In November 2002, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life.” In this presidential election year in the United States, that document has been cited many times in an attempt to define the proper role of a politician, particularly a Catholic politician. But what does the doctrinal note actually say?

The doctrinal note first serves to call to our attention the constant teaching of the church that Christians should play their full role as citizens. It also reminds us that Christians fulfill their civic duties “guided by a Christian conscience,” thus exercising their proper task of “infusing the temporal order with Christian values …” (“Gaudium et Spes,” 76; cf. “Gaudium et Spes,” 36) (1).

Christians can participate in public political life

As we look at this doctrinal note, we need to address several points in its teaching. First is the recognition that Christians should be involved in the political process.

In our democratic society, every citizen can participate in public political life. This can take the form of voting, actively supporting a political party or specific candidate, or running for and holding public office in all branches of our government. The doctrinal note underscores that it is a good and responsible act to participate in the political life of society, particularly in the capacity of a public officeholder.

The doctrinal note also states that one of the primary tasks of the laity is the conversion of the temporal order so that our public policy is guided by Christian values. Many of these values, taught by the church, are rooted in the natural moral order that is built into human nature by God. It is the recognition of fundamental right and wrong that the Christian brings to the political process.

Life does not unfold in a moral vacuum. Built into God’s creation and, therefore, into human nature is a natural moral order. With our ability to reason we can make proper moral decisions based on the natural moral order that is rooted in our heart and articulated in our conscience.

The Catholic engaged in political activity has a responsibility for the right ordering of public life that conforms with this natural moral order created by God. The Catholic politician should see his or her task then as contributing to the establishment of a good and just society.

Rightly informed conscience guides choices

Clearly, there will be a wide range of choices open to a person engaged in political life. This is especially true as well for those involved in the legislative process. The price of citizenship in a democracy involves making choices by weighing consequences and determining the values that laws nurture and support. In the formulation of laws, a Catholic politician must ask any number of questions: “What is the purpose of this law? Will it help establish a more just society? Will our society be more in conformity with basic moral and human values as a result of this specific civil law?”

The need to make judgments about the rightness and wrongness of some laws brings us to the formation of conscience. Choices in political and legislative decisions must always follow on a rightly informed conscience, as we are all obliged to follow our conscience. Conscience is described as the interior voice of the human being, within whose heart the inner law of God is inscribed. It moves a person at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil.

The doctrinal note speaks about the Christian faithful being guided by a Christian conscience. While we all have a conscience and are obliged to follow it, a conscience does not come filled with every answer to every moral question. One of the purposes for God coming among us in Jesus Christ is to reveal to us who God is and, therefore, in ultimate terms who we are. Jesus is the Divine Teacher whose words are truth and life. A conscientious Catholic seeks to hear these life-giving words and also live them.

While our conscience is our guide, we form it with the words of truth and life. The principles articulated in the church’s moral and social teaching are intended to help form and guide the Catholic politician — as well as the Catholic voter — in having a rightly formed conscience.

Church teachings battle opposing values

It is the task of the church to continue the work of the ministry of Jesus. Thus, the teaching office — the magisterium — continues in our day, for us in our circumstances, to make us aware of Jesus’ teaching. The bishops, as successors to the apostles, carry on the work of teaching the Christian faithful.

This is no small qualification. Competing with the church and the Gospels today are many voices seeking to form conscience and thus determine what actions will reflect our identity as a people. The voices that speak other values often antithetical to Christian values are loud, persuasive and well supported.

Often, we can let our conscience be convinced that somehow it is all right to support something that is clearly contrary to God’s word and the moral law. Abortion is a clear case of Christian conscience being rightly formed by God’s word or being badly formed by political correctness or the loud voices that cloak the evil of abortion in the rhetoric of personal choice.

Why the church opposes abortion

We, as Catholics, must have a clear understanding that to take an innocent human life is wrong in itself and is always wrong. So clearly has this teaching been presented that it is one of the defining marks of the Catholic Church today. Most people know that Catholic teaching prohibits abortion. But many may not be aware of the reasons for this teaching. One of our tasks as pastors of souls and as members of Christ’s body is to better articulate why the church opposes abortion.

At the heart of this perennial and constant teaching is the fact that the life in the womb is human. It is a person coming to be. All scientific data and all common sense confirm this fact of life. The injunction, “You shall not kill,” rooted in our human nature, proclaimed by our conscience and confirmed in God’s revelation, applies to all innocent human life. The life of the child in the womb is human life and should be protected from being killed, just as we expect that right to life to be defended for each of us.

Because the right to life for the child in the womb is so clear and should be so self-evident, those who want the power to kill it have to resort to “smoke screen” language to try to ease consciences when it comes to abortion. Thus, we have slogans such as the “right to choice,” as if any person had the right to choose who should live or die.

Choice without an object is simply a political slogan. You have to indicate what your choice is. It would be inconceivable today that someone would say they are personally opposed to slavery but that slaveholders should have that choice. The right to choose brings with it the corresponding responsibility to choose the moral and ethical good. The doctrinal note simply reminds us of the ancient and once universally accepted moral principle that it is wrong to kill life in the womb.

Where the doctrinal note introduces an element that demands additional attention today is the statement that “those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a ‘grave and clear obligation to oppose’ any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them” (cf. John Paul II, encyclical letter “Evangelium Vitae,” 73) (4).