

OTHER RESOURCES

"Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" (USCCB) [with a variety of resources in English and en Español]

"Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" (USCCB)

"Formando la conciencia para ser ciudadanos fieles" (USCCB)

"A Better Kind of Politics—Civilize It" (USCCB)

REFLECT ON YOUR EXPERIENCE

What are you doing to prepare yourself to vote on Election Day?

Is there any valid reason you could present to God for not exercising your precious right and responsibility to vote with an informed conscience?