Whenever I eat out, I do not know what to expect. Some times I ask questions to better understand the different options on the menu, much to the chagrin of my friends. Even so, what I expect and what is delivered are not always the same. In any case, the consequence of what I chose is usually short lived. Many other decisions we make have much more lasting impact than the dinner we had last night, like the choices we will make on Election Day.
Many other decisions we make have much more lasting impact than the dinner we had last night. For example, ever since our Supreme Court legalized abortion 35 years ago, an estimated 49 million innocent human lives have been lost. I believe that is more than all the fatalities in every war our nation has fought in the past 100 years. We were stunned by the tragedy of 9/11, stunned enough to go to war, but as a nation we remain complacent to the horror of abortion.
In the gospel, Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, telling us that the whole law depends on these two commandments. How anyone in good conscience can claim to love God and neighbor yet support the right to take the life of an innocent being is beyond me. I suspect those who commit acts of violence never give any thought to loving either God or others before making such a decision. Quite likely, they don’t even feel loved by God.
Few of us have made a decision that has claimed the life of another person yet soon we will be making decisions about our future political leaders. Unlike the meal you will order the next time you dine out, these decisions on who gets our vote must not be taken lightly. Those whom we elect will lead our country according to the values they hold. As a voter, you have to ask yourself if their values are your values. Keep in mind that not all values weigh the same. Morally speaking, some values, like abortion and euthanasia, are intrinsically evil even if our society deems them acceptable, while other values are prudential judgments that reflect our concerns for the less fortunate or the disadvantaged. Then there are those values that demonstrate little concern for anyone else. Some voters go to the polls with the mindset, “What is in it for me?” instead of “Who can best serve the needs of our community, our state, and our nation for generations to come?”
Every voter needs to ponder the question, “Which candidate exemplifies the values I hold dear?” That means discerning what our values really are. For this reason, we need an informed conscience. You have likely heard the advice, “Let your conscience be your guide.” Our bishops caution us that conscience is not something that allows us to justify doing whatever we want, nor is it a mere “feeling” about what we should or should not do. So what is conscience?
Our catechism teaches us that conscience is a “judgment of reason by which the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act.” Our conscience does not create right and wrong but perceives it. We have a serious and lifelong obligation to form our conscience in accord with human reason and the teachings of our Church, which are based not only on scripture but also 2000 years of prayerful insight and revelation.
Rarely do candidates running for political office embody the full range of our Church’s social teaching, much less our Catholic convictions, which is why we must have a well-informed conscience capable of evaluating the values of every candidate’s platform and giving each issue its proper moral weight.
We can express our love for God and others by making a conscious choice to respect life fully when we cast our votes. We need to be concerned about the vulnerable and that includes the unborn and the terminally ill. Our country’s attitude toward abortion has helped to create what Pope John Paul called a culture of death in which human life has been cheapened.
If we can kill an innocent child in the womb of a mother or take the life of someone whom we label terminally ill and no longer be shocked as a nation, then we can justify anything such as unending wars, abuses in capital punishment, violence, and social injustices. Abortion undermines civil order because it affirms an un-American principle that everyone is not equal under the law. We must not forget the haunting words of Mother Theresa, “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”
In today’s psalm, we responded, “I love you Lord, my strength.” The basic premise of all scripture is God’s unconditional love for us. Those who have experienced God’s love can love God and love others in return. That there should even be a commandment to love may seem strange in that we think of love as being spontaneous. The key to keeping this commandment is to recognize that God has loved us first. Some people struggle with a lack of self esteem, but most of us are pretty good at taking care of ourselves. The second commandment challenges us to take some of the care and concern we have for ourselves and apply it to others, especially those who are vulnerable as mentioned in the first reading from Exodus. Simply put, we should love our neighbor because God loved us first and in loving our neighbor, we demonstrate our love for God.
Aside from urging you to vote against I-1000, I am not going to tell you how to vote, but I urge you to prayerfully consider the choices you are making before you cast your ballot and ask that in light of this commandment of love that you have a concern for the most vulnerable in our society who cannot speak for themselves. That is one aspect of the love that Jesus requires of us. Having concern for them is part of what it means to put God first and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.