Originally published at Southern Cross
SAN DIEGO — “How are we, as members of the Catholic community in the United States, called to confront this challenging electoral moment in our country’s history and transform it into an opportunity to bring the vision of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the social teaching of the Church into the core of our national life?”
Cardinal Robert W. McElroy asked that question a few weeks before the 2020 presidential election, in an essay titled “Conscience, Candidates and Discipleship in Voting.”
In the essay, he wrote that the faith-filled voter is asked to make the complex judgment: Which candidate will be likely to best advance the common good through his office in the particular political context he or she will face? Such a decision embraces the planes of principle and character, competence and leadership. And, for the faithful voter, the very complexity of this moral judgment demands a recourse to the voice of God that lies deep within each of us — our conscience, he said.
Four years later, citizens are facing another contentious presidential election, which offers starkly competing visions for the future of the nation. Cardinal McElroy once more urges faithful Catholic voters to promote unity, while engaging
