November vote issue

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modestobruce

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Our church’s pastor has posted on Facebook that we must vote Republican to ensure the passage of conservative issues. My wife and I have an absolute disdain for the POTUS and his abhorrent policies and cannot vote for him. Does this view counter Catholic teaching in some way?
 
modestobruce said:
Does this view counter Catholic teaching in some way?
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No. Period. Vote for whatever party you most agree with and let nobody tell you otherwise. Both Democrat and Republican partisans will flock to this thread to try convincing you to vote one way or another. Don’t listen to them.

End of thread? Please? We don’t need another one.
 
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Unless you’re a moderator, I don’t think you’re authorized to declare the ‘end of a thread’.
 
I can ask, as an exhausted forum member who wants these threads to stop filling the front page, and a concerned Catholic who hates seeing such division sowing confusion among those who ask questions like OP.
 
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I didn’t see a question mark. You could flag the original post and ask the moderators to remove it or close the thread.
 
The Church most certainly CAN have a voice in who we should vote for, because the Church IS the moral authority in this world. The Church can not make you vote any certain way, and does not penalize your voting decisions, but for anyone to say the Church can not guide our conscience for voting is wrong,

Vote for the Party that most acknowledges God, or vote for the Party that tries to remove God from everything.
 
Actually, the Church can tell us who to vote for. However, because no candidate is a good Catholic, she simply refrains to do so.
 
Where in canon law or the catechism does it state this?
 
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Your pastor’s post certainly runs counter to the teaching of the USCCB, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In their guideline on voting, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, they clearly teach:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

I suggest you read this document in its entirety:


Many people, including some in the Church or who claim to speak in the name of the Church, will try to tell you how or for whom you must vote. You must decide this for yourself, however, after educating yourself on all the issues and candidates so as to have a well-formed conscience.

In that same document linked above you will see, contrary to what some will tell you, that Catholics are not and need not be “single-issue voters.” This includes the false notion that we must vote exclusively for so-called conservative issues or candidates in order to be prolife.
 
modestobruce said:
My wife and I have an absolute disdain for the POTUS and his abhorrent policies and cannot vote for him
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One more thing, concerning this in particular. Should you decide, as I have, that neither of the two major political parties in the US fully lives up to the ideals set forth by our Faith, then you most certainly can and should consider the quality of character and the behavior of either candidate in helping you reach your decision. I hope that helps.
 
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modestobruce said:
Our church’s pastor has posted on Facebook that we must vote Republican to ensure the passage of conservative issues.
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Although your pastor stopped short of endorsing a candidate, him telling his flock that they “must” vote for a particular party seems inappropriate. I would notify the Bishop that your pastor made such a public post.
As for voting, you should vote your conscience. It is none of your pastor’s business or anyone else’s.
 
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modestobruce said:
Our church’s pastor has posted on Facebook that we must vote Republican to ensure the passage of conservative issues. My wife and I have an absolute disdain for the POTUS and his abhorrent policies and cannot vote for him. Does this view counter Catholic teaching in some way?
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Just curious, you may have a personal disdain for the POTUS (and many others do too), but do you not see the way that American politics works? Like it or not, it’s a two-party system right now, so do you not look at the goals / platform of the party as a whole?
Do you personally want to vote for euthanasia, for instance? The pushing of the gender theory, which by been criticized by Pope Francis? Many other issues? Not even mentioning the most obvious one.
 
The person started the thread to ask about what his pastor wrote. He didn’t write it so other Catholics could hound him about how he and his wife might want to vote.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
The person started the thread to ask about what his bishop wrote. He didn’t write it so other Catholics could hound him about how he and his wife might want to vote.
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I think there’s a larger question here – what do voters do when confronted with a personally unappealing or even repulsive candidate who nevertheless tends to make decisions more in line with traditional morality that most Catholics (and other Christians) espouse?
It’s why this is such a compelling and revisited thread topic.
 
27lw said:
It’s why this is such a compelling and revisited thread topic.
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We can agree to disagree about “compelling”, but I think we can agree it’s been done to death and there are approximately one zillion threads available for people who are still inclined to have the same arguments about Trump repeated endlessly.
 
modestobruce said:
Our church’s pastor has posted on Facebook that we must vote Republican to ensure the passage of conservative issues. My wife and I have an absolute disdain for the POTUS and his abhorrent policies and cannot vote for him. Does this view counter Catholic teaching in some way?
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You do NOT have to obey your priest in this.
 
27lw said:
I think there’s a larger question here – what do voters do when confronted with a personally unappealing or even repulsive candidate who nevertheless tends to make decisions more in line with traditional morality that most Catholics (and other Christians) espouse?
It’s why this is such a compelling and revisited thread topic.
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Except that that is NOT the topic of the person’s thread.

If you want to derail his thread, have at it, I guess, but it does not seem very polite when as you said we have 100 threads already arguing about how to vote and how to decide and so forth. And you could also start the 101st if this is a topic you wish to discuss.
 
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modestobruce said:
Our church’s pastor has posted on Facebook that we must vote Republican to ensure the passage of conservative issues.
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You need to encourage him to remove the post. If he doesn’t, let the vicar of clergy or bishop of the diocese know about this.

It is a violation of the law. It endangers your parish status. It is not in keeping with Church teaching.
modestobruce said:
My wife and I have an absolute disdain for the POTUS and his abhorrent policies and cannot vote for him.
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Agreed.
modestobruce said:
Does this view counter Catholic teaching in some way?
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No. Vote for the person your conscience dictates after forming it. The USCCB has a voting guide called Faithful Citizenship.

There are many Catholics especially on CAF who try to tie Catholics to the Republican Party, but it simply isn’t true, not a sin to form your conscience and vote otherwise.
 
modestobruce said:
Our church’s pastor has posted on Facebook that we must vote Republican to ensure the passage of conservative issues. My wife and I have an absolute disdain for the POTUS and his abhorrent policies and cannot vote for him. Does this view counter Catholic teaching in some way?
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These are the do’s and don’t for parishes during election season. Pastors shouldn’t be endorsing specific parties & political candidates.

https://www.usccb.org/resources/dos-and-donts-guidelines-during-election-season

Peace.
 
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