Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company

For us Catholics, the “Catholic vote” holds no mystery: it consists of the fact that Catholics participate fully in democratic life, without leaving their Catholic identity outside the voting booth.
Participation in democratic life, especially through the vote, but also through various channels of expression that our system allows, is the responsibility of every Catholic.

Why? Because, as people of faith, we believe both in the need to build a just society and in the supernatural destiny of the human person. This conviction naturally impels us to the building of the common good.

The Compendium of the Catechism explains that “the common good” is understood as “the sum total of those conditions of social life which allow people as groups and as individuals to reach their proper fulfillment.” (Compendium 407)

According to the Social Doctrine of the Church, the common good is more than the wellbeing of isolated individuals: it involves respecting and promoting the fundamental rights of the person, developing the spiritual and temporal goods of the person and society, and the peace and security of everyone.

As The Compendium of the Catechism explains, “all men and women according to the place and role that they occupy participate in promoting the common good by respecting just laws and taking charge of the areas for which they have personal responsibility such as the care of their own family and the commitment to their own work. Citizens also should take an active part in public life as far as possible.” (Compendium 410)