November vote issue

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modestobruce said:
Exactly, you’ve nailed the gist of what I’m asking
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You form your conscience and vote.

It’s come down to many Catholics falsely believing and asserting we must be single issue voters, and ignore everything else.

IMHO there are some things that cannot be ignored because they imperil our republic. Once those are taken care of, I will resume my discernment on other important issues.
 
It doesn’t in any of them as far as I know. There isn’t a prohibition either (afaik).

This is my understanding of the Magisterium. The Church has authority over us and she must do everything she can to further Christ as King of our society.

Her main duty is to form good consicences in regards to Catholic Faith, which influences voting. Besides, we have a moral obligation to vote for those who promote Christ’s kingdom as well. And the Church already forbids us to vote on socialists, communists and liberals (the latter in the classical form).

It seems to me that all these boundaries (promoting Catholic leaders and avoiding certain ideologies) are already a form of directing us to vote on certain candidates. And the only candidates able to do that are good Catholic ones.

Having said that, there is the case in which there is more than one good Catholic candidate. In this case, it doesn’t make sense promoting candidate A or B, since both are able to further Christ as King. If you have this in mind, than I agree with you.
 
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1ke said:
It is a violation of the law.
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Two thoughts here. First, we only have a paraphrased version of whatever the pastor posted (and we don’t know if it was on the parish Facebook page or his personal page). Second, priests share the same freedom of speech that we all have. I also note that this was a post on a Facebook page, not in the bulletin or homily.
 
If it’s on the parish Facebook page, it’s essentially the same as being in the bulletin.
Parish Facebook pages generally contain the same type of materials as would go in the bulletin, such as announcements, parish news, writings by the pastor etc.

Priests have the same freedom of speech rights under the US law, but freedom of speech rights primarily pertain to being prosecuted by the government. Priests agree to obey their bishops or religious superiors, and it’s pretty clear the bishop can give a parish priest directives regarding the priest’s public statements in a homily, in the bulletin, in an online blog, and on other public social media. If the priest disobeys, he can be disciplined. We’ve seen cases of this over and over, including during past elections.
 
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MikeInVA said:
Two thoughts here. First, we only have a paraphrased version of whatever the pastor posted (and we don’t know if it was on the parish Facebook page or his personal page). Second, priests share the same freedom of speech that we all have. I also note that this was a post on a Facebook page, not in the bulletin or homily.
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Priests, as individuals, do have the same rights of free speech that anyone else has. However, the question here is whether the Pastor was speaking strictly as an individual giving his individual personal opinion, or as the Pastor stating or implying that this opinion is the opinion of the Church. I don’t think that the specific medium used really matters in this case, except that using official Parish publications or pages would tend to mean that he is speaking in his official capacity as Pastor.
 
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Your pastor is in danger of losing his parishes tax exemption, and is violating the rules of the USCCB.
 
christofirst said:
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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Well that’s a sly way to tell him to vote for Biden if ever I saw one. It’s obvious the way Trump behaves as a person isn’t exactly something to model yourself on.

I disagree though, I would say, should you decide that neither candidate matches up to the ideals of our faith, vote for the one who would promote policies closest to it, and certainly not sign policies against it. For you that might still be Biden. For me, it most certainly isn’t, although I’m not an American so I won’t be voting.

As for the pastor, he gave his opinion. There are other pastors out there who would have the opposite one. It seems Catholic clergy are as split on this issue as their fellow Americans. Personally I think your pastor is right, but no, you don’t have to do what he says in this particular case.
 
Polak said:
Well that’s a sly way to tell him to vote for Biden if ever I saw one. It’s obvious the way Trump behaves as a person isn’t exactly something to model yourself on.
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Give me a break. There are plenty of people who think Mr. Biden shows bad character by being a pro-choice Catholic who marries gay couples, sometimes yells at people, and is alleged to have groped women.

In any event, sounds like the OP has already made up his mind about voting so I doubt he will be swayed by people arguing the issue for the 200th time on this forum.
 
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Adamek said:
Maybe I missed it, but can you show us the post which states the YOU MUST VOTE REPUBLICAN?
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OP is not required to identify where he lives and who his pastor is, and in fact moderation has discouraged this sort of ID unless there is a public news story discussing the pastor’s Facebook post, in which case OP could post the public news story.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Give me a break. There are plenty of people who think Mr. Biden shows bad character by being a pro-choice Catholic who marries gay couples, sometimes yells at people, and is alleged to have groped women.
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Pretty sure if an undecided voter is told to focus most on character and behaviour when deciding who to vote for, Trump is likely to come off worse. Biden might have done things people (mostly Christians) see as being terrible, but his general everyday behaviour seems fairly normal (at least in public). Trump on the other hand, well, I’ll leave it there.
 
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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?
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That’s not only a larger question. It is a totally different question. The question posed by the OP is whether that pastor’s remarks run counter to Catholic teaching. I don’t think it is an invitation for all of us to add our personal political view of how to vote. It is a question of what the Church teaching says about voting. Your “larger” question does not even address this “smaller” question at all.

As to that smaller question, there are still some unknowns. For example, the pastor’s remark was reported as being on Facebook, not as part of a homily. Clergy have much more latitude to express their personal opinion on social media than they do as part of a homily. When they speak in a homily, or other official capacity to their congregation, their remarks are seen as representing the Church (unless they explicitly say “in my opinion” or similar.) But on Facebook or Twitter or as an editorial commentator, they can more freely express their personal opinion on matters of prudential judgement, such as voting for a party or a specific candidate.

So it is hard to say if the pastor broke any rules. Most likely not, since it was on Facebook.
 
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Aulef said:
Actually, the Church can tell us who to vote for. However, because no candidate is a good Catholic, she simply refrains to do so.
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The Church has the duty to convey moral principles that should guide voting. But I thought that directly telling who to vote for endangered the Church’s tax-exempt status under US law.
 
I think what would help is an actual (possibly redacted) quote. It’s hard to comment on what someone said when his words have been paraphrased. And as discussed already, we don’t even know if he was writing on his personal page or the parish page.

When I read articles about something the president has said, it’s interesting how the quotes are usually broken - not whole statements, just snippets taken out of context.
 
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Could you elaborate more, please? This sounds important. I am not american so I don’t know legal details…
 
MikeInVA said:
When I read articles about something the president has said, it’s interesting how the quotes are usually broken - not whole statements, just snippets taken out of context.
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I think that is how the world is nowadays - no one reads anything in depth. They just skim some snippets. That’s how the news on television is, just a few sound bites and then off to the next subject. In my opinion, that leads to people not being able to think in any great depth. They cannot think things through because they’ve never dug into a subject and read about it from different viewpoints.

Pax
 
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