As the country approaches election day in two weeks, Archbishop
Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia is encouraging Catholic voters to
place their faith above their allegiance to political parties.
“I’m always encouraging our people minimally to vote, maximally to run
for political office, and make sure that they’re Catholic prior to being
Democrat or Republican and that they put that into practice
politically,” he told CNA in Rome on Oct. 22.
Archbishop Chaput echoed the calls of other American bishops to have their flocks consider their faith in the voting booth.
“We do believe in the separation of church and state, but we don’t
believe in the separation of faith from our political life,” he said.
“It’s very important for Catholics to make distinctions when voting
that they never support intrinsic evils like abortion, which is evil in
all circumstances. That’s a lot different from different economic
policies” that people can reasonably disagree on, the archbishop
explained.
His remarks come as an Oct. 22 Gallup poll shows the “economy in
general” is the issue rated most important by Americans as the election
nears.
“But people who are practicing Catholics cannot have alternate views on
abortion,” he stated. “Such foundational issues have a huge impact and
it’s important that Catholics make those distinctions.”
“A person (candidate) might be right on a lot of secondary issues but
wrong on the foundational issues. And if that’s the case, it would be
very difficult for a Catholic to vote for someone who, for example,
favors unlimited access to abortion … undermines the meaning of marriage
or supports policies that really undermine the foundation of our
culture.”
Archbishop Chaput sees Philadelphia as a great example of both Catholic
and civic virtue. He noted that it both produced two canonized saints,
John Neumann and Katherine Drexel, and was the location of the signing
of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the U.S.
Constitution.
“I’m standing on the shoulders both in terms of the Church and the
civic community,” the archbishop pointed out. “We have to produce new
saints and be really good citizens.”
He also connected patriotism with love of parents and family, saying
that “loving our country is really participating in love of our
families.”
And “the meaning of family,” he asserted, is “hugely important for the future health of our country.”
“Having mothers and fathers who love us and love one another provides
security for the healthy growth of children. Confused family life leads
to confused participation in the broader life of the community.”
The Catholic vote has tended to follow the rest of the electorate in
recent years, but with the current campaign for president running
neck-and-neck, Gov. Romney and President Obama are vying for every
segment of voters they can.
The latest polling from Gallup suggests that Romney has 51 percent of the Catholic vote while Obama has 49 percent.
In the 2008 election, 53 percent of Catholic voters supported Obama, and 47 percent supported GOP candidate John McCain.
Archbishop Chaput noted that “Catholics who go to church vote quite
differently than Catholics as a group, and that Catholics who take their
faith seriously, for them it’s much more than a cultural affiliation –
it’s a very personal affiliation with Jesus Christ and his community.”