Well see, that’s what I’m wondering…
If a Catholic was given omnipotent powers for a day, would they be expected to rewrite our laws to conform to Catholic morality, bringing everyone… Aetheist, Muslim, Wiccan, Buddhist, etc… under the same Catholic-based moral code? Outlaw sex outside of marriage, criminilize homosexual acts, convict pagans of devil-worship and so on?
Or is preaching and teaching enough?
Neither.
We should participate in government. We should not make everything we think is wrong illegal. We should make some things we think are wrong illegal (murder, for example). We should not make everything we think is morally mandatory mandatory.
If I somehow legitimately got the power to change the law for a day, I’d probably go insane trying to find where the the line is. But there are some things I know off the top of my head that I would and would not do:
I would make abortion illegal, as I see it as murder.
I would
not make sex outside of marriage illegal (including homosexual sex).
I would, however, make marriage strictly heterosexual with a single partner. This is not because I think the law should enforce my beliefs on sexual morality, but because I see gay marriage as
the government calling moral and good that which is not. I do not want to side track the discussion here, but I want to point out that the italicized part is the type of reasoning I would follow - the idea that civil marriage is a sort of seal of approval that should not be given to that which is wrong. It’s the “a sort of seal of approval that should not be given to that which is wrong” part which is relevant here, by the way, so please don’t take this as me trying to start a debate on the morality of gay marriage (especially as the Catholic answer to that question is not subject to change anyway.)
And I would certainly not require anyone to do anything religious (or prevent religious acts because they are religious acts - some (human sacrifice) might be illegal for other reasons, but not because of the religion that motivates them), but I would remove restrictions that keep people from behaving religiously (in a way that respects others’ right to disagree) when acting in a governmental position. That is, 10 commandments in a court room is fine, but a public school teacher requiring students to agree with a certain ideology - religious or not - to earn a grade/degree/whatever is not (private school teachers shouldn’t do that either, but I personally think that shouldn’t be regulated by the government - a combination of accreditation boards, internal rules, and good ol’ free-market if-the-school-stinks-don’t-go-there stuff should be able to handle that just fine).
I have not mentioned the helping the poor style laws because I do not think there is much more to say about them. If I could make them better I would, but the moral principle (help the poor) is not the problem with those laws. They need work to be sure, but it’s not the morality that’s at issue. Many of us agree on the basic morality but disagree on the application anyway, and I get the feeling that it’s the idea about when, as opposed to how, to apply morality that we’re interested in at the moment.
In summary - all laws are based on some sort of moral-ish principle, if you’ll forgive my use of technical language there, even traffic laws - it might not be directly immoral to drive over 65 mph on a certain piece of concrete, but such a restriction is there to prevent injury and death, and the idea that we should do that is a moral-ish principle. But at the same time, not all morals should be put into law.
Which ones should and shouldn’t is an interesting debate, but as people with opinions on what the morals are (faith based or not) we all generally want to make sure that when a moral principle is somehow made into law that it is a
valid moral principle. Catholics have the same interests in that as everyone else, just in some cases our moral principles are more clearly defined than those of other groups.
Forgot who it was several weeks ago, who wanted a modern day Inquisition, whereby all non-Catholic Christians and all fallen away Catholics would be made, by force, to be Catholic and follow Catholic rules and laws. By force meant there were no limits, and included prison and corporal punishments…they wanted civil governments to participate and cooperate with the Church on this. 
Please don’t think these are “Catholic sentiments” because they’re not. No way.