Back in the Saddle

After a hellacious week of work responsibilities, I am back to posting. I have plenty of issues to address in the next few days.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I was taking an online course through the University of Notre Dame on Faithful Citizenship, a document that is put out by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This document provides guidelines about what Catholics should think about when deciding whom to vote for. The document is updated every four years - in the year of a Presidential election.

Here a a few of my initial thoughts after reading Faithful Citizenship:

• I am amazed by the quality of the most of the documents developed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Faithful Citizenship is well-written. I wonder how the same group of elderly celibates can botch up the priest sexual assault issue AND put out such a thought provoking document;
• The document does NOT instruct people how to vote. The document provides some idea of what Catholics should consider when deciding how to vote.
• Although the document states that abortion is the big "non-negotiable issue", it does not state that it is a sin to vote for a candidate that is "pro-abortion". Although subtle, the document makes a distinction between voting for a candidate because of his/her support for abortion and voting for a candidate in spite of his/her support for abortion.

So, don't listen to people that claim this documents says it is a sin to vote one way or another. People on both sides of the party line and both sides of the abortion issue are using misinterpretations of the document to justify their positions. My advice would be to read the document for yourself. It can be found at: http://www.usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship/FCStatement.pdf